Dear Friends of The Sunny Center:
This is what our guests see when they come to stay at the Sunny Center healing hub in Ireland. The bench was designed and built by Peter.
Life has changed for everyone these days, including life at the Sunny Center healing hub in Ireland. This pause has given us a chance to make our new home ready so we can receive guests again! By next month, we should have another poly tunnel set up so we can start growing our organic food. And, of course, we will have our free range eggs and fresh herbs from the rockery.
We feel very blessed to be here and to be able to share what we have with our fellow Exonerees, volunteers and friends. These days, we reach out and share the healing energy with our family of Exonerees, new friends and old friends alike, through virtual means of Zoom and YouTube and good old-fashioned phone calls. And we still help in whatever ways we can when our brothers and sisters find themselves in need in other ways.
We are still managing to keep things going. But that would not be possible without your continuing love and support. You can’t give what you don’t have. But if we, each of us, gives what we can, then we can do it together!
We thank you for continuing to support our work and our mission to be able to keep on extending healing hope and happiness to our fellow Exonerees, and the rest of the world!
Our Volunteers
This time of transition has given people chance to volunteer for causes about which they feel passionate. The Sunny Center has had a number of new volunteers, both remote and local.
Sinéad has been working with Sunny on creating more and better videos.
Abi, with her video expertise, has been adding captions to Sunny’s Survival Yoga videos, making them more accessible to everyone.
All through the time of Corona, our friends and volunteers have helped us stay safe by doing the shopping and errands for us. After delivering the groceries Margaret stayed to plant the spinach plants that her husband Mattie sent over for us. Now we can easily harvest spinach for breakfast!
We are also working with a web designer who was gifted to us in order to update the website to reflect the current situation and the changes that have been necessitated to our work.
Around the Sunny Healing Center
Wildflowers are starting to come up, which will be a tremendous help to the bees as they gather pollen.
The stream is flowing once again, bringing fresh water down from the mountain to the fields for the horses.
And the new path is ready, so we can access the fields more easily in rain or shine!
When the Covid crisis is over, we will be ready to accommodate and welcome our guests!
Our Furry and Feathered Friends
We want those who had the pleasure of experiencing her healing comfort to know that Blister has crossed over the rainbow bridge. We miss her terribly. But we have some very joyful memories of her to keep in our hearts and make us smile. She was 18 years old.
Mrs. Chuckles is our only hen for now. We are allowing her to be the queen of the Center until we get a new set of hens from one of our volunteers who may also have some ducks for us – once they hatch! We might even get a couple of geese!
And we still visit with the donkeys who live down the road. They are always happy to get a carrot or an apple.
EXONEREES
Around the Living Center Community
The Living Center continues to provide a home and a haven for the Exonerees who live there, especially in the time of COVID. Not only is it a place for them to continue rebuilding their lives, but also a refuge where they can socially isolate in a supportive environment.
Each house received the gift of a print from Peter Tunney, one of our most generous and active board members. Imagine! Having one of Peter Tunney‘s inspirational prints hanging in your very own home. Stay tuned because next month we might be able to tell you how that could be possible as well! Thank you, Peter. We love you!
Paul, one of our residents, has been a great help in the living community, working to make small improvements. He has done a lot of fixing up around the property and his house. His contribution adds to the beautiful setting and makes the center an even nicer place to live. Thank you, Paul!
We are developing a new initiative using Amazon Wish Lists through which you can directly help a community member. Stay tuned for details!
Around the U.S. and Around the World
A number of exonerees have been experiencing health issues – both physical and emotional. We have been trying to offer what assistance we can, both remotely and on the ground. Sometimes all we can offer is emotional support, but that can be significant when one is alone and going through a crisis. If you are an exoneree going through a hard time, please contact us through the website and we will do our best to help. Sometimes just knowing someone cares can be enough to pull one through a hard time.
In the time of Covid, our prison/death row experiences have become an asset. But in some cases, it has triggered the trauma from the past. We would like to know your experiences in this respect. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the bizarre!
Our Outreach
Subscribers to the newsletter will soon be receiving episodes of Survival Yoga in their email inboxes! The videos can also be accessed using a direct link and will be available afterward on our public YouTube channel. Click here, subscribe and turn on the notifications (the little “bell” icon) so you’ll get updates about new videos as they’re posted!
Our Activism
Last year, Charlie Ryder, a talented friend and activist, produced The Art of Ubuntu, an incredible shadow puppet documentary that “shines a light on artists around the world who are using or who have used art to explore love, reconciliation and healing.” We collaborated with puppeteers who brought our story to life in the video. Charlie recently made the film available to the public.
Seeing the film again reminded Sunny of a piece she wrote about forgiveness:
Support Us
You can support The Sunny Center every time you shop on Amazon by logging in at smile.amazon.com and selecting “The Sunny Center Foundation USA” as your Amazon Smile recipient. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your eligible purchases to the charitable foundation of your choice. It may not seem like much, but the donations really do make a difference and help us to directly assist Exonerees.
If you only shop via the Amazon app, you can activate Amazon Smile by going to the Settings and following the prompts to pick us as the charity of your choice.
Stay Connected
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter to stay up to date with goings-on at the Center. And keep an eye on our website: We’re getting a refresh soon! We’ll let you know when our redesigned website launches.
We’re so grateful that we are able to stay in contact with our friends during this pandemic. We hope that we can count on your support to keep this important work going.
Love is the answer, and community is going to bring us through this in a positive way. Together.
Peace and Love,
Sunny and Peter