Published: Feb. 24, 2024
Dear Friends,
This message, sent on behalf of the Santa Cruz Friends Meeting (CA), is a call to all Quaker Meetings in the U.S. to participate spiritually and financially in an historic Quaker moment: Homeland Return of the Sierra Friends Center (Woolman) to the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe.
Here are some web pages that we cite in the following message:
The board of the Sierra Friends Center (formally, College Park Friends Educational Association, CPFEA) has entered into a purchase agreement with the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe through the Tribally led California nonprofit, California Heritage: Indigenous Research Program (CHIRP). The Tribe has not had land since 1964 when the Federal Government illegally terminated the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe and sold their reservation at auction. This is the Tribe’s best opportunity to re-establish a tribal homeland and may support their efforts toward Federal re-recognition.
The land that Sierra Friends Center has operated from is the site of an ancestral Nisenan village called Yulića. These 232 acres, as well as the surrounding land known as “Nevada City, California”, were taken from Indigenous peoples during the Gold Rush and sold to settlers who were colonizing the area. A group of Quakers purchased the land in the 1960s for educational programs.
The Sierra Friends Center nonprofit, originally under the care of College Park Quarterly Meeting, was created to operate the school programs and manage the property. The Center ran the John Woolman boarding school, which operated from 1963-2001, followed by the Woolman Semester school, which operated from 2004-2016. The Center also operated outdoor education programs as well as a summer camp rooted in Quaker faith and practice.
The Sierra Friends Center board’s journey is chronicled in detail on the Woolman at Sierra Friends Center website. The Tribe now has a time-limited opportunity to purchase the property. The agreed-upon price includes the purchase price, government-mandated improvements, and an operating endowment. The overall fundraising goal is $2.4 million; the first phase of this effort, to raise $1.5 million, closes on April 4, 2024. CHIRP launched a GoFundMe campaign at the end of January, which has already reached $166,000 with over 850 individual donors, including Quakers.
As Quakers, we believe that supporting this process both spiritually and financially is a living example of our Stewardship testimony and our legacy as activists. It is our faith in action. It creates healing from a moment of loss. It is restorative and it is ethical. It feels important to do all we can to support the Tribe.
At our Second Month Meeting for Worship for the Purpose of Business, the Santa Cruz Friends Meeting passed a minute of support. By encouraging Friends to donate and specifically to identify themselves as Quakers along with their Meeting affiliation, we are broadcasting our support as a faith community. Our Meeting is inviting Meetings across the country to spiritually and financially support this effort. The minute we passed reads as follows:
Santa Cruz Friends Meeting Minute #2 2-11-24: Santa Cruz Friends Meeting supports a $500 donation from the Donations Fund to the California Heritage: Indigenous Research Program (CHIRP), the nonprofit raising funds to purchase the Sierra Friends Center to return the land to the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe. [To date, Santa Cruz Friends Meeting and members and attenders have donated $2000.] SCFM also encourages individuals to make donations "on behalf of the Santa Cruz Friends Meeting”. The clerks and Hans Brinker and Nancy Wood will contact other Meetings and publications with this information.
We invite your Meeting to consider this appeal, create a minute of support, make a donation that reflects the significance of this moment, and encourage your members and attenders to donate on behalf of your Meeting as well. Imagine what we can do when we do it in community!
Donations can also be sent via check to:
CHIRP (memo line: “Homeland Return”)
P.O. Box 2624
Nevada City, CA 95959
Should your Meeting approve a minute of support, or make a donation from your Donations Fund, please let us know: