Greetings,
I’m Brandon R. Farmer, founder of the Restroom Laws Movement. I’m 25 years old and I live on a few acres of land in the Siuslaw National Forest, in Swisshome, Oregon, with my wife (Aradia Farmer) and a few close friends. While I’m not busy working for the Movement, I’m trying to raise a sustainable farm from the ground up, which will one day be capable of feeding us completely off our own land. I’ve been working on this project for the past three years, and it sure has been quite the challenge, especially with my total lack of any prior experience, but I’m determined to do it, and things keep moving forward. So far we have a garden small garden that seems to be successfully producing a few things (corn, squash, tomatoes, kale, turnips, rutabagas), a few chickens, and a whole lot of blueberries and blackberries. As time goes on I’ll keep adding things, but after much haste I’ve realized that I need to take it slow to get it right. I started out by growing a whole lot of everything and getting very few results, but as time has passed I have decided to focus on just a few veggies and chickens for the moment, and do that really well, then take on more as everything else becomes second nature. I have single-handedly done most of the labor to make these things possible, so it’s taking a bit more time than one might normally expect.
I tried college out a couple times, once at Oregon Institute of Technology (Software Engineering) for a year, and another time at Lane Community College (Culinary Arts & Hospitality). My prospectives careers in either scenario ultimately didn’t appeal to me, so I carried on to be one of the local computer-guys in the nearby small towns, and eventually moving onto my farm. In a few weeks I will be setting up a weekly Saturday computer clinic in some extra space at the local general store. Simultaneously, Aradia will be offering clothing mending/alteration services alongside my computer clinic, and she hopes to eventually make custom clothes as she gets to know her customers. We’ve been trying hard to figure out ways to bring in a little extra money, as our current income is very limited, so hopefully this new venture will help us on that path.
The Restroom Laws Movement started in the early part of this year, 2010, when I woke up one morning and my mind was flooded with many memories of my friends and myself getting denied permission to use the restroom during class, despite our honest needs, all throughout my public compulsory school experiences. I can still remember the wincing faces of the students who weren’t even quite sure if they could hold in their urine any longer. Those memories really bothered me, and I thought to myself “Nobody is doing anything noticeable enough about this problem, so I will do something.” I worked for over a week crafting the Restroom Laws letter, which is addressed to students required by law to attend public school, explaining to them the problem they are facing and proposing a way for them to solve it and take on more injustices and speak with their own power. Since the initial publication of the letter, it has gone through one major and one minor revision to dial in exactly what I’m trying to tell people. Aradia is a HUGE help to me in this Movement, going with me to events, critiquing my work, and spreading the word.
So far, I’ve taken the Restroom Laws letter once directly to the street in Eugene, Oregon, near the library, and once at the Eugene Pride Festival, altogether reaching a few hundred people. Currently, a local business owner, Joshua Keim, who I met at Eugene Pride, is taking the Restroom Laws letter with him to Burning Man where he will be placing it on his bulletin board at his 1WorldCurrency.Net booth! Beyond the biosphere, I’ve taken the Restroom Laws letter to hundreds more people online, campaigning on Facebook and publishing on this web site, RestroomLawsMovement.com. Compared to the volume of people I’ve reached with my message, I’ve only met opposition from a small handful of people. My work in the Movement has attracted favorable attention from students, parents, teachers, councilors, social justice workers, doctors, law students, authors, activists, business owners, and more. Currently I am working with some people from American Restroom Association and PHLUSH Oregon, to put together a presentation about the federal government’s lack of proper protection for students’ restroom access, and we intend to take our work to our Congress people so that the restroom permission issue can be tackled from many sides.
Also, I’m in the process of figuring out how exactly I’m going to get 501(c)3 tax deductible status for the Restroom Laws Movement. I think that tax-deductible status will help the Movement get more widely received and get larger donations. If the Movement can get more donations coming in, I will be able to spread the word in much larger, more obvious, and more frequent ways. Without extra financial support for the Movement, it will be a slow path to spreading the word and moving people into action. As it stands now, anybody who donates to the Movement cannot deduct the donation from their taxes, which seriously limits the number of people who will contribute. If you have any experience in 501(c)3, I’d really appreciate your advice.
Stay tuned for more!
Thank you for your time and interest,
Brandon R. Farmer
August 28, 2010
