2024 Year-End Board President’s Letter to the Sangha
December 2024
Dear Sangha,
The year 2024 was a milestone year for Mountain Stream - so impactful that we’re inviting you to join our State of the Sangha gathering in January 2025. You’ll find more details below.
In 2024, Adam Stonebraker finished his first full year with us as our new resident Guiding Teacher. During that time, he engaged with Sangha members to discover our interests, and he began to formulate a vision for our beautiful Village Temple as a Community Dharma Center.
Under Adam’s guidance, Mountain Stream blossomed with new programs, new outreach initiatives, and he brought in a diverse array of teachers to share the dharma with us. This coming year, 2025, promises another rich lineup of programs and classes and a deeper commitment to our broader community.
To hear more about Adam’s plans and about Mountain Stream, please join us in January for Mountain Stream’s first informative and participatory State of the Sangha ~ Our Journey Together. There will be two events: a Wednesday evening and a Sunday afternoon.
Our State of the Sangha events will also provide information on Mountain Stream’s facilities and finances. As you know, 2024 brought much needed work to our beautiful temple and its grounds: a new roof for the 74 year-old center and a remodeled cottage to host our visiting teachers and to provide a meeting space for Adam’s one-on-one mentoring sessions. More necessary work is planned.
Additionally, 2024 saw the beginning of our fundraising initiative, Upholding the Dharma, designed to begin the process of co-creating a sustainable future. Our financial consultant, George Kellar, will be presenting Mountain Stream’s financial portrait at our two State of the Sangha events.
We look forward to seeing you at any of the new programs on offer and at our established programs - Monday night dharma talks, Tuesday's Sit & Sangha, and Open Temple Fridays - in the remaining days of 2024. May you be well, may you be happy, may you have joy as we enter this new year of 2025.
Deep bows,
Alison Sweetser, Board President
Why Upholding the Dharma Matters ~
Fundraiser for sustaining Mountain Stream into the future
October 2024
Dear Sangha,
Thich Nhat Hanh said, “The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and lovingkindness, a community practicing mindful living.” In other words, a Sangha. Together, we are Sangha, a Buddhist collective co-creating Mountain Stream and its physical heart, the Nevada City Insight Center.
All of us at Mountain Stream are grateful for generous donors like you who made it possible for us to achieve major milestones. During this first, transitional year with our new resident Guiding Teacher, Adam Stonebraker, Mountain Stream has blossomed with expanded programs (both virtual & in-person), offered more community service, and witnessed increased Sangha participation. Individual donors make up the vast majority of our funding, and it is only with your financial support that we can continue our critical work. Our year-end goal is to raise $75,000.
We are inspired that our Sangha and broader community are responding to the vision we co-created and are participating with us to meet our need for sustainability. Growing attendance, both at the Center and virtually, attests to the value of our programs. Feedback confirms Sangha appreciation for our community engagements, such as the monthly meals we cook and serve at Hospitality House and our Recovery Dharma program, Room to Breathe. We are seeing more requests for end-of-life programs as well.
While we have made progress and continue to generate significant personal and social impact, we are not yet financially self-sustaining. Please support Mountain Stream today with your generous gift so that we may continue to be what those we serve have described as “an oasis of love, caring and kindness.”
We are grateful for your deep attention, your generosity, and your commitment to the Dharma.
With Gratitude and Appreciation,
Marcia Craighead & Alison Sweetser
P.S. A gift of any size supports Mountain Stream, our temple, teachings, and mission. Please visit our donate page for Ways to Give.
Marcia Craighead, Philanthropy Director, Alison Sweetser, Board President
Adam Stonebraker, Resident Guiding Teacher, John Travis, Founding Teacher
Board of Directors: Priscilla Barton, Sharon Lane, and Robert Trent
Beloved Mary Helen Fein Retires
August 2024
Dear Sangha,
It is with bittersweet news that Mary Helen Fein, one of Mountain Stream's dharma teachers and long time sangha members, is retiring from teaching so she can enjoy pursuing other hobbies and enjoy doing less.
Mary Helen has been practicing meditation since 1992. In 1993, she moved to California and met her primary teacher, John Travis, Mountain Stream's founding teacher. Since that time, she has worked with his guidance and support, graduated from the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader program and completed the Dedicated Practitioners Program and the Advanced Practitioners Program. Since 2003, she has been teaching meditation classes, holding daylongs, and mentoring others. One of her most powerful experiences was being invited to teach the Buddhist Meditation group at Folsom Prison. She was a co-leader of the Auburn Insight Meditation sitting group, and also co-founder and co-leader of the Rocklin Meditation Group. She has also served on committees and as Board President of Mountain Stream Meditation, as well as helped with our website and other technologies, making it possible for Mountain Stream to offer video and audio recordings of our dharma talks on our website and YouTube. Mary Helen has also created a free online beginning meditation course at www.beginningmeditationonline.com that you are welcome to check out.
