Our vow, taken in the last century, was to serve our community. This is some of what we have done:
Our Volunteers:
For many years have gathered, hauled, stored, sorted, & distributed clothing, and other household items to the needy (families, hospitals, and orphanages) on both sides of the Mexico border.
For over 10 years we continue to work to assist Take To The Hills and La Sociedad de Obreros Mexicanos with border issues of humanatarian aid. Take to the Hills is an organization so honorable that the Paul Newman Foundation has helped them for many years. La Sociedad de Obreros Mexicanos has been doing humanatarian aid since 1923 and has been permanently housed in the same Douglas facility since 1926.
Our Wrangler:
Sister Jolene cares for the rescue horses we have been donated. She also trains them to be safe for young students. She is an artist and sculptor whose work is currently being shown in several galleries.
Our Landskeeper:
Co-founded the monastery land, under the Aquarian Tabernacle Church, in 1996. Gave up all rights to any personal gain; taking a legal vow of poverty to devote his life to helping others.
Brother Don has been the volunteer drama coach in Douglas since 2003 working with the middle school, high school, college, and local residents of all ages.
Coordinating with Cochise College, numerous local volunteers, sponsors, and students (from age 9 to college age)
Beauty and the Beast was presented at the Cochise College Little Theater. Four showings in February 2006 raised over $1,000 for the new Douglas Dialysis Clinic.
Our Landskeeper directed and co-wrote Douglas, The First 100 Years. This play was presented July 4th at the 10th Street Park in Douglas. The public has demanded an annual performance.
Each year, our landskeeper, helps prepare a student for the annual Shakespeare Festival.
Our landskeeper has been attending Cochise College to gain a degree in drama, even though he has been a semi-pro actor since childhood and directed community theater all of his life, he is dedicated to bringing the best instruction possible to Douglas.
The monastery has financially backed all of our monk's expenses to offer this program in an effort to assist our local children and young adults in gaining the skills necessary to become confident self-supporting adults.
Our landskeeper has been a judge in the annual History Day competition among high school students held in Cochise County; he has a degree in history.
Our landskeeper traveled to Washington, DC on March 4, 2004, to testify about border crossings.
The trip was paid for by the generosity of many local residents. They wanted him to testify before the Senate regarding if the problem on our Nation's Mexico Border is the undocumented aliens who are crossing to border to find jobs and hope for the future OR the vigilantes who insist on trespassing on to private land, pointing guns at people (who are cooperating and have nothing more than a jug of water on them), and impersonating Federal Border Patrol Agents.
Nothing is ever black and white, however pointing guns and rifles at children traveling all alone and on sacred monastery land was the last straw for this monk. He spoke out nearly 3 years ago against such inhumane behavior and trespassing. He is now the ONLY representative from Douglas and the ONLY Anglo speaking out. He had a press conference during his "Day at The Senate;" he was the only Anglo of 200 representatives.
Our Abbess:
We are a matriarchal monastery, run by a dynamic female, Abess Jacqueline, who is dedicated to children who may be disabled academically, emotionally, socio-economically, culturally, and/or physically. Knowing at an intimate personal level what it feels like to be a child who was culturally shunned, learning disabled, physically and sexually abused, she has devoted her life to making sure that at least one child has someone who encourages them to rise above childhood hardships, love themselves, and put difficulties behind them.
Co-founded the monastery in 1992, under the Aquarian Tabernacle Church, incorporated in 1993, co-founded the monastery land in 1996. She is a corporate sole who gave up all rights to any personal gain, taking a legal vow of poverty to devote her life to helping others.
Over the last 10 years has helped to coordinate efforts to recycle unwanted items to those who need them.
She has donated hours to AriSEWna, a local sewing co-op. She helped them with some marketing, packing, office duties, and encouragement to continue.
She helped with Just Coffee, doing some marketing for them.
She collected equipment to donate to the Douglas Business Incubator Center, a Federally Funded program targeted for Douglas City residents and speaks publicly in favor of this program.
She is a special education teacher working will all levels of disabilities. Over the years the monastery has funded remodeling a 100 year old classroom she used, as well as on-going donations of supplies for her classrooms. This amounted to thousands of dollars spent to help school children.
In October 2003 a radio announcement told of a school district in need of teachers. Anyone with a college degree was urged to apply. Our Abbess has a M.S. in Systems Management, so she applied. Within a few days she was working with disabled students and enrolled as a graduate student in Cross-Category Special Education. The program was offered via ITV (satellite) from Sierra Vista to Douglas.
In December 2004 the face of the program changed and our Abbess had to make the biggest sacrifice of her life, to commute to Tucson to the University of Arizona main campus to continue the program. Fortunately her new advisor is a man of faith and he understood how spiritually torn she was at the time; he encouraged her to go to Guanajuato, Mexico to study for the summer. That experience changed her life, deepened her faith, and made it possible for her to live and work in a big city.
Now plans for a much-needed school in Douglas to serve this population are underway.
We live near the Mexican Pueblos, homes made of pallets stacked two high and covered only with black paper. They exist a shorter distance from our office than it is to drive home to our land preserve each night. One tidy home we visited in October is about 10' x 12,' with two beds, on the large one laid a 3 month old baby girl covered in a light white lace scarf to keep the flies off her. This is home to a family of 6. The floors are made of dirt, they get water from open cisterns, have no power and no sewer, and yet they live minutes from where I'm typing this letter right now. Their needs are heartbreakingly simple.
Most wanted: men’s, women’s, children’s clothing, linens, toys, space heaters, books, odd old items, collectibles, china, small items for resale (to raise money to keep this program going), household misc., yard misc., office misc.,rummage sale items, medical supplies, job interview clothing, just about anything you do not want can be recycled into a useful item for someone in need, or support worthwhile non-profit projects on our Mexico/USA border.
After your Holiday Gift Giving, House Clean-up, or a Garage Sale who hauls the leftovers?
