Abiquiú’s Latest Initiative

Interview with Laurie Magoon
By Jessica Rath
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Community, noun. From Latin commūnitās, [f.], 1. A community, 2. Public spirit, a sense of duty, and willingness to serve one’s community.
 
Maybe you think that I sound like a broken record, but I have to say this again: there are so many community-conscious people in Abiquiú!  Instead of striving to become rich and famous, they use their energy and skills to help other individuals and families, and they do this voluntarily. They build up and support a sense of belonging, trust, and care among like minded individuals, and they imbue a feeling of empowerment: when people work together, they get stuff done and can change things.

Image credit: Laurie Magoon.

I just heard about a new project: the Community Café, an initiative dreamed up by Melodie Milhoan, owner of Café Sierra Negra, and realized by Abiquiú resident Laurie Magoon, who was kind enough to tell me all about it. Here is what I learned.
 
First, Laurie told me about her background. She grew up in a small town  in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. A big family and a small town – these two components had a great impact on her. She went to graduate school at Boston University where she became a coach for women's field hockey and lacrosse. She went on to coach at other colleges, and also became a wellness coordinator.
 
Wellness, nature, and coaching have become constant threads throughout Laurie’s
life.

Image credit: Laurie Magoon.

She spent about ten years at one of her most favorite places in the world:   Kripalu, a health and yoga center in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Laurie told me. She worked there as a Senior member of the Healthy Living Faculty, and taught  yoga dance.
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After she  traveled the world for a while, she found out about Ghost Ranch which reminded her of Kripalu, but it's also different because they're more into the arts and outdoor activities. First, she joined as the College Staff Wellness  Coordinator, just for a summer. Then she was asked  to stay on, and was there for about eight years.

Image credit: Laurie Magoon.

“I just love that community,” Laurie said. “They're beautiful people and I love everything they offer. I learned so much, and eventually I got connected to other people in the Abiquiú community. This not only expanded my horizons, but I found people I can relate to, who love hiking and so on. Nature is a big part of my life. All the wellness programs I teach, the workshops I offer, it's always related to nature. And I've had fun getting to know people in the community.”

After living at Ghost Ranch for a couple of years Laurie moved to Abiquiú in 2018.

So, what is this Community Café all about, I wanted to know.

“This was all Melody Milhoan’s idea,” Laurie explained. “Melody wanted to offer her  café to the community, she wanted to bring a group of people together who could talk about what folks in the area needed. She is very generous; she offers her space to other groups as well, to any organization that might need it. But she didn’t want to speak to the group, and she asked me to be the facilitator. I agreed because it’s easy for me to do. But I want to make sure you know that it was her idea originally.”

“We're at the beginning stages;” Laurie went on, “ so far, we've had three meetings.  Our goal was to identify the following topics:  what are the needs in the community, what are the issues that people are concerned about? But also, how can we have fun together? How can we enjoy the art and the music and the amazing talents that people have in this community? How do we bring everybody together? There's the  Pueblo, there's the Mosque. We've got many transplants.  Sikh communities are not far. There’s the Monastery of Christ in the Desert. So it's a very, very unique community and we want  to try to bring people from every part of the community together.”

Image credit: Laurie Magoon.

“At the very first meeting I had us explore how we can come together and learn from each other, have fun, and get to know each other: not just by simply connecting, but kind of weaving ourselves together, supporting each other. At the first meeting, we had about 25 people at the restaurant.  Three issues emerged.”
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Laurie explained further. “First of all,  people are very concerned about recycling. There's no recycling in Abiquiú and very little in New Mexico. There is a waste management program  where people can bring their trash, and they used to include recycling, but they're not doing it anymore.”

“The next issue people are concerned about is the lack of a speed limit on Hwy 84 from the El Rito Road through town which is really dangerous because  nobody slows down.”

Image credit: Laurie Magoon.

“The third thing was, What about the kids and art? The elementary school doesn’t have an art program, and people who came to the meetings felt that should be changed. So those were the three things we started with, recycling, the speed limit, and arts at the school.”

Laurie elaborated further. “We found several places that recycle for free, in Santa Fe and Los Alamos for example. So that was great but it's out of the way. We've got information in case somebody wants to write a grant proposal. We can't do everything at once, so we have to pick priorities. The speed limit is really tough. We've called the sheriff's office, and we've called the Department of Transportation. They're aware of it.”
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For the third issue, to include more artistic activities at the school, they plan to identify all the people in town that could be resources. Laurie mentioned the library: on the weekends they offer free classes for the kids, such as art, science and Legos. In addition, they plan a monthly program for art and music in the elementary school. A volunteer from the library, Max Manzanares, will facilitate it, starting this month.

Image credit: Laurie Magoon.

“The folks at the Mosque have offered their space for soccer games, archery, potluck, all those things,” Laurie continued. “Their Executive Director,  Rafaat Ludin, comes to all the meetings. He was there for the two that we've had so far. And it is a beautiful thing for someone to offer us space, because potluck for me is a big deal. It's one of the easiest ways to bring all kinds of people together, and that's really our big goal. And then we're going to add maybe a soccer game for all ages, maybe some music.  Everybody's willing to help. This is just the beginning. We've got a lot of ways to go, and people have a lot of other great ideas, but we take it one thing at a time, or maybe two or three. I think those three issues I mentioned  have been our main concern, and now we're planning a potluck for April at the Mosque.”

Laurie shared more about this upcoming gathering. “We just had our last meeting on Thursday, and we confirmed that April is open at the Mosque. So now I am checking with other organizations to make sure we're not going to pick a date that's in conflict with something else. That's where we are at the moment. The Mosque is doing Ramadan right now, and Rafah is inviting the community to celebrate with them when Ramadan ends. It'll be in the Abiquiú News.”

I really liked Laurie’s next thought:
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“Abiquiú is an unincorporated community, and the meaning of the word is Wild Chokecherry, which comes from the Tewa language. And I feel like we are this wild community and we need to come together. People are yearning for that, they really want to connect. We have young folks, we have retired folks, we have locals. And that connection, especially now with the general situation of the world, really brings people together. You don't have to be committed. You can just come to events, or you can just come to a meeting. But if there's people that really want to do more, there's plenty to do, they can be involved.”

Image credit: Laurie Magoon.

She continued: “Down the road, we'd love to support families and/or elders who need extra help. Max Manzanares was putting together little packages of kindling and bark for  folks that are elderly and who need help to start their fires in the morning. It still gets cold here in the morning, and he was delivering that just out of his own initiative to help. So when they get up, they can start a fire. There are some great ideas, and it's really inspiring.”

“So these are our goals. There's no commitment, you can choose how much you want to be involved. And when we have an event or a potluck, everybody's invited. That's important to me. It's been fun so far,  it's been good. I'm meeting all kinds of new people that I may have seen before, but I didn't really know. And I really like that. There’s so much to Abiquiú. I spent about ten years here, and I am still learning about new places to hike, to walk, to go to. It's incredible.”

Laurie mentioned another initiative: “My dear friend Susan Kazmierski, she was the nurse practitioner at the Coyote Clinic, is a volunteer for the Abiquiú Lake Amigos. This is a group of folks that go out and help the Corps of Engineers with water testing, making sure the bird houses are up, and all kinds of other things. So, different  organizations are coming together at our meetings. Susan l will be at the next one and tell everybody about the Abiquiú Lake Amigos, and maybe get some new volunteers.”
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To summarize: currently they’re working on three initiatives, the recycling, the speed limit for Hwy 84 through Abiquiú  and RT 554 and art education in the elementary school and library.
 
“But we should also keep track of the potluck,” Laurie added. “The potlucks – that’s something we really want to try. Maybe not every month,  we could do it every two months. There could be different places to host it.  And I want to mention that the Stanford A Capella Group is coming, they're going to be in Santa Fe and they're going to come to Ghost Ranch, and it's all free.  Max Manzanares is a student at Stanford University. We’d like for people to know about events like that, events that are free.”

Image credit: Laurie Magoon

I was curious – are there other young people who come to the meetings?

“Yes,”, Laurie answered, “we have a wonderful woman, Lena, who's from Northern New Mexico College, which is in the El Rito area, but I think she lives in Abiquiú. And then there’s a younger man named Eric, who's helping me do some research on recycling. Taos had a really great program but they stopped everything, and some of the independent people that were doing the recycling quit, and now supposedly they got a grant, and they’re back recycling. So  we've got some homework to do to see what happened: what are they doing now? How did they do that?”
“After every meeting I write a recap of what went on at the meeting and I send it to everybody on our mailing list. And I added what I had found out about the grant information. So I said, ‘Hey, is anyone interested in writing a grant?’ If you're really into recycling and you want to do something, here's your opportunity.”

Laurie repeated that they’re only at the beginning stage. “We're learning a lot, we research what else people are doing elsewhere in the state that's working or not. And as I said, we need the physical bodies of people who say, ‘Yes, I'm going to work on this. This is something that I will pursue.’ The energy feels good and the people are very open. We have nice discussions at the meetings.”

Isn’t all this impressive? It's one thing to complain and say, this should happen, or that should happen. But if nobody does anything, nothing ever happens. So this initiative sounds really great to me. I hope they will grow, and that people will take on certain things. I’m certain that the Abiquiú News played a major part in creating this sense of community. People have some idea of what's going on around here, they feel more of a connection with each other. Thank you, Laurie, for talking to me, and a big Thank you to Carol and Brian Bondy for their steady commitment to this community!