Check out our blog at Tessas Blog
UPDATE: Tessa in Peace Corp Magazine
December 8, 2009 Peace Corp Magazine Article CLICK HERE
UPDATE: Spring Planting Time in Tessa's Community Garden
April 30, 2009
Santa Fe, NM Tessa's Community Garden was begun on her birthday March 20th, 2007. The first year was a great success. The Garden contributed vegetables to the Kitchen Angels, and they in turn, gave the excess to the Food Depot, which feeds the homeless. The Fall not only brought harvest, but a replanting of the raised beds with hoop houses to shelter the new seedlings for the coming Spring. In 2009, the Garden was relocated to Tesuque, a village north of Santa Fe. Seedlings were planted August 28th, with a harvest in time for Dia De Los Muertos.
UPDATE: Service Trip to Nepal
April 30, 2009
In Nepal, many women are devalued, abused and uneducated, and often, little girls are sold into servitude at young ages. While in Nepal in 1999, Tessa met Renu Sharma, the founder of The Women's Foundation Nepal in Kathmandu. This was the epic experience that inspired Tessa to begin her new life's work, helping women and children and promoting sustainability to directly improve lives in neglected areas of the world. In March 2009, Tessa's mother and brother spent a month in and around Kathmandu, Nepal, doing service work for the Women's Foundation Nepal and the Chhahari Hostel. Mother and son worked with orphans, teaching yoga, meditation and English. They also established some new volunteer placement housing; sustainable, safe, healthy homes for Nepali families who are eager to house volunteers from the US. For more information about Volunteering in Nepal, contact krisprater@gmail.com. For more details on Kristena and Devin's Nepal Trip, please visit the Blog at Tessas Blog
UPDATE: Restoration of the Gangety Sang- ngag Choeling Monastery, Bhutan.
Sept. 30 - Oct. 18 2008
The Tessa Horan Foundation is one of many contributors from around the globe that helped to fund the restoration of this 16th century monastery. During the consecration of the monastery, a continuous stream of prayers and matras were offered to create positive energy for the region and it's inhabitants. This in turn, will spread across the whole world. A close friend of Kristena and Tessa's, Anna Hansen, traveled to Bhutan to participate in the ceremony and took this photo of the restored monastery.
Tessa took refuge with Gangteng Tulku Rinpoche, the founder of this monastery, on April 11th 1999. Later that evening, Tessa's brother was injured in a car accident, which left him a paraplegic. Anna is a very significant part of our lives, because she integrated Buddhism into the family. She also anointed Tessa's body with Saffron, along with three other Buddhist friends. She encouraged the foundation to donate money for the rebuilding of the monastery.
UPDATE: November 15, 2008 Katmandu Safe House and Garden
Recently we have taken the Community Garden concept one step further and planted a winter garden. Utilizing hoops as a frame over the raised beds, covered with snug plastic sheeting, the greenhouse effect heats and supplies water by condensation. By covering the beds, the vegetables have a chance to grow in a warm, protected environment, and, miraculously, they grow as quickly as they would in an uncovered summer garden. With rising food costs, our covered beds serve much the same purpose as the victory gardens in WWII. Not only do the growing techniques that we have refined work well in climates where the growing season and knowledge of sustainability is limited, but our raised-bed methods offer the potential to grow healthy and hearty food year round. Our growing system is the perfect idea to take to underdeveloped countries, where access to fresh produce is sparse or nonexistent. Instead of dependence on foreign aid, we can teach people in rural and poverty stricken areas to provide for themselves. Next we want to take our garden model to Nepal, where we have bought the freedom of some indentured girls and are establishing a safe house for abused women, and to Tonga, where we have already built and stocked a library. We are always looking for reasons to be globally and locally conscious.
For more information on the safe house and garden in Nepal please visit the Mountain Fund website www.mountainfund.org (click on projects, then active projects then Katmandu Women's Safe House).
UPDATE: November 3, 2008 Dia De Los Muertos
Because of the influence of Hispanic culture in New Mexico, the Day of the Dead (Dia De Los Muertos) has always been a unique celebration. November 2 of each year is significant because the culture celebrates the memories of lost loved ones. The timing of this event also has special significance because Tessa united with her twelve colleagues, Peace Corps Group 70, on November 1, 2005. They left on November 2 to the Kingdom of Tonga, where they would begin their training, and where Tessa ultimately died February 1, 2006. This past Day of the Dead, 2008, we recognized eleven different families who have lost a child and are connected to Tessa through athletics, academics, spirituality, siblings or parents. Seven of the surviving families joined us in an altar ceremony and the third screening of "Peace by Piece," a movie documenting the death of Tessa and the inception of the Tessa Horan Foundation. Not only do we recognize the indescribable bond that these eleven local children represent, but we value the memory of uncountable others who have died as well.
UPDATE: October 16, 2008 Ama's Daughter's Garden
The Tessa Horan Foundation has recently offered an opportunity to the Amma Center of New Mexico community to garden in Amma's Daughter's Community Garden. The goal of the Community Garden is to create educational programs for self-sustainability and mental/emotional wellbeing that can be replicated in the form of organic gardens. The Foundation is turning Tessa's Community Garden into a sanctuary where individuals can come and garden all year 'round. By sponsoring a bed, an individual, family or group can have a designated bed to call their own to come and garden in with the help and expertise of the Foundation and the New Mexico GreenFriends through the Amma Center of New Mexico. Those who make a commitment to a garden bed will also have educational access to workshops and gardening information offered through Amma's New Mexico GreenFriends and The Tessa Horan Foundation for free. Tessa's Community Garden is conveniently located in town at 1205 Don Gaspar Ave. Those who participate can learn about water catchment, sustainability and growing organically while harvesting fresh, healthy food. Individuals will be responsible for their own starts and seedlings; while water, compost and soil will be provided. Please call 505-982-7731 or e-mail krisprater@gmail.com to reserve a gardening winter bed. An opening fee will be charged to participants for covered bed materials. Anyone in the Santa Fe community is welcome to participate.
UPDATE: October 6,2008
Autumn Harvest
The Spring garden has been a great success. Food has been shared with the under-served and the community surrounding the volunteers and the neighbors. There is a specific way of gardening through the winter which has attracted a new group of people, excited and hopeful about a teaching module. Growing greens locally for the winter, we will continue to feed the health challenged and homeless for the holidays. Several fundraisers are in order and more details will come soon. On November 2nd, the day of the dead, Tessa's film "Peace by Piece" will be shown in Santa Fe on St. Michael's drive. A day of the dead altar will be assembled to honor all the people who have died. Anyone is welcome to contribute to the altar and please come and support the Tessa Gardens a.k.a. "It Takes Garden to Grow a Child". You are always welcome to stop by and see the garden at any time.
UPDATE: July 7, 2008
First Garden to Table Dinner
To celebrate our bountiful harvest we held a dinner party and fundraiser event overlooking Tessa's Community Garden. The scrumptious food, either from the garden or donated from local sources, was prepared by Chef Abby Souza of Contoured Cooking to the perfection of gourmet standards. The patio and tables were decorated in shades of green - Tessa's favorite color - and the flowers on the tables were all edible. There were so many people who wanted to attend that there is already a waiting list for the next dinner, which is planned for August 10th. The money raised goes to assist in other possible sustainable sites and teaching modules.
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Devin Burke with children living in the shelter of the Women's Foundation near Kathmandu.
Nepalese Woman and Child
Dia De Los Muertos Altar
Tessa and The Foundation are featured in the Fall 09 issue of the Peace Corp's magazine
Fall Flowers
Garden to Table Dinner
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