One of the best groups that came out to the Pine Ridge rez (next door to me), , came to teach the community how to build self sustaining earthship homes. They made the agreement before hand that all labor would be donated by local members of the community and and then different experts came out for the different phases of the work.

The organizers did their homework ahead of time and realized that the entire house had to cost less than $10,000.00 and use locally available material as much as possible. They used "hempcrete" to stucco the finished building - grown locally despite constant battles with the DEA.

In the end, they have over 20 people in that community who actually know how to and have done all the work to build a house that will stay at an even temperature all year. Many others helped part time and those people have gone on to build two more on their own, teaching others how to recycle used tires and aluminum cans - of which there are plenty, to build stable, environmentally friendly homes where elderly people have no fear of freezing in the winter if they can't afford propane or wood. That was a real gift.