Boston Globe

Peace Abbey seeks a buyer

By Alison O'Leary Murray, Globe Correspondent
Thursday, July 20, 2006

The Sherborn Peace Abbey is for sale -- but only to the right kind of buyer.

Officials at the Abbey, a small nonprofit group founded in 1988 that is dedicated to peace activism, are looking for a buyer they describe as ``progressive" who would guarantee they could continue to operate.

The asking price for the facility near the center of town, which includes a historic building and a statuary garden , is around $5.5 million. The money from the sale would be used to set up an endowment, the officials say.

The organization founded by Lewis Randa has existed on a shoestring for too long, said program director Dot Walsh. She said it hopes to find interest from a philanthropy such as the Boston Foundation, a family trust, or a deep-pocketed individual like Yoko Ono, who bailed the group out once before with a generous donation.

``Both of us are getting older, and we want to be sure the abbey is cared for," Walsh said of herself and Randa, the only paid staff. ``This would allow us to have money put aside for upkeep. It wouldn't change anything here, and we could probably do more because we'd be out from under the day-to-day expenses. It would certainly allow us to spend more time developing programs in peace, social justice, and nonviolence."

Income from renting rooms at the Abbey's guesthouse, conferences and seminars on pacifism, and private functions such as weddings only trickles in, Walsh said, frequently leaving the organization in need of last-minute donations that she called ``blessings."

It's not uncommon for an organization like the Peace Abbey to find itself at a crossroads after about 20 years, said Mary Lord, a program director in the Peacebuilding Unit of the American Friends Service Committee.

``At 10 years, small nonprofits have to find new volunteers," Lord said. ``At 20 years, you need to make sure there's a new generation in place to continue the work."

Current events, particularly the war in Iraq, may work in the Peace Abbey's favor, Lord said. ``It's a perverse truth that the cause of peace tends to rise and fall in response to unpopular wars. It may make it easier to find donors interested in an institute that's trying to create a culture of peace."

The organization will be searching for benefactors far and wide. Officials say they'll be contacting the winners of their Courage of Conscience Awards, a group that includes author Maya Angelou, former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, and folk singer Arlo Guthrie.

The abbey has been in the news at times over the years. In March 2004, Iraq War veteran Camilo Mejia, a Florida National Guardsman, sought the abbey's help when he decided not to return to duty. He turned himself in after a news conference at the abbey and was jailed for desertion.

In March 2003, the abbey was involved in a protest by a group calling itself the Peace Chain 18, who chained themselves together at Natick's Army Labs to protest military intervention in Iraq. The abbey has also organized many lesser-known demonstrations involving local residents standing at the roadside in silent vigil or with signs promoting peace.

The property's prominent statues of Gandhi and its own monument to vegetarianism, a cow cast in bronze, have drawn the attention of passersby. The cow statue memorializes Emily, who escaped a Hopkinton slaughterhouse in 1995 and eluded capture for weeks. She lived out the rest of her life peacefully at the Abbey, revered as a symbol of vegetarianism.

The organization's website says it needs at least $150,000 to pay for the Emily statue. The cost of maintaining the buildings on the site is also a concern, said Walsh.