Luciente – Supporting the Children in Our Communities

Short Luciente history and interview with Janet Harrington, board president.

By Jessica Rath

Did you know that what is now the Pueblo de Abiquiú Library & Cultural Center began in 1996 as the Abiquiú Public Library, opened in 1999, and was Luciente’s first project? Or that artist and former Abiquiú resident Diane Haddon who designed the iconic logo for the Abiquiú Studio Tour also is the creator of Luciente’s logo?

Image credit: Luciente Inc.

Luciente became a non-profit organization in 1997. Here is part of their original mission statement:
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“Foster community development through the establishment of community based organizations which have a direct and positive impact on the lives of local community residents.”

At a 2007 fundraiser sponsored by Isabel Jewell, then-Vice President. With Lesley Poling-Kemper, then-Executive Director, and Maria Bayardo, then-Board Member. Image credit: Jessica Rath

Besides starting the library, Luciente sponsored and supported a long list of individuals and initiatives which benefited the community, young and old. Some of you may remember the days before the County had established its recycling program, when Abiquiú resident and artist Sabra Moore parked some huge trailer beds on Bode’s parking lot every Saturday (or was it once a month? I’ve forgotten) so people could bring glass, paper, and other recyclables. The successful Abiquiú Recycling Program was sponsored by Luciente.

Other projects they sponsored:

“The Boys and Girls Club and The Northern Youth Project were among the first organizations Luciente sponsored. Other sponsorships included the Children’s Art Fund, the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, Abiquiu Computers, Abiquiu and El Rito studio tours, Abiquiu Chamber Music Festival, and Rio Arriba Concerned Citizens, which is still sponsored by Luciente today” (from the website).

​I believe it was in 2006 when I became directly involved with Luciente because I designed their (then) website.

Food drop during covid. Image credit: Luciente.

The website included galleries with lots of photos from events and programs sponsored by Ludiente, such as:  ABC! (Arts Boosting Curriculum), which was founded in 2004 by Abiquiu artist Irene Schio and educator Rabia van Hattum to provide creative and imaginative art programs for children in the greater Abiquiú region. The ABC After School Club met once a week throughout the school year at Andaluz Gallery, and twice a week in the summer months.

Image credit: Jessica Rath

Plus, Luciente was involved with Regalos, a store which sold art from local artists and eventually became part of Bode’s. Other projects included an open-studio tour that reached all the way to Youngsville and beyond.

​Because of their rich history I was curious: what is Luciente up to these days? What are some of their current projects?

Image credit: Jen Harrington.

Board President Janet Harrington (known as Jen to her friends) agreed to meet with me so I could ask her about Luciente.  I’m always curious to learn where the people who end up in Abiquiú came from, and what brought them here, so I asked her about that, as well.

Jen was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but her family moved a lot so she lived in many different places. After she married her college sweetheart, they lived in Los Angeles, and she moved to the Bay Area with her second husband. She still has a house in Los Altos, and when the Abiquiú winter gets too cold, she spends a few months in Silicon Valley.

​She came to Abiquiú after her partner Bob White retired. He was living in Santa Rosa, California, and he wanted to buy some land, but because of all the vineyards in Sonoma County, land there is prohibitively expensive. So he looked in Oregon and Arizona and eventually ended up right by the Chama River, in “downtown Abiquiú”.

2006 Fundraising event, sponsored by Isabel Jewell. Image credit: Jessica Rath.

Jen is a retired kindergarten teacher who also does a lot of photography. How did she become involved with Luciente, I wanted to know.

“At the beginning of COVID, I guess it was in 2020, Luciente started packing bags of groceries for people and delivering food,” Jen reminisced. “They asked for volunteers, so I went to the school to help pack food items, and then somebody would deliver them. That's how I first got involved with Luciente. Then they asked me to join the board. Next was, ‘Well, why don't you be president?’ I replied, ‘Wait a minute! I just joined, and you guys have much more experience than I!’ But in these small groups it's not really “an honor” to be elected president, it’s more like ‘Okay, it's your turn.’ That's how I became board president!” Jen laughed.

Currently they have seven board members, although they had as many as nine or ten in the past. There's usually been quite a turnover, Jen told me. People are busy and often not fond of going to meetings, even when it’s only once a month.
“If you look at the past history of the board you’ll see that almost everybody you know has been on the board one time or another,” Jen said. “Our current board is: Randy Sanches (Vice President), Debbie Vigil (Secretary), Carol Ho (Treasurer), Thanh Ho, Matti Gallegos, Shaia D’Ourso, and me.”

