Serenity Ridge Needs Your Help
Please Consider Donating to Complete Important Projects
Dear Sangha and Friends,
Ligmincha, as a community, has grown so much over the past two years. Under Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's always inspiring example and guidance, we have learned that our different languages, locations, experiences and interests don't divide us, they bring us together and enliven us! And as we are leaving the Zoom-only world for retreats and events that take place both at our retreeat centers and online, Serenity Ridge needs your help.
There is something uncomfortable about asking for your financial assistance to repair and improve Serenity Ridge Retreat Center in Virginia, headquarters of Ligmincha International. In 2021 we collectively raised $100,000 for Covid-19 relief efforts for India and Nepal. In 2022 the generosity of practitioners all around the world raised more than $40,000 for Ukrainian refugee aid and relief. Ligmincha Poland opened its retreat center as a warm and welcoming place for Ukrainians needing a place to stay and is continuing to provide aid in other ways. In Hungary, sangha members have crossed the border into Ukraine to bring needed supplies to orphanages. The greater Ligmincha community has come together to support those in need, yet the world continues to be in turmoil. The needs of people who are displaced, homeless and sick desperately need our time, money and attention.
And yet we also need your help. Focusing on the needs of others is a deep part of our practice, but the absence of retreats during the epidemic has left Serenity Ridge in need of many unfinished repairs and improvements. We need to complete projects that were just starting in 2020. The highest priority items include:
Reducing water consumption by bringing gray-water lines from rain cisterns to locations around the center. Cost: $1,500- Installing 15 prayer wheels donated in 2019 by a sangha member (see photo below). The estimated cost: $4,500
- Repairing the gompa, Serenity Ridge's original and main meditation hall. We have replaced the gutters, but need to replace the doors and rotten wood on the exterior, repaint the exterior and make minor repairs to the interior. Estimated cost: $15,000.
- Dig a new well. We hope that the center will be at full capacity by 2023, able to support 100-plus attendees at each retreat. But to do this, we need a new well. This is the most expensive of our needed capital expenditures and could exceed $40,000.
There has been such an outpouring of support for Ligmincha's relief efforts over the past two years. When we initiated them, we never imagined how successful they would be! Now, we ask you to consider a gift to support repairing and improving Serenity Ridge. Ligmincha's retreat centers are at the heart of our mission: creating an enduring home for the teachings of Yungdrung Bon in the western world so that future generations can receive the gift of the teachings that we have already discovered for ourselves.
You can donate here.
In service,
Rob Patzig
President, Ligmincha International