I grew up in the small gold rush town of Angels Camp as a fifth-generation Angels Camp resident. That puts us there at the first settling of the “camp”. After a few years of college and roaming around this beautiful country, I settled in Montgomery Creek, a much smaller place. I’m a small town girl who likes to put down roots.
I’ve been blessed in my adult life to have friends from all over the world who have shared with me rich and fascinating details of life in other cultures. I’m an activist by nature. I didn’t set out to be, I just am. But try as I might, I have never figured out how to do anything about the big world. To be honest, I feel like I can’t even think about an issue like the global economy. It makes my head spin.
What I do know how to do is inhabit a place. I came to Shasta County in 1979. I arrived at a beautiful ranch outside Montgomery Creek late one night. When I woke up the next morning, the Fourth of July, I sat up in my sleeping bag and said “I want to live here.” I’m still here. I’ve been blessed to have created meaningful work for myself and others over the past 28 years. I do understand how to make things better here, where I am. Here and now. Isn’t that all we have, really?
I’m the executive director of Hill Country Community Clinic, and am also proud to be one of the founders of the clinic. You may have seen in the news that we are building a really amazing expansion project. It will be one of the greenest buildings in Shasta County, with a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) silver certification.
The project has space for a lot of different community activities. For me, it brings together all of the things that I’ve worked for over the past 25 years. It includes a teen center, rooms for complementary services like acupuncture and homeopathy and massage, space for an adult day health program and a commercial kitchen. And a little library and café seating area.
We’re even going to tackle the issue of substance abuse in a new and creative way. It is, and will be, a place of sanctuary where anyone can find a smile, a kind word and help when they need it. It has been a year of raising lots of money and being much more in the public eye, something I don’t love but am getting accustomed to.
Hill Country recently received $1 million from the McConnell Foundation for the project, something that seemed impossible to many. I’m very proud of the group of people I work with and what we’ve accomplished. There were dozens of cards and mounds of cookies and candies from grateful patients over the holidays. Hill Country Community Clinic is a place of hope.
I’ve thought a great deal in the past year about the importance of hope. That feeling, perhaps more than any other, is what I want to pass on to my children, Evan and Zoe. I get upset when adults have insensitive End of the World conversations around young children. Hope is an essential nutrient. Hope is what drives the building project, Hill Country Health and Wellness Center.
None of us can know what the next 5, 50 or 100 years will bring. Certainly there is plenty of evidence to suggest that times could be very hard. Global warming is in our minds every day; the plight of the polar bears, rising sea levels, etc., etc., etc.
But, it is deep in me that all will not be lost. Life will change, the planet will change, humans will likely not be so numerous. But what an amazing and challenging time to be alive! A time that calls for courage and creativity and commitment. Flexibility, kindness, humor, love. A time when we need to be the best of ourselves.
How do you express your hope? What do you see around you that gives you hope? May we all rise to the challenges of 2008 with love in our hearts and hope in our spirits. Happy new year.
