Donations to a multifaith retreat center have fallen off since it sheltered a National Guard deserter, and the facility is up for sale, the founder said.
Annual contributions to the Peace Abbey dropped from $80,000 to less than $30,000 since 2004, when Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia stayed there, said Lewis Randa, the center's founder and director.
Mejia, from the Florida National Guard, later surrendered and served a year for desertion.
"Quite frankly, we became very controversial in the eyes of many, and the funding dried up," said Randa, who was discharged from the National Guard in 1971 as a conscientious objector.
He hopes to sell the three-acre property for $5.5 million within five months, ideally to a buyer who would let the center continue its work.
"For its entire existence," Randa said, the abbey "has been operating on a wing and a prayer."
The Peace Abbey was founded in 1988 in the affluent community of Sherborn, about 20 miles west of Boston, following a visit by Mother Teresa to a nearby special needs school run by Randa. It features a statue of Mohandas Gandhi and has been visited by Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou, Buddhist nuns, and thousands of others over the years. Yoko Ono once donated $40,000.
Part of the abbey's $350,000 debt was incurred by the erection of a $160,000 statue in a section dedicated to animal rights. The statue commemorates Emily, a heifer rescued by Randa and his wife in 1995 after escaping from a slaughterhouse.
Randa refuses to conduct any fundraising, calling it degrading.
Randa is director of The Life Experience School, which holds title to the Peace Abbey property. Randa fears state funding for the special needs school could be withheld if the abbey's debt is not settled by June 30. |