first fruits

Spring has arrived in North Carolina and everything is blooming. The earth. The branches. The Stone House, too. We've been spending the past few weeks reaching out to friends and colleagues to help us plan our fundraising strategy, make a pledge, read the case statement, walk the land, and offer ideas.



Marjanne, Geneva, and Ameka taste the first strawberries of the season during their first visit to The Stone House land.

Many, many thanks to all of you out there who are working to bring this vision to life:

*Our incredibly hard-working board - Omisade Burney-Scott, Marian Urquilla, David Sawyer, Polly Weiss, John Parker and Zulayka Santiago. (Omi, John and Z - below - on their first trip to the land... hard at work in the kitchen!)
*Margot and Ellis Horwitz for being our first major individual donors!!!

*Our institutional funders for considering longer-term commitments toward our programs.

*Kindred spirits at the New Dharma Center for Urban Peace in Oakland, CA who are working to buy their own building! Check them out and particularly if you live on the west coast, see what you can do to help.

*Bert Armstrong and Tom Maguire from the Philanthropic Advisory Group who are helping us craft a solid fundraising strategy.

Isabela Basombrio-Hoban who just sent us blessing strings from H.H. Dalai Lama, which she received on her recent trip to Dharamsala, India.

*Leigh Morgan, a long-time friend and colleague now living in the Bay Area, who helped to develop the Ripples training many years back. Leigh heard about The Stone House and immediately put her bonus check in the mail!

And so many more...






Fruit trees coming to life in the orchard.








There's a lot of inspiring work happening in the North Carolina activist community right now as well. The speakout/rally at this past Saturday's National Day of Truthtelling: Creating a World Without Sexual Violence was one of the more important things to happen in Durham in a long time. Survivors spoke out. Activists spoke out. Allies spoke out. I was reminded again that another world IS possible and that statistics and stories need to be shared.

And tomorrow (Tuesday, May 1) is the statewide Day of Action for Immigrant Justice. It starts with a lobby day at the state legislature and culminates with a rally at the state capitol building at 5:00 pm.