What are your current projects, what are you involved with, I asked her.

“For a long time Luciente was basically an umbrella foundation,” Jen replied.  “We sponsored the studio art tour and the Chamber Music Festival, and for a while the library. All these individuals and groups used Luciente  for their nonprofit status. But now, most have either formed their own nonprofit corporation or, like the Chamber Music Festival, don’t exist anymore. With the COVID pandemic, the grocery delivery really started our switch over to food. We decided we wanted to start food pantries in the schools, so now we have one at the Abiquiú Elementary School and one up in Gallina at the Coronado High School. We’ve recently opened a third pantry at the little elementary school in Lybrook, north of Cuba, in the Jemez Mountain School District.”

But that’s quite remote and distant, I’m surprised to hear they go so far away.

“Yes, Lybrook is all children from the Navajo Nation.” Jen confirmed. “Their pantry even has clothing available for the kids. So the food pantries are one of our big food projects, and the Farmers Market is the other one.”

​I had no idea that the  Abiquiú Farmers Market is a Luciente program.
What does that mean, I asked Jen.

“Andrew Furse started the market seven years ago. Andrew and Lupita (Salazar) are the market managers, but they don't have their own 501c3 status,” I learned. “We do their banking and bookkeeping and fundraising, stuff like that. Our wonderful bookkeeper, Sylvia Lampen, does the bookkeeping for both Luciente and the Farmers Market.”
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And what does the food pantry involve, I wanted to know.

2006 Fundraising event. Image credit: Jessica Rath

“We provide healthy snacks like granola bars, yogurt, cans of chili, soup, peanut butter, tuna, some fresh food. The idea is that if a student is hungry, the teachers can get snacks from the pantry. And if there is a child who might face hunger over the weekend, we can provide a backpack with food to take home.”

Snacks for schools – what is this exactly? How does it work?

​“We use Sam's Club a lot,” Jen explained. “They deliver even way up there to Gallina. So that's great. And we're also an agency of the Santa Fe Food Depot. We get some bulk food items from them, but it seems as though they don't have as much free food as they used to, and they don't have a lot of snacky items. But the Food Depot  does these big mobile food deliveries; there's one in Abiquiú. Once a month they drop food at the gym.”

Retirement party for Luciente President Wendy Dolci. Image credit: Luciente.

“After we got involved with the school in Gallina,” Jen continued, “I thought that this area needs one of those food drops. They are so remote – no stores at all, a true food desert. Shortly thereafter, my friend Anne Beckett took me to the Food Depot in Santa Fe, and we had a tour. What an amazing place it is – they do a lot of food distribution and also diapers! While we were there, I mentioned to the management, there is a remote town, if you're thinking of going past Abiquiú. Gallina really could use one of those mobile food deliveries. Yes, Gallina is actually on our list, they answered, but we don't know anybody there to help organize the distribution. So I told them that I know people there, because the school nurse is on our board, and she's been running our food pantry. So I put them in touch with Debbie Vigil, and now it’s happening! They get a monthly food delivery for about 150 families.”

2006 Fundraising event. Image credit: Jessica Rath

“I’d been thinking about what other ways Luciente might enrich the lives of our local children, and I happened to see on Youtube a wonderful documentary (it won an Oscar for best short documentary in 2024), called The Last Repair Shop. It is about a music repair shop for the Los Angeles School District. They give free instruments to the kids, and if they get damaged, then they can send them to the shop to have their instruments repaired. They interviewed some of these children, and having their instrument changed their life. It was such a sweet little film. I thought how good a program like this would be for Abiquiú. And then I learned that for the last couple of months of the school year, Maximiño Manzanares had been teaching art  and music to all the classes at Abiquiu Elementary. Thank you, Maximiño, for your shining example!”

Farmers Market. Image credit: Luciente.

Luciente means ‘bright’, or  ‘shining’ in English. By helping children and their families, by supporting projects such as the Farmers Market, by providing food when it is needed – Luciente does indeed make many people’s lives brighter. Please visit their website if you want to volunteer or become involved in some way, maybe become a board member!

​I’m grateful to Jen Harrington for sitting down with me and spending the time for this interview. Maybe we’ll have a Youth Orchestra in Abiquiú in the future? Starting with ukuleles and drums? (As Maximiño discovered, the school had already stored away a beautiful set of drums).