Our Members
Aline, Jason, Kai and Milla
Aline and Jason met at CCAD close to two decades ago and both share a love of art, design, homegrown foods and handmade goods.
Aline works as a freelance photographer and has been an active parent volunteer at The Juniper School where Milla attends school. She has also worked as an illustrator and graphic designer in between taking care of her children.
Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Aline immigrated to the U.S. with her parents and two sisters when she was 10 years old and has felt the pull to create community since her family roots are scattered about the globe. She enjoys spending time in nature hiking and gardening, visiting museums and libraries, having tea with friends, going on meditation retreats, painting, as well as making her own clothes and home goods by sewing or hand knitting them. The last few years she’s become a fermentation enthusiast learning how to make kimchi, kombucha, natto and would soon like to make her first batch of miso!
Jason has been a Columbus resident most of his life and currently works in the design field. When not working, he enjoys spending time with his friends and family, designing and making/building all manner of things and following International motorcycle racing (MotoGP).
Kai is a TFOL (teen fan of Lego) who currently enjoys making stop motion animations, sketching, photography and learning about physics and math. He’s also currently enjoying his downtime playing Nintendo Switch games and chatting with his friends around the country.
Milla is a fun loving, art-making, cat snuggling, minecraft playing, preteen who enjoys spending time with her family, organizing her house in Animal Crossing and drawing up a storm. She would like to add that she hates when people don’t explain to her why they are doing stuff.
Celia, Matthew, and baby Zadie
Matthew and Celia met on Vancouver Island at a meditation retreat where they both became Buddhists. Buddhist meditation is still at the center of their lives and they also share a love of cooking, gardening, and bike riding.
Matthew is a math professor at Ohio State University. Lately, his hobbies have included running. He grew up in a big family, and he looks forward to living in a close community with neighbors.
Celia spends her days in the garden and creek with 2 year old Zadie. She has worked as a Spanish bilingual teacher in CA and a handwork and Waldorf teacher over the years. In Columbus, she helped start the Juniper school and has worked in the preschool and grade school.
Zadie is almost two and loves animals, nature, and gummy bears. She is crazy about her grandma and her grandma’s dog, Millie.
As a family we value living lighter on the earth, kindness, curiosity, and a sense of humor.
Ellen
Ellen is excited to help create the life in community that she has envisioned - living lightly on the planet surrounded by fabulous humans and animals who are all focused on sharing an intentional neighborhood.
She's a freelance writer who can't imagine ever retiring when there are so many stories to tell!
When she's not at her computer, Ellen enjoys potluck evenings filled with family, friends, great food, wine, laughter, conversation and maybe even a board game.
She enjoys walking, yoga and any kind of dancing. Deeply involved in her community, Ellen has raised thousands of dollars for ALS research, was a founding member of a Montessori school and a long time urgent action letter writing volunteer with Amnesty International.
The Weckman Family
The Weckman family is made up of Nick, Mary, Adie, Theo, and Nora. They currently enjoy a peaceful life in the North Linden area of Columbus, but hope to someday live closer with their neighbors in an intentional community. Parents Nick and Mary were drawn to cohousing with the birth of Adie and Theo. Nick and Mary envision a life for their children that is full of dynamic relationships with people of all different ages, interests, and walks of life. Although they were both very lucky to have strong upbringings and wonderful parents, they yearn to be part of a larger community, extending beyond family, for their future.
Nick is currently a stay-at-home dad and enjoys all the benefits of hanging out with infant twins all day (and there are many). He previously worked in the IT field at a major healthcare organization, but before that was a freelance musician and private lessons instructor. Although kids have made him a little less active in the music scene, he is still writing and performing when able. His most active projects are Worms Rise Up! (a rock opera all about worms taking over the world!) and Sun Trash (an experimental noise duo with close friend Caleb Miller). You can listen to his music below:
https://wormsriseup.bandcamp.com/releases
https://suntrash.bandcamp.com/
If he isn't raising kids or playing music, Nick is probably learning about growing food or how to identify mushrooms and local plant life. As he ages, he is more and more drawn to the peace that nature has to offer.
Mary works in Student Financial Aid at OSU and gets to spend other people's money by awarding scholarships for a living. She also plays trombone with the Capital Pride Band of Columbus. She has taken a short break from the group, however, as Adie & Theo took up all her lung space last spring, and currently take up all her free time. Mary loves to spend time in the Columbus Metro-parks, paint, and spend every minute she can with her kids.
Adie and Theo are twins who were born in June 2019, and have been crawlin' and brawlin' ever since. Their favorite foods are sweet potatoes and squash (or really anything orange). They also love torturing their older sister Nora, a 10-year old Havanese dog.
