Lessons in Kindness from Rural Communities
Dr. Adrienne Ruby lives on the edge of poverty in a remote, one-room cottage without plumbing or electricity. A mobile veterinarian who has served the Hopi and western Navajo nations for fifteen years, she provides animal care on a sliding-fee scale and often at no charge. In the rugged landscapes of northern Arizona, many Hopi and Navajo people depend on their livestock for meat, wool or hides, and also the income they earn from participating in rodeos. Their animals enable them to remain self-sufficient and connected to the land, to one another, and to their traditions. Dr. Ruby is a welcome sight in lightly settled reaches of the reservations, and a popular mentor to young people with interest in veterinary science as a career. 
Bread for the Journey of Flagstaff supports Dr. Ruby by providing a base in town for R&R and, as a non-profit organization, by receiving in-kind donations on her behalf, such as a specialized veterinarian’s box with compartments for instruments and medicines that fits in the bed of her pickup truck. Bread for the Journey has also purchased equipment (such as equine dental tools) and provided help with initial publicity for now-established events, including no-cost community clinics where rural families learn up-to-date care and treatment of their animals.
What a beautiful thing, this simple human loving-kindness.
In these times when we can no longer count on the financial security and programs we have looked to for help, we have much to learn from rural communities, who, like the barn-raisers of the past, are practiced at relying on personal relationships and shared resources to address community needs.
Livelihoods: Keeping Cultural Traditions Alive
Bread for the Journey was founded around a kitchen table over 20 years ago. In rural communities, this is often how ideas are born. Bread for the Journey’s relationship-centered approach to community empowerment resonates particularly well in rural areas, where residents know one another in overlapping roles and social circles, and distance from the resources often found in urban areas necessitates resourcefulness.
Since 1988, Bread for the Journey’s model of grassroots micro-granting has helped to make communities more just, vital, and whole. Driven by local volunteers, BFJ’s style of “neighborhood philanthropy” has the unique capacity to identify – and help liberate and galvanize – the diverse social, human and spiritual capital embedded within every community.
Today, we highlight the brilliant ideas and outcomes of diverse rural people, who, with the help of small grants from Bread for the Journey chapters, are working together to restore health, equity, and beauty to their communities.
  
Flagstaff, AZ.
Bread for the Journey of Flagstaff is also helping to revive livelihoods through the indigenous arts. Indigenous arts are not only a life force in preserving tribal traditions and maintaining cultural viability, but can also be an economic engine for impoverished communities. However, the artisans of Arizona’s White Mountain and San Carlos Apache nations live in isolated, remote places far from the gift shops and galleries where their work is sold. They seldom receive a fair price for their baskets, jewelry, and leatherwork. In the summer of 2008, the artisans formed a fair trade organization that will return a higher margin to its members through direct sales. The goal of the Apache Fair Trade Cooperative (AFTCO) is to foster economic justice and strengthen Apache communities through a self-sustaining crafts industry. Bread for the Journey of Flagstaff contributed $650 for photography, text, travel, and design expenses to AFTCO for use in a brochure and website ( www.apachefairtrade.com), and a flyer for their first crafts fair in the city of Phoenix. That event netted $6,638, with $4,096 going to the artisans and the rest to be invested in future shipments of handcrafted goods to retail venues.
Ashland, OR.
In southern Oregon, Bread for the Journey of Ashland is supporting the arts not only for livelihoods, but also for healing trauma. The Illinois Valley Safe House Alliance wanted to help survivors of physical abuse and long-term poverty establish a sense of safety and self-sufficiency through creativity, so they formed “The Dream Team.” Dream Team participants learn sewing skills and express their creativity by “up-cycling” donated clothing and household items to make wearable art. Bread for the Journey of Ashland was pleased to contribute $1,000 to purchase the needed sewing machines and notions.
