Orange Acres Burned by fire , Photos in google link
Orange Acres is a free guest ranch for veterans, young adult nerds and artists.
We opened in 2007 and have helped over 2000 guests with a place to stay.
We have welcomed international explorers, domestic abuse victims, music and visual artists that need time away from the world to make art, individuals new to the area looking for jobs and housing, forest service and conservation corps trail crews and firefighters and EMTs, veterans and active duty personnel many which are adjusting to civilian life and individuals looking for friends and many individuals suffering from depression from being in a country run by assholes.
What ever the reason guests will find our low budget facility made with recycled materials outshined by the first class friendships and experiences people make while staying here.
We help guests that come from workaway, couchsurfing, bewelcome, and warmshowers websites and/ or submit an application that want to stay with us for 3-20 days and sometimes longer. Fun activities and games are mandatory.
Guests help out 2-3 hours per day to earn their stay helping maintain the facility and garden. We dont rent places to stay to people who want to buy their way in and not work or be part of our group of friends.
We are not a free homeless shelter or drug rehab center and do not take drug addicts and alcoholics who want someone else to take care of them so they can spend all their money and time on drugs.
We have 8 acres for RV parking and car van and tent camping, and we still have our outside cabins, We have a restroom and shower in the house with a seperate outside door that guests can use 24/7 and an outdoor shower and laundry in the summer. We have wi-fi, beautiful views, work out equipment and outdoor kitchen and a kitchen in a bus. We go on hikes, floats, bike rides, take the boat to the lake, and play role playing games like dungeons and dragons.
Sit and read a book, pick dinner from our garden, talk to our sheep, or waste time on the internet!
Out front we have a used car dealership that provides most of our funding to pay our powerbils ($200-800 a month) and $300 a month property taxes. Though we have had about $9000 in donations over the 15 years we have been here, the averaged $50 a month in donations has helped us with repairs and utilities during tough times.
While our main building burned in a fire 2020. But we are still open and are working to clean the place up and rebuild.
In August 2020 Orange Acres Montana Community Center was destroyed by a fire. We are still open with limited facilities. We are working to settle with the insurance company so we can rebuild or move somewhere else.
This lead to most of the content for the Orange Acres facebook page being deleted as well as all of friends and pictures and comments from Halvorson being erased. "Be assured I did not delete you as a friend or block you. I have a new facebook page but I do not have friends on it , because facebook sells you and your content to your friends for ad revenue. "
If you have any pictures of the OA and the good times we had please email them to me cause we might not have a copy of them OrangeAcresMontana@gmail.coM
Here is a video our friend Dan made of our friends helping getting the power and water back on after the fire , and how our guests kept coming and kept getting by.
