14th & Chestnut Community Center volunteers

Some volunteers from 14th & Chestnut Community Center in Terre Haute spent a couple of hours with us this morning. The 6th-grade and up girls group weeded around tomato plants in the garden, assisted with pruning trees in the John Delahaye Antique Apple orchard and assisted with the daily care of the alpacas. Thank you to the girls and their leaders, Courtney and Lovey, for spending time working and learning with us today!

Going Green with Artwork

White Violet Center participated in "Going Green with Artwork," presented by Art Totality and the Swope Art Museum, on June 26. About 70 people were pre-registered for this family event.

Upon arrival, the families participated in a self-guided inspiration tour. Then everyone participated in the activities at Halcyon Contemporary Art, next door to the Swope.

The Swope provided boxes and boxes of recycled materials where children and their parents could make sculptures. What creativity!

White Violet Center provided the opportunity to make alpaca masks by gluing real alpaca fiber to a printed alpaca face that could be cut out. "You mean I'm touching alpaca?!," said 6-year-old Avery.

Keaton, age 2, is shown in the photo at the right having fun with the mask he and his mother made.

It was fun spending time with these families who also made button bracelets with Emily Brown; sanded wooden bowls with Jeff Wilkinson and Bob Tidd; made newspaper pots for seedlings and decorative boxes from used holiday cards with the ISU Recycling Center; made banana paper note cards and newspaper hats with Art Totality; and made Origami cranes and cubes with Yoshimi Fuqua, a River City Art Association artist.

Reflection Garden is glowing!

The Reflection Garden looks awesome thanks to volunteers like Sister Teresina Grasso, who will celebrate her Golden Jubilee as a Sister of Providence this Saturday. She was found pulling weeds in the Reflection Garden near the greenhouse this morning. Did we mention there was a 101 degrees heat index? Yikes!

Seton Hill University group visits

A group from Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pa., is visiting White Violet Center for Eco-Justice and White Violet Farm Alpacas today.

They tell us they're trying to set up a sustainability program and eco-conference center, so they came out to learn more about this ministry of the Sisters of Providence.

Part of their visit here today also included speaking with Jim Speer of Indiana State University, Mark Minster of Rose-Hulman School of Technology and Sister Mary Lou Dolan of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College to learn about sustainability efforts at those institutions.

Pictured above, from left are, Sister Maureen Freeman, director of White Violet Center for Eco-Justice, Frank Klapak, of Seton Hill, and his wife, Sharon Klapak, Sister Mary Elizabeth Lawrence, Sister of Charity, Michael Cary, of Seton Hill, and his wife, Eloise Cary.

A cleaner energy direction

The Environmental Defense Fund has a page on their Web site with a letter to Senators about leading us in a new direction with cleaner energy choices. Click here to go to the page that allows you to fill out your information and send the letter.

Also on that page, the EDF has provided a video that sends a powerful message about the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf. See video below. If you have trouble viewing below, click here.

Farmers' market

The June 5 opening day of the Terre Haute Downtown Farmers' Market at Ninth and Cherry streets was a big success. We sold out of strawberries by about 10:30 a.m. and pretty well sold out of everything else by noon.

We certainly enjoyed meeting new people and answering questions about growing this and that.
Our participation in this farmers' market is very important to us. We’ve been a part of it since its inception in 2005 and we’re proud of what it has become.

Last year we were only able to have a presence once a month. But this year we’re back in FULL SWING and LOVIN’ IT! We’ll be there 8 a.m. to noon every Saturday through October sharing our pesticide- and herbicide-free vegetables and fruit and value-added products.

With such a small staff we always welcome volunteers who can help us out on Saturday mornings. Even an hour or two is appreciated. Interested? Contact Candace Minster at cminster@spsmw.org or 812-535-2935.

Hope to see you often this season!

Our alpacas helping animals in Gulf of Mexico

This week, about 50 pounds of alpaca fiber from White Violet Farm Alpacas of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, IN is being shipped to Florida to help with the devastating oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.

Our alpacas are sheared annually in May. That fiber is used in our fiber program to make hats, scarves and other items to be sold at our center and on the Internet.

As we watch footage and read the updates of the BP oil spill disaster we try to think of ways we can help. One way is to donate some of our fiber to clean up efforts through A Matter of Trust, a hair for oil spills program.

“We want to do whatever we can to help the eco-system down there,” said Sister Maureen Freeman, CSJ, director of White Violet Center for Eco-Justice. “This is a step we can take to help stop the oil from ruining precious marshland and destroying native species.”