Dear Friends: The recent Woolman Semester graduation events at Sierra Friends Center were truly inspiring. Two dozen students presented their capstone projects, and the topics ranged widely, from wildfires to baseball to addiction, and they all reflected the Woolman Semester focus on “peace, justice and sustainability.” The graduates’ valedictory talks were also diverse, with common threads of emotional growth, intellectual awakening, lifelong friendships, safe space, and personal responsibility weaving them together.
Woolman Semester provides youth a unique 16-week apprenticeship into adulthood, an opportunity to stretch themselves academically, and an experience of living for several months in a collegial community dedicated to sustainability. The gardens and woodlands at Sierra Friends Center are the setting for these experiences, and testify to the fundamental ways that the real natural world nourishes us body and soul. See woolman.org for more information.
Monthly meetings are invited to offer scholarship support to potential students who would benefit from the Woolman experience, but whose families can’t afford full tuition. To support worthy projects like this one, Strawberry Creek Meeting in Berkeley, CA, collects a “dime-a-gallon” from interested Friends. This is a voluntary, self-assessed carbon tax that we reinvest in causes that promote sustainability. Consider collecting a dime-a-gallon in your meeting.
Muriel Strand, Strawberry Creek Meeting (PYM)