Health: Two Innovative Partnerships 
Santa Fe
Rising food costs and our nation’s healthcare crisis have caught everyone’s attention this year, and rural and tribal communities are increasingly looking inward to promote self-sufficiency and health through growing local foods. In 2007, the Taos Pueblo Education and Training Division started two greenhouses to grow local crops. However, rising fuel costs made it cost-prohibitive to heat the cold-area greenhouses to grow food year-round. The Pueblo came up with an innovative solution, using small diameter wood (from forest thinnings) to fuel an efficient wood-burning furnace plumbed to heat the greenhouses with a hot water radiant heating system. A grant of $1,467 from Bread for the Journey of Santa Fe made it possible. The new DHS heating system now makes it possible to provide affordable, fresh, pueblo-grown food year round to the tribe’s childcare, Head Start, Day School and Senior Center programs.
Santa Fe
With the rising cost of healthcare and increasing numbers of people falling off the roles of health insurance, affordable, holistic healthcare and prevention is a good solution for helping the underserved in rural communities maintain health. Bread for the Journey of Santa Fe recently joined an innovative partnership that provides free and reduced-cost holistic healthcare services to underinsured people who otherwise would not have access to health services. The Well-Being Community Clinic provides Taos and Questa residents a wide variety of complementary healthcare services such as acupuncture, nutritional counseling, and herbal medicine, as well as education about disease prevention. About five hundred low-income, underserved people are served with three clinic days per month. Strong community partnerships keep the costs down – the building and utilities are donated by the Taos County Housing Authority, and clinical services are donated by an impressive array of 20 licensed professional volunteer healthcare practitioners. Community response has been overwhelming, and staff wanted to add one more clinic day per month. Bread for the Journey of Santa Fe was pleased to grant $1,000 to cover supply and service costs, enabling the clinic to open its doors an extra day every month.
Education: Helping Women & Children Succeed
Santa Fe
Jaime Figueroa is a remarkable young woman who grew up in rural Ohio. She always loved books and found great solace and joy in public libraries. Now living in northern New Mexico, Jaime wanted to share the joy of books with children in rural communities that do not have public libraries. It was her dream to launch the “Blue Truck Project,” in which a bio-fuel-powered pick-up truck would pull an RV filled with books and notebooksfor writing projects into rural communities in northern New Mexico. She wanted to provide quality literature and support to writers and readers ages five through twelve while celebrating multicultural and multilingual voices and honoring the integrity of the planet with her eco-friendly bookmobile. Bread for the Journey of Santa Fe provided Jaime with $800 to complete all of the requirements for becoming a nonprofit organization, so she could launch this creative project.
Sebastopol
Kristen Downing has a passion to help homeless women and children gain the skills and confidence they need to not only survive, but to thrive. Kristen volunteers at COTS (Committee on the Shelterless), a program in Petaluma, CA, that helps formerly homeless families learn new life skills and assists them in successfully transitioning back into their own homes. The family head — usually a single mother — is required to attend school. Kristen wanted women to succeed in their studies, and had a vision to create an environment that would nurture good study habits. With a $1,500 grant from Bread for the Journey of Sebastopol, Kristen is creating three new efficient yet beautiful “work/study” stations in the home’s refurbished study room, including a special desk for the children so that they may emulate their mothers’ behavior, and learn study skills and responsibility at a young age. Kristen intends for this space to become a prototype for other transitional houses.
You too can make a difference!
The only real choice we ever make is this: Where – right here, right now – shall I place my heart’s time and attention? For over 20 years, in small towns and cities across the country, Bread for the Journey’s volunteers have been lifting up the resourcefulness and creativity in their communities to make a positive difference.
We invite you to roll up your sleeves and get involved. Is there a Bread for the Journey chapter in your community? Click here to find out. Are you inspired to start a chapter in your town? Click here to learn how. Your gifts are needed, whether they be time, money, skills, relationships, or creative ideas. Join us and start making a difference in your community now!
Warmly,
Wayne Muller
Founder
Bread for the Journey has 501 (c) (3) tax exempt status with the IRS.
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Click here to read the previous INSPIRATIONS. |