While she is stepping back, she is not stepping away and we look forward to her visits when she has time between Reno, Auburn, and her work with the Democratic Party. She is also a published author with two new novels in the works, an Autobiography and a Biography of John Travis. We can't wait to read them.
Dear Mary Helen, thank you so much for your time, attention, and dedication to your practice and to the dharma. We are deeply grateful for your big heart. ♥
Why Mountain Stream? Why Now? ~ Upholding the Dharma
Spring/Summer 2024
Dear Sangha,
Mountain Stream would not exist but for the immense and varied generosity of our Sangha. How each of us shows up - with our financial support, with our time as volunteers, with deep attention at programs and gatherings - creates this beautiful jewel we know as Mountain Stream.
Mountain Stream’s mission is to provide the Dharma, and because our tradition is one of freely offering the Dharma, we depend upon dana, the generosity of our community. And our community is generous. It’s part of our practice.
Through your generosity, Mountain Stream welcomed Adam Stonebraker as our Resident Guiding Teacher and hired Robyn Hennon as our Center Director. We were able to create a fire-defensible space around our beloved Village Temple, remodel the cottage for visiting teachers, implement a fully functional hybrid meeting system, and put a new roof over our heads. Your generosity allowed us to add new programs in community outreach such as Room to Breathe, a Recovery Dharma group, trainings through the Living/Dying Project, and a monthly outreach program to cook and serve 100 people dinner at a local shelter. This, as Founding Teacher John Travis once noted, is how we co-create a Buddhist collective.
Mountain Stream has come to a crossroads. To support a Resident Guiding Teacher, keep the Center’s physical premises safe and sound, and provide the programs and retreats that our Sangha has requested, we must expand our practice into some real-life fundraising. It would be lovely if our Monday Night Dharma talks, Tuesday’s Sitting & Sangha, our Affinity Groups, Open Temple Fridays, Recovery Dharma meetings, and other offerings paid for themselves.
Unfortunately, they don’t.
Generous financial support from you is our primary source of funding to sustain all that we do. Our annual Upholding the Dharma fundraising goal for this fiscal year is $250,000. We are writing to ask you to support our efforts to raise our final $100,000 to achieve our goal. We are grateful for your commitment to our sustainability, and for your generosity of any amount to enable Mountain Stream’s continued efforts.
Because we began this campaign midway through our fiscal year (October 1 to September 30), there is more than a little urgency and a narrow window of time. Please consider how you can best help co-create a legacy of sustainability for Mountain Stream. Click here to donate one-time or set up a monthly sustaining gift and/or legacy gift.
As one sangha member wrote, “We exist together in a circle of giving.”
With deepest gratitude for being in that circle with you,
Marcia Craighead, Philanthropy Director, Alison Sweetser, Board President
Adam Stonebraker, Resident Guiding Teacher, John Travis, Founding Teacher
David Mazzola, Treasurer, Board of Directors: Priscilla Barton, Sharon Lane, and Robert Trent
Dear Sangha,
Mountain Stream would not exist but for the immense and varied generosity of our Sangha. How each of us shows up - with our financial support, with our time as volunteers, with deep attention at programs and gatherings - creates this beautiful jewel we know as Mountain Stream.
Mountain Stream’s mission is to provide the Dharma, and because our tradition is one of freely offering the Dharma, we depend upon dana, the generosity of our community. And our community is generous. It’s part of our practice.
Through your generosity, Mountain Stream welcomed Adam Stonebraker as our Resident Guiding Teacher and hired Robyn Hennon as our Center Director. We were able to create a fire-defensible space around our beloved Village Temple, remodel the cottage for visiting teachers, implement a fully functional hybrid meeting system, and put a new roof over our heads. Your generosity allowed us to add new programs in community outreach such as Room to Breathe, a Recovery Dharma group, trainings through the Living/Dying Project, and a monthly outreach program to cook and serve 100 people dinner at a local shelter. This, as Founding Teacher John Travis once noted, is how we co-create a Buddhist collective.
Mountain Stream has come to a crossroads. To support a Resident Guiding Teacher, keep the Center’s physical premises safe and sound, and provide the programs and retreats that our Sangha has requested, we must expand our practice into some real-life fundraising. It would be lovely if our Monday Night Dharma talks, Tuesday’s Sitting & Sangha, our Affinity Groups, Open Temple Fridays, Recovery Dharma meetings, and other offerings paid for themselves.
Unfortunately, they don’t.
Generous financial support from you is our primary source of funding to sustain all that we do. Our annual Upholding the Dharma fundraising goal for this fiscal year is $250,000. We are writing to ask you to support our efforts to raise our final $100,000 to achieve our goal. We are grateful for your commitment to our sustainability, and for your generosity of any amount to enable Mountain Stream’s continued efforts.
