I love telling Karla’s story. I really wish I had the whole story or even the time to tell what I know about her story. It will one year tomorrow (June 1st) and BRG will have a special meeting remembering Karla and why the BRG Street Community project was important to her. PM, Text, or email me for a special invite.

Karla was an amazing individual that often hid herself in humility and quiet reserve. Not many knew the real Karla. Oh, she could talk and be outgoing but the real Karla was found at home talking one on one with a friend over the phone.

She also had an amazing story which she in the later part of her life wrote out and I hope someone has the full copy of it. Karla gained many insights from her story and she used those insights to benefit others.

When I first met Karla she had given up on being able to work and be productive at a job again because of health reasons and some very buried despair. But as BRG Street Community started to take shape, she got excited. She started to see that each of us has a value that is needed. In a truly productive economic community, there is no handicap or age that limits someone’s ability to help, to grow, and to be paid. She had a tremendous ability to grow and to help others grow.

Karla and I started working together when I asked her to help me by just talking to me about my work a few times a week. We were already sharing a lot of chat time together because of our similar stories. (For more click here.) I needed to get back to being productive and was struggling each day to just get through the day. She agreed to talk with me until I was able to go to work and function again. We would pray and ask God what he wanted for us that day and then we would talk about what was holding me up and what I needed to be working on. We would go over tasks, schedules, and progress. Karla helped me overcome my fears and loneliness and really gave my brain the freedom to think. You can see more about this in my personal story about her.

At first, I was working on trying to sell BarraBlue US solutions and really was not getting anywhere. Then it started to dawn on us, God/Love was showing us something truly exceptional and very possible. I had believed in the profitability of a sustainable benevolent economy for a long time. I was in the process of writing out Theorems On the Science and Economic of Love (TOSEL) five years earlier in 2010 when my Kathy had passed away. But most of my work had been really discouraging.While the math and the science all worked out, there was no practical solutions that would work in a society where there was the possibility of greed. Greed and other related forms of selfishness where too great a risk to overcome.

Then in December of 2015 over a period of about 2 weeks, we watched in amazement as the pieces started to fit into a possible model. A model we now call BRG Street Community. The risks were not removed but dampened enough that it was possible to achieve reliable growth, functional benefits, and reasonable profits. The project could use existing proven methods and concepts with some TOSEL twists. Some BarraBlue US concepts and other ideas made it possible for us to move forward. The guiding principles for the project would be governed by concerns for other humans, for the environment, for the sustainable use of resources, and healthy living. This would all be put together in a clean green urban farm style setting. The BRG in BRG Street Community stands for Benevolent, Resourceful, and Green. BRG Street rhymes with Wall Street and Main Street. We needed a plan, a proposal document, and funding, So we went to work. Karla was very gifted at review and research.

The really exciting part was how each piece helped other pieces overcome risks and weaknesses of those other pieces

It was only 6 months that Karla and I got to work together on BRG Street but what fun we had, each doing our part, pushing each other on and working out how the different piece work. She was so happy, she was going back to work and this was going to be the work of a lifetime. She could make a real difference and anyone who became a member of this community that we were working on the design documents for would be a valued and important contributor. Her background in Social Work, her care for God, and her belief that life could be better all came into play.

As the vision developed, she told me that years ago she had had a vision of sitting in an office with windows looking out a forest and a waterfall. People would come to her office and ask for her to help them and she had the ability to help them. The vision was that Momma/God would give her the ability to make a real difference.

Just before she passed she went to get her Indian spiritual name and she was also given her colors. As she told me her colors I just smiled. I had never told her the colors for BRG Street, I had worked them out when I had first started working on the TOSEL concepts several years earlier and had not told yet. “Karla” “Yes” “Those are the BRG Street colors” The colors are The Morning Sunlight (yellow), The Green Hills of Spring, White Clouds, Dark Chocolate Mountains, Pale Sky Blue, and Silver.

Please consider joining us as we remember Karla and talk about what BRG Street Community meant to her. Please PM, Text, or email me for a special invite.