Last week I got the chance to go to the French Icarian historical site. It's not open to the public yet since they are in progress of building and restoring. This is the original one room school house that the Icarians built. Even after the commune dispersed it was used as a country schoolhouse. Learning about the Icarians has been fascinating. Being a city girl all my life, I'm getting a whole different feel for what community means in a rural setting. Even though the French Icarians were not the founders of Corning, there are similarities to the mission of the current community and the settlers seeking utopia. In Corning, many people are volunteers on boards or write grants for various projects to keep the city sustaining itself and hope to make it an attractive place for younger people in the future. The Icarians had a motto of "All for one and one for all." Today that idea feeds through since much of the town works together for the betterment of the whole.