Because we began this campaign midway through our fiscal year (October 1 to September 30), there is more than a little urgency and a narrow window of time. Please consider how you can best help co-create a legacy of sustainability for Mountain Stream. Click here to donate one-time or set up a monthly sustaining gift and/or legacy gift.
As one sangha member wrote, “We exist together in a circle of giving.”
With deepest gratitude for being in that circle with you,
Marcia Craighead, Philanthropy Director, Alison Sweetser, Board President
Adam Stonebraker, Resident Guiding Teacher, John Travis, Founding Teacher
David Mazzola, Treasurer, Board of Directors: Priscilla Barton, Sharon Lane, and Robert Trent
Click to view images
We Have a New Temple Roof!
and Welcome Adam & Lakshmi to Nevada City!
February 5, 2024
Dear Mountain Stream Sangha,
We have a new roof and not a moment too soon! The installation was completed on Thursday, February 1st, just in time - before the massive atmospheric river arrived over the weekend. 5 Star Roofing found and repaired some roof rot, so again, it wasn’t a moment too soon. Deep bow of gratitude to everyone who donated to Mountain Stream’s Roof Appeal and gave us a new “Roof Over Our Heads.” As Jen Scott, our Volunteer & Outreach Coordinator, likes to say, “We be Sangha.”
Also, Adam Stonebraker and his partner Lakshmi Prasad are officially residents of Nevada City! They arrived very late last Saturday and Adam has hit the ground running. He already led last Monday’s Dharma talk and will continue with ‘part 2’ this Monday. Adam and Lakshmi will be at the Center at 5 PM for a community tea and cider social, and next Friday Adam will lead a pop-up dharma discussion before the meditation at Open Temple.
We are so happy to welcome Adam and Lakshmi into our Sangha and look forward to Adam’s guidance as Mountain Stream continues to provide a container where we can take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, so that we may show up more authentically for our wider community.
Again, deep bow for all the ways you give, show up, and support Mountain Stream. May Mountain Stream continue to be here to support you, our Sangha.
Much Metta,
Robyn Hennon, Center Director
Adam, his partner Lakshmi, and their cats, Yoni and Kali
Holiday Message from Adam Stonebraker, Guiding Teacher
December 25, 2023
Dear Mountain Stream Sangha,
As this year comes to a close, I’m reflecting on how much gratitude and excitement I feel both for the journey of this past year and for the one ahead.
With Metta, I want to thank each of you for welcoming me into this community with such openness and beauty. Lakshmi and I will be making the long trek to Nevada City in late January and we are very much looking forward to settling in to our new community.
In 2024, we are planning on expanding our offerings at Mountain Stream, with new opportunities to deepen our practice and learning as well as to serve our community.
May the coming year bring even more moments of mindfulness, joy, growth and connection. Let us walk this dharma path together, sharing blessings of compassion, understanding, and inclusion to all beings.
Wishing all of you peace and serenity in this season of light.
Deep Bows,
Adam
A Roof Over Our Heads ~ Update
December 1, 2023
We are so close to our goal! Thank you to everyone who donated to our new roof fund. We know there are many causes worthy of your money and attention, and the needs of the world can feel overwhelming. But your donations to Mountain Stream, big and small, help us continue to be a refuge, a place to shelter from the chaos, to find solace and ease. The dharma brings peace and equanimity to our lives and thereby to lives around us, reaching out to the whole world.
To help us bridge the gap, all the dana received for Mountain Stream during the month of December will go toward our roof campaign. If you haven’t had a chance to give and would like to do so, please go to https://www.mtstream.org/roof-appeal to make a donation, or come to one of our events and drop money into the dana basket. From the bottom of our hearts, we are grateful.
With much gratitude,
On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Alison Sweetser, Board President
A Roof Over Our Heads ~
Roof Appeal Letter and Financial Report
November 2023
Dear Sangha,
Click to view images
The roof over our beautiful Nevada City Insight Center is showing its 73 years; the current three layers of roofing no longer protect us from the elements. Water has leaked into one wall and may have leaked into others.
The roof replacement is now urgent and we are reaching out to the Sangha to raise $30,000. Given the risks of heavy rains in the coming months creating further damage, we are moving ahead with the roof replacement with the full confidence that our Sangha will support this essential initiative.
While we have allocated a portion of the Rooted in the Dharma campaign contributions to our Building Reserve Fund, there is a need to maintain our Building Reserves for other competing planned and unplanned capital expenditures. Details of our conservative spending from 2021 - 2023 Rooted in the Dharma funds are now available in our Rooted in the Dharma Financial Report link, or see below.
