Veterans
People leaving service who want structure, a mission, and a skill set that travels.
In planning
The campus
A place near Clear Creek State Park, Cook Forest State Park and Sigel, Pennsylvania, where people who want to give back can live simply, learn, and serve small nonprofits for a season or longer.
Where
The campus will sit in the forested hills of northwestern Pennsylvania near Clear Creek State Park, Cook Forest State Park and Sigel, in a year-round outdoor-recreation region within reach of the population and technology centers of the northeastern United States and Canada. It is rural land with woodland and open ground, existing access and nearby utilities, which is why the plan is to acquire and convert rather than build from nothing.
The setting is the point: quiet enough for focused work and for recovery, close enough to parks and neighbors to be part of a community, and large enough to grow in phases.
Who it is for
Open to anyone who wants to give back through charitable work. Non-secular, with no religious test. These are the people we expect to welcome first.
Survivors leaving shelters
Women rebuilding after leaving a shelter, referred by partners, with safety designed in from the start.
People in recovery who have stabilized
People beyond the acute phase of recovery for whom service, routine and community are part of staying well.
Public-good technologists
Builders of open-source and other public-good software who want a sabbatical with purpose.
University capstone teams
Students who spend a summer on campus working a real project for a real charity before returning to finish their degree.
How a stay works
Step 1
Arrive
Orientation, a place to stay, and the community agreements everyone keeps.
Step 2
Stabilize
Routine, peer support, and no cost of living while you find your footing.
Step 3
Learn
The Technology Monastery stack: nonprofit email and collaboration, websites, AI tools, and how to teach them.
Step 4
Serve
Real work for the charities we support, and stewardship of the campus itself.
Step 5
Launch
Employment, further study, home, or a longer role here as a mentor or staff member.
Every resident gives back by serving the charities the Technology Monastery already supports and by helping run the campus. That is what turns a short burst of volunteer energy into work that lasts, measured in seasons and years rather than hours.
Open to anyone, and safe for everyone
The campus will be substance-free. Residents are screened, referrals are verified, and the people who come from shelters and recovery programs are supported by partners who know them. Staff will be trained in trauma-informed practice, there will be a crisis plan with local partners, and the community agreements cover respect and consent, quiet hours, shared work, how conflicts are resolved, and how someone can leave without stigma. The full policies will be approved by Free For Charity's board before the first resident arrives.
The people who run it
The grant we are seeking funds two full-time positions from the first year. The Volunteer Manager recruits, places and supports residents and remote volunteers and opens the pipelines below. The Program Coordinator runs intake, service delivery to charities, partner relationships and outcomes reporting.
Our five-year goal is to have both roles fully funded, with their endowment under way and on a published path, and the campus's permanent costs covered entirely by foundation grants, public support, sponsorships and recurring giving. The campus exists to give the whole Free For Charity mission that stability.
We do not charge the charities we serve, and we do not charge the people who come to do that work. There is no rent, no nightly rate and no fee to stay. That is a deliberate difference from a campground or a retreat center: every dollar a funder gives here is multiplied across the small charities that then receive their technology, AI and web services at no cost, which stretches the grants and gifts those same funders already make to them.
Phases
Now
Planning
Site planning, utility and septic evaluation, permitting research, volunteer coordination, and the long-term stewardship plan.
Phase 1
Acquire and open the pilot
Acquire the property; build a shared kitchen and gathering space, a coworking area, a community bathhouse, a small number of campsites and RV pads; hire the two staff; welcome the first cohort.
Phase 2
Longer stays
Accessible tiny homes, workshop space, and expanded utilities and outdoor spaces for residents who stay for a season or more.
Phase 3
Learning laboratory
Documented patterns and infrastructure so that what works here can be repeated elsewhere.
Facilities, counts and dates are planning targets and will be confirmed as permits, purchase and funding are secured.
Target partners, pipelines and resources
The plan is built around institutions that already do parts of this well. None are commitments until they are agreed in writing.
University capstones
We plan to sponsor Penn State Learning Factory capstone projects every year, request a one-time matching gift from the Smeal College of Business Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and extend the model to universities, colleges and two-year schools around the campus. We will propose to each school that capstone teams join the summer residency for at least the first three years.
National service and fellowships
AmeriCorps members hosted by the Volunteer Manager, and AI-practitioner fellowships that embed people in charities, with the campus as a host site.
Workforce programs
On-the-job training and work experience under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act once we have the staff to act as an employer of record.
Referral partners
Veteran service organizations, women's shelters and recovery programs that refer people who are ready to give back. Partners are named here only once they have agreed in writing.
Land and stewardship
The Pennsylvania DCNR service forester, the county conservation district and USDA conservation programs for a forest stewardship plan residents help carry out, with the two neighboring state parks as natural partners.
TechnoMonasteries
A volunteer project helping us build the campus under Free For Charity's Technology Monastery brand, with a long-term hope of a similar place abroad for the open-source community.
Permits and stewardship
As we read the rules, a campground in Pennsylvania with five or more sites needs an annual permit from the Department of Environmental Protection covering water, sewage, waste and sanitation, alongside on-lot sewage permits, township land-development and building approvals, and accessibility requirements for the bathhouse and tiny homes. Those permits are the critical path for the first phase, and we are planning around them rather than after them.
The woodland will be managed under a forest stewardship plan developed with the state service forester, with conservation cost-share programs as a complement to the grant. Stewardship work is part of how residents serve.
Help build it
Funders, referral partners, schools, neighbors and future residents: we would like to talk.