Year in Review 2018 Newsletter

And now, for some highlights from the year 2018. 

We started off the new year in our favorite way with a houseful of guests and visitors. We had just hosted a new exoneree guest Bill Richards, as well as a guest from Malawi and also had a new volunteer Katie who spent a lovely visit with us. There is nothing like the company of friends to warm up a chilly January night. 

And on February 3rd, we also took part in Féile Bríde 2018: Light out of Darkness organized by Afri: Action from Ireland. We shared our stories as a way to illuminate the journey of light out of darkness.

We had a visitor from Sweden Liza who enjoyed getting to know the Connemara countryside. And we also bid a sad farewell to our lovely volunteer Tress, pictured meditating with one of our pups above, In March, we also traveled to the UK to appear on the Jo Good radio show on BBC UK and spent time in London helping to train lawyers to work on death penalty cases in the US for Amicus. We also went to Dublin and met with the ambassador from Cuba at the Cuban Embassy. And finally, we concluded this busy month with a trip to Memphis for the annual Innocence Network Conference where we met lots of new exoneree friends and formed many new important partnerships. 

Spring is the time of growth and renewal and that was certainly true at the Sunny Center in 2018. In April we formally announced our new Exoneree Support Coordinator, Dorothy, who is providing on site support to our growing family of new and former guests. This is such an important development in our ability to reach out to the many exonerees in need of continued support as they grow and adjust to a life of freedom on the outside. And on the furry and feathered friend front, our mamma goat Petal’s twins arrived on Good Friday! They were great spring tidings!!! 

We had visitors Levi and Paul from Australia as well as Ena, a Reiki practioner from Cloughjordan, an eco community in Tipperary. whom we enjoyed welcoming to our own eco community! And in May we also took a trip to St. Michael’s College in Dublin to spend time with the caring and compassionate students from all levels attending St. Michael’s College, Blackrock College, St. Mary College and Willow Park Senior as they presented their school projects on human rights. We talked about our human rights work and the students showcased their work with exhibition projects – some students had actually visited Africa!

In June we had lots of visitors who enjoyed a warm Connemara welcome, including Sue Gauger, the wife of Gary Gauger, who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his parents and is one of the six (including Sunny) depicted in the play The Exonerated, 

We also welcomed Ina, an exoneree from Holland and the first female exoneree to stay at the Sunny Center. Ina has become a dear part of the Sunny Center family and during her stay, she enjoyed walking the dogs, milking the goats and tending the organic garden.  

And finally, in June, we took part in the annual Famine Walk that commemorates the Great Hunger of 1845-50 and a trek in which hundreds of people perished. The walk is organized by our old friend and Afri Ireland founder Joe Murray. We also traveled to Liverpool and gave a talk at the Writing on the Wall literary festival, also known as WOWfest, where our books, Stolen Time by Sunny and About Time by Peter, turned out to be very popular! 

In July, we welcomed our exoneree guest Robert, wrongly convicted at age 19 and released last year. He enjoyed his first trip abroad to come to the Sunny Center and also went to see the ocean for the first time during his stay!

We also welcomed three members of our board of directors, Eva, Yoel and Max, and held a meeting in Ireland around our kitchen table. It was wonderful that the board had the opportunity to see the Sunny Center in action and experience firsthand what this sanctuary offers people who have suffered the worst injustice imaginable. 

In August, we went to Dublin to meet up with our old friend Steve Earle, the renowned musician and mutual friend who first nudged us to meet 20 years ago, and then journeyed on to Oxford, England where we met up with Marla Mitchell-Cichon, who teaches law at Cooley Law School. She had arranged for our visit to Oxford University to talk about our experiences and the Sunny Center with students there. 

And finally, in September, we had a visiting monk from Italy, Brother Joseph Pio, who visited the Sunny Center on his way to see the Pope in Phoenix Park in Dublin. 

We hosted a group of activists from Belgium who were eager to learn more about our healing techniques and survival yoga at the Sunny Center.

And in October, we spoke to the National University of Ireland at Galway Innocence Clinic that was launched last fall by our Sunny Center coordinator, Anne Driscoll, a US Fulbright scholar  overseeing a new initiative to teach students about the causes of wrongful convictions and how to investigate them.

On November 3, we officially launched the “Exonerees for Exonerees” Community in Tampa, Florida. The Sunny Center now hosts the world’s first and only dedicated community of its kind for people who have been released after Wrongful Conviction. At the Exonerees for Exonerees inauguration, Sunny was in attendance along with Dorothy, our Exoneree Support Coordinator, as well as the new exoneree residents, a representative from the State Attorney’s office, and other supporters and friends.

And on November 9th, Sunny and Peter attended the third annual European Innocence Network conference in Barcelona, which gathered representatives from innocence projects in 12 countries, including Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Britain, Holland, Spain, Italy, Macedonia, Croatia, Poland, Israel and Switzerland.  

During the month of December, we took a trip to Turin, Italy where Sunny’s book was launched in Italian! The book launch and our presentation was held in a church where we were very warmly received. 

Peace and Love,
​
Sunny and Peter