We exist together in a circle of giving. For us, this circle is sustained by our love of the Dharma and our beloved Village Temple. To those who have given your time, your energy, and financial support over the past years, we extend our heartfelt gratitude.
Please consider a gift of $1000, $500, $250, $100, $50; all levels of donation are appreciated. For those of you who are planning your end-of-year donations, please consider a contribution to support the replacement of our roof. See ways to donate below:
Credit Card https://square.link/u/S1odusmS
Check payable to Mountain Stream Meditation: mail to PO Box 2510, Nevada City, CA 95959
Debit your checking account with online banking - saves us on credit card processing fees
Donor Advised Fund
Stocks/Appreciated Securities
Disbursement through IRA/retirement accounts
Company matching gifts - provide your company with our tax ID, 68-0351052
If you would like to learn more about contributing to our Village Temple Roof, please contact Marcia Craighead, Special Projects Manager: marcia@mtstream.org, (530) 265-6111.
With much gratitude,
On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Alison Sweetser, Board President
What’s Next for Mountain Stream
October 2023
Dear Sangha,
Click to view collage
It was wonderful to see so many of you at our ten-year anniversary celebration held last month. Since that gathering, many Sangha members have inquired about how they can contribute to Mountain Stream’s immediate and long-term sustainability needs. The Board, Staff, and dedicated Sangha volunteers have worked together to create the following pathways for giving.
Near-term Sustainability Campaigns:
The Village Temple Roof Fund: We are launching a one-time, special purpose fundraising appeal to replace the failing roof over our beloved Village Temple. Our goal is to immediately raise $30,000 to complete this prior to winter. Please donate to the Village Temple Roof Fund at mtstream.org/roof-appeal
The Monthly Giving Circle: This funds our programs, our operations, and our dedicated Staff, without whom none of this would be possible. Thank you, Monthly Giving Circle donors! For those who are currently participating, please consider increasing your donation amount. For those not yet participating, and would like to start, please visit mtstream.org/donate
The End-of-Year Giving: For those of you who are planning your end-of-year donations, please consider one or both of the opportunities above. All donations to Mountain Stream may be tax-deductible. Thank you for your past generosity; we invite everyone to participate this year with a generous donation.
Long-term Sustainability Campaigns:
Upholding the Dharma: In 2024, we’ll launch a multi-year campaign to sustain Mountain Stream for many years to come. This is an ambitious and necessary step toward securing a sound future for Mountain Stream. We rely on our Sangha’s generosity on an ongoing basis to support our new Guiding Teacher, our beloved Village Temple, and an expanding array of dharma programs. If you wish to begin participating now in this multi-year campaign (similar to our previous fundraising campaign, Rooted in the Dharma fund), in advance of its formal launch, please visit mtstream.org/upholding-the-dharma-campaign
Mountain Stream Endowment Fund: As a means of ensuring the longevity of Mountain Stream and the Nevada City Insight Center for future generations, our Board and Staff will work toward creating the Mountain Stream Endowment. Details will be provided in 2024.
We hope that in reading about the various pathways to support Mountain Stream, you find the path or paths best suited to you. If you can donate to the roof fund, deep bows. If you can also become a monthly donor to sustain continuing operations and the programs you value, again, deep bows. And if your heart prompts you to sustain Mountain Stream and our beautiful gem of a temple in 2024 and beyond through Upholding the Dharma, deep bows! Your generosity is needed, is valued, and is received with gratitude.
If you would like to learn more about any of these opportunities, please contact Marcia Craighead, Special Projects Manager: marcia@mtstream.org (530-265-6111).
P.S. Please consider making your tax-deductible donation to our Village Temple Roof Fund as soon as possible. Mountain Stream Meditation is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization. Donations may qualify for a tax deduction. Please consult your tax advisor to determine deductibility.
On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Alison Sweetser, Board President
A letter from our Board President
September 20, 2023
Dear Sangha,
Mountain Stream’s Board of Directors, staff, and dedicated sangha members have compiled reports on a) progress on our three year Strategic Plan and b) our first multi-year fundraising campaign, Rooted in the Dharma (see links below). The year-end financial report will be made available when all the data is compiled in the coming months.
For those who would like to review our community’s strategic plan, the following link will bring you to that page (strategic plan). You can also read the workstream reports from the teams and committees tasked with fulfilling the strategic plan on that page.
Together, we can feel satisfaction in all we’ve accomplished, and review with interest and curiosity what still remains to be done. As Sangha, let’s continue to provide a sustainable future for Mountain Stream and our beloved Village Temple, both of which have nourished us through the past many years, from inception through the pandemic, to the present re-opening, and into a future rich with possibilities.
With deep gratitude,
Alison Sweetser
2023 Board President
Board Report - September 2023
Rooted in the Dharma Summary - September 2023