The Hays Family
Amanda and Jim met in college in 2007 while living in Michigan. They connected over shared outlooks about food, justice, community, and faith. They got married in 2013 and moved to Columbus in 2016 to be closer to family and friends. They currently live in a small intentional living community with two other housemates, with whom they share meals and homeowner responsibilities. They love to play games, ride bikes, explore nature, visit with family, and host meals together.
Amanda and Jim believe that self-sufficiency can get lonely and boring while interdependence inspires learning, gratitude, and joy. They are passionate about helping create a cohousing community where the physical space encourages connection, inclusion, and play.
Amanda stays up too late reading fantasy and science fiction, especially Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis and Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. Gardening connects her to the earth year-round through composting, mulching, planning, planting, harvesting, cooking, and sharing her produce and plants. She also loves to sing around a campfire, and has started learning guitar during COVID. She enjoys deep conversation about difficult topics and feelings. She works as a Justice Coordinator at a Unitarian Universalist congregation and is a candidate for Unitarian Universalist ministry.
Jim enjoys playing board games, participating in drum circles, chasing down a disc while playing ultimate, making or solving creative puzzles (such as letterboxing), engaging with thought-provoking stories, and running through the woods (orienteering). During the work week, Jim can often be found identifying software bugs so that others don’t have to.
Gayle & Mike
Gayle & Mike met while working and attending graduate school at Ohio University more than 25 years ago. Their adult son Kai was born in Athens, OH. For the past 20 years they’ve lived in Santa Cruz, CA. Gayle & Mike are choosing to return to Ohio after Mike’s retirement and are thrilled to be a part of the Columbus Cohousing community.
Gayle was born in California but lived in Nebraska for more than a decade while growing up, graduating with a B.S. in Business from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Mike was born & raised in Wichita, Kansas and completed undergraduate and graduate school at Emporia State University. Although both Gayle & Mike have lived and worked professionally across the U.S. they consider themselves midwesterners at heart.
Gayle has worked in higher education/student affairs administration, has taught communication & organization development at the undergraduate & graduate levels and consults with not-for-profits & education-related organizations. She is most interested in the power & practice of listening. Gayle likes to play board games, read/listen to good books, walk/hike and enjoy her daily chai. Her creative outlets are reflective journaling and collage. She enjoys cooking (and eating) Japanese & Korean cuisine with her son Kai. She practices meditation, Reikian breathwork & Hanna Somatics.
In the past Gayle has volunteered in leadership roles at her son’s public and independent schools, served as a volunteer storyteller for the Santa Cruz Public Libraries, and organized community-wide & online conversations discussing both divisive issues as well as topics that naturally bring people together (Gratitude, Forgiveness, Empathy, Healing) via mutually respectful dialogue. In this phase of her life Gayle is dedicated to promoting human-to-human, social connection as an essential, positive force in society.
Mike has worked in higher education/student affairs administration for nearly 40 years and is in his 20th year at the University of California-Santa Cruz. He is a certified Mental Health First Aid Instructor and has taught MHFA to students, staff and faculty since 2011. Mike walks many miles each day and enjoys gardening, cooking, reading, playing board games, doing jigsaw puzzles & watching football and women’s sports.
Both Mike and Gayle are looking forward to close-knit, multi-generational community living; playing alongside kids of all ages, gardening & cooking together, sharing family recipes, lending a hand, caring for a neighbor’s pet, being closely connected to and counting on each other. Gayle also anticipates intentionally working together through the tribulations & triumphs of community life. Both are eager to explore & be of service to the greater Columbus community.
Martha
The oldest of six, four girls and two boys, I was born in Washington, D.C., the most beautiful city in America in my opinion, and moved to Columbus with my family in the mid-80’s. Columbus was a wonderful place for their dad and me to raise our family of 3, Emily, Andrew and Christopher. I have seen Columbus go from a “cow town” to one of the best kept secrets in the Mid Atlantic. After 30 years of marriage, I divorced at 50, continuing to work as a school librarian, forging a new life. I met my partner Steve, and we are LAT, living apart together, traveling together, and staying at each other’s houses frequently. I love to read above all else, along with gardening, contra dancing, watching my 8 year old grandson, walking and exercising. I inherited the political gene from my mom, and the humor gene from my Dad. Thanks to my baby sister, I think I have also bitten the genealogy apple!
Why do you want to live in a co-housing community? I’ve known about this concept for about 6 years, and admire the smart environmental measures used in building a co-housing community. The ideals of group living mean sharing and caring to work towards a greater good.
I like living in a snug place, and want less, not more. I look forward to being active in a community that I can help and that will benefit me.
How do you envision your life changing when you move into our new community? Compromise is the name of the game, and I know I will grow in humility and patience to learn this new way of living. I really like the idea of a few meals being cooked for me each week, too!
