Completed 2024: New Workshops

As our community has grown in the past ten years, workshops have developed in makeshift spaces around the main monastery: candle making in a former parlor, soap making in the exercise and laundry rooms, papermaking in an unused shower, and garden seedlings in any available patch of light. Most of these spaces do not have proper ventilation, lighting or running water. With your help, we are building an addition to our existing woodshop, with spaces specifically designed for each work area and a dedicated greenhouse. This will provide safer and more practical working conditions for our sisters, which in turn will support the contemplative spirit of our work. Your contributions to this project were invaluable, and we are deeply grateful.

Completed 2021: Fire Protection System

Although our monastery’s natural surroundings are beautiful, the increasing heat and dryness of British Columbia summers means that we have a risk of wildfires in our region. With the help of friends and benefactors, we have been able to purchase and install sprinklers and other fire protection equipment to guard our main monastery building, our chaplain’s residence, hydro-electricity building and new workshops. Thank-you for your support; we could not have done it without you.

Completed 2021: Pilchuk Creek
Micro HydroElectricity Project

In October 2021, we celebrated the official blessing of our Pilchuk Creek Micro-Hydroelectricity project. Over ten years in the planning and building, this system now powers our monastery with clean, renewable energy. Our sisters participated in every stage of the construction, doing much of the work by hand to minimize impact on the creek and local forest. It would be impossible to list here every one who contributed to this project, but we say to all of you: “thank-you.” God will reward your generosity, and your faith in our growing monastic community. We would like to express our particular gratitude to project leads Peter, Ron and John, all of whom were involved in the project on a daily basis with a truly extraordinary generosity of time, talent and effort. You are all, as always, in our prayers.

You can read some of the media coverage of our project here:
Green gospel: sisters live their calling by making clean power
Squamish nuns complete decade-long clean electricity project on Pilchuck Creek
Sister Power: Next Gen Nuns Generate Their Own Electricity