Medfield Press

Student aids Peace Abbey
By John Hilliard / Staff Writer
GateHouse News Service
Thursday Aug 9, 2007

Medfield - - Last month, Montrose School student Vani Manchanda formed a nonprofit group - the Gandhi Shanti Foundation - to raise $218,000 and buy the Gandhi statue from the Peace Abbey in Sherborn. The money would cover the abbey’s debt and the statue itself would remain at its current location.

Manchanda, a 17-year-old senior from Natick said she was moved by the abbey’s plight and Gandhi’s mission - "shanti" means "peace" in Hindi.

"This is an important landmark of that town and the only hope for the young and coming generations to live in peace," said Manchanda, who noted she is inspired by Gandhi’s nonviolent principles.

"People are forgetting who this man is," she said. "I had to do it."

The Peace Abbey - known throughout the world for its work to promote nonviolence and social justice - is in serious debt and must decide whether to break up the property and move out of town by September.

"I would love for this to always be the Peace Abbey, but I have to be realistic," said Lewis Randa, the abbey’s founder and director. "The abbey won’t cease to continue, it would be the location that would change" if needed.

The abbey, founded 35 years ago on the grounds of a former library in downtown Sherborn was only able to raise a fraction of the money needed to pay off its $218,000 debt by the end of the fiscal year June 30.

The abbey is home to a memorial containing the cremated remains of conscientious objectors to war and a monument dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi. The abbey has also adopted local causes, including Emily the Cow, who escaped a Hopkinton, slaughterhouse in 1995 and lived on the property until she died in 2003. Her remains are buried on the grounds.

Randa said the group would consider accepting a lower price and move out of town - but the organization would continue its work.

The abbey could also transfer parcels containing the conscientious objectors and Emily the Cow memorials to the Strawberry Field Trust so they would remain on the property in perpetuity, he said.

With the Gandhi monument, all three parcels total about three-quarters of an acre, he said.

Randa said the group hoped a wealthy benefactor would pay $5.5 million to buy the property and agree to let the abbey remain on the grounds - but none have materialized.

"We need a benefactor who believes in the ideals of the Peace Abbey to step up and adopt us," said Randa, who noted he believes "there’s still a wealthy person willing to invest in peace, not profit."

The abbey is owned by the Life Experience School in Millis, and while the school is financially sound, the abbey’s funding problems could impact the school. If the abbey’s land is sold, the goal would be to separate the abbey from the school itself, he said.