Help Build the Hearth Institute!

Welcome!

Bree here. I'm a Professor at UC Berkeley and the founder of the Hearth Institute. Over the last 20+ years, I've devoted myself to understanding what promotes (and hinders) our sense of connection with ourselves, our communities, and our planet. I've balanced time teaching at the university, traveling to offer workshops around the world, and conducting desert ecology research in New Mexico.

A few years ago (in an unexpected series of synchronicities), I came to be the steward of 80 incredible acres of land outside of Taos, New Mexico. It’s a glorious place - on the rim of the Rio Grande with an entirely off-grid, university-caliber telescope observatory and endless possibilities to bring people together to learn to live, lead, create, and change with purpose.

Now I’m asking for support to realize the next phase of the dream: to build a teaching space where we can host classes, workshops, and retreats.

We are already incorporated as a nonprofit in New Mexico and are in the process of becoming a federal 501(c)(3). We will loop you in for our official launch, but in the meantime, this GoFundMe is a personal campaign that will help build the infrastructure that the nonprofit will use for its programming.

We already have the land, the vision, and a green-builder ready to break ground. And of course we have a tractor - this is us putting in the driveway to the new building...

Now, all we need is your support.

The new teaching space will be a gorgeous off-grid building, complete with solar for electricity and rain catchment for water. The indoor space will open onto our 80 acre outdoor classroom and will exponentially increase our ability to host workshops and retreats.

Funds go a long way out in the desert, especially with partner and master builder Jake leading the build. Here are examples of how your donation will help us raise the roof. If there's something specific that inspires you, let us know when you make a donation. We can send you photos as it gets incorporated in our building process:

$10s -> our morale! (plus bio-degradable toilet paper)

$100s -> little things that add up to more than the sum of their parts (like flagstones for the fire circle and torx screws to hold us together)

$1,000s -> medium things that contribute to our off-grid infrastructure (like solar panels and new implements for our tractor)

$10,000s -> big things that set our literal and figurative foundation (like concrete, timber, and adobe)

$100,000s -> game changing donations that get us all the way to the roof of our building and our dreams (framing, roofing, water-catchment system)

If you’d like to learn more about the vision for the Hearth Institute or join the mailing list, head over to https://breerose.com/hearth.

Please share with anyone you think might love our vision.

With gratitude!