Mobile Tea House1)
The T-Horse is a magical winged vehicle that travels to and transforms neighborhood events throughout the city during the summer months. Neighbors are given the chance to slow down, drink tea, and converse with each other. Sometimes they bring potluck food and desserts to share and there is always talk about the delicious and free homemade chai and mint tea .

Cheers to CommuniTea!

If you would like to participate with any of the summer T-horse events, there are many fun and simple ways to help

–SET UP AND TAKE DOWN THE WINGS: 8-12 people. This is always a great community building exercise and quite interesting. Lots of smiles! It takes about two hours to do set up and take down.

–SERVE TEA: a special job! Again, lots of fun to sit in the T-Horse kitchen and serve people tea and joy. We need about two people at a time...

–GENERAL HELPERS: help prepare the tea, chai, clean cups, generally be useful.

–VISIONING ACTIVITIES: at many of the T-Horse events we will be facilitating guided dialogue about our collective future. Help spark conversations!

–MUSIC: can you play something nice at any event??

–PREP WORK: behind the scenes– do you want to help make wind chimes, oil lanterns, flower vases and secure tea donations??

contact Hindi (541-285-7898); hindi [at] cityrepair [dot] org) to help.

The T-Horse is one of the original projects that catapulted the idea of The City Repair Project into existence. Born from the 1996 Sellwood T-Hows, the T-Horse takes the tea house on the road. Using a 1979 Toyota pick-up, the original group transformed the truck bed into a kitchen-like space and added four 20 foot attachable wings, with pillow and rugs for seating underneath.

The purpose of the T-Horse is to have neighborhood tea parties in parks, giving neighbors an opportunity to meet each other in a unique yet informal atmosphere. We flyer each neighborhood we visit, and ask neighbors to bring homemade dessert, music, and conversation to share with each other under the wings of the T-Horse. The truck provides tea and atmosphere for connections to take place.

The essence of the T-Horse is to give and cooperate. Organizers and neighbors help set up the truck upon arrival, like a barn raising, which engenders the feeling that everyone has cooperated to put the event on. The T-Horse is not entertainment but a community collaboration. In this way the T-Horse is an inspiration and model opportunity for all of us to take responsibility for making the places we live socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.

The T-Horse runs on donations, so we can always use more pillows, rugs, teacups, crews, etc. Most important is everyone’s participation, so check the schedule, and come say hello.