Commonweal

Commonweal Newsletters

December 10, 2003

Dear Commonweal Board Members and Friends:

I hope this Fall Commonweal Letter finds you well. The past six months have been a momentous time of trial, loss and renewal at Commonweal. Four events have shaped these six months.

On June 7, I had a heart attack. The heart attack became a heart opening. The heart opening proved to be an inner gift.

On November 4, Carolyn Brown, co-founder of Commonweal, died after a long struggle with cancer. Carolyn, who led our work with children for 28 years, touched the lives of thousands of children and families and hundreds of her colleagues and friends.

On November 6, Waz Thomas, Commonweal General Manager and Coordinator of the Cancer Help Program, told Cancer Help Program alumni that he would be retiring from Commonweal within the next two years. Waz has been at the heart of Commonweal for twenty years. I will save deserved praise for Waz for a time closer to his actual retirement.

Each of these three events brought us grace as well as loss. My heart attack proved, as I said, an inner gift. Carolyn, unafraid of dying, trusted she would return to the Creator. Waz's decision reflects a courageous intention to write a new and different chapter in his remarkable life.

Facing these three challenges, Commonweal undertook a national search for a new Executive Director, led by Catherine Porter, Director of New Initiatives at Commonweal. On November 21, we named Charlotte Brody as our new Executive Director. Charlotte, presently Executive Director of Health Care Without Harm, will start work at Commonweal on January 1. I will remain President of Commonweal and very active in Commonweal programs.

On Eagles' Wings: Carolyn Brown: November 17, 1937- November 4, 2003

Carolyn Brown was a kind of saint. Like all of us, she had faults. But her humanity was the vessel that held a translucent and shining spirit. Carolyn was remembered at a beautiful Memorial Service at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco on November 22. The Rev. Sally Bingham, director of the environmental ministry at the Cathedral and a longtime Commonweal friend, led the service. Six of Carolyn's friends and family spoke for her during the service. Each speaker reflected on the enormous impact Carolyn had on thousands of troubled children and hundreds of us whom she touched in our adult years.

Carolyn's close friend and colleague Colleen Hicks, Coordinator of the Children and Young Adults Program, led the Bolinas Choir in some of Carolyn's favorite hymns ‚ hymns they had sung for Carolyn as she lay dying. This was her favorite:

You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord, Who abide in his shadow for life, Say to the Lord, "My refuge, my rock in whom I trust."

And he will lift you up on eagle's wings, Bear you on the breath of dawn, Make you shine like the sun, And hold you in the palm of his hand.

I met Carolyn at the Bolinas School in 1972. I arrived in Bolinas on a sabbatical from teaching at Yale. I volunteered at the Bolinas School in George Bailey's classroom. George was a Texan with a soft twang who was teaching the third and fourth graders. George said to me one day "I'm fixin' to introduce you to my friend Carolyn Brown." Carolyn had three young children in Bolinas School. She was a tall, Nordic woman with light brown hair and deep pale blue eyes. Soon I was dropping by to sit at her high kitchen table, drink herb tea, and talk with this woman who listened to you from the depth of her soul and whose laughter rang like a bell.

One day Carolyn drove me to Berkeley to see a school she had started for learning-disabled children, called The Growing Mind. Carolyn and her friends had renovated an old warehouse for the school. She introduced me to a little girl who had been diagnosed as "retarded." Then a Hungarian psychotherapist named Magdalena Pallos had put her on a diet free of wheat and dairy products. The child changed dramatically. She was not retarded. She still had a learning disability, but she could live a far more normal life.

Meeting this little girl changed my life. I had studied child development at Yale for years; no one ever suggested that diet could affect consciousness. When Carolyn asked me to help her start a residential school in Bolinas where we could explore nutritional therapies with children from juvenile halls, I resigned from my teaching job at Yale to become the Executive Director of Full Circle, our as-yet non-existent new school.

Ruth Chance of the Rosenberg Foundation and Julia Bloomfield of the Babcock Endowment gave us the first grants to start Full Circle. Ford Foundation made a program- related investment loan that enabled us to buy an old apple orchard for our campus. Carolyn chose Tim and Joan Tabernik to work with us. Tim was a carpenter and former Catholic seminarian with a long, blond pigtail down his back. Joan was a wise presence and the daughter of Alan Watts. We won the right to tear down an old farmstead in the Point Reyes National Seashore for materials to build the new school. My first wife Leslie Acoca and I were married by Carolyn on the Full Circle site with the posts and beams of the unfinished building rising around us. When the building was complete, I went out to bring children from surrounding juvenile halls to live there. Leslie taught with Tim in the classroom. Full Circle had begun.

One day two years later, with Full Circle up and running, I was walking on the Mesa in Bolinas. I looked out across the rolling fields and wooded arroyos at the old RCA transmitter station several miles up the coast. It was a misty morning, and a shaft of sunlight brought my attention to the large, white RCA buildings nestled in the trees. I had a powerful intuition of the possibility of building a center there where we would expand the work we were doing with at-risk children at Full Circle into broader explorations of both personal and environmental health. I came back to Carolyn's house ‚ Leslie and I were living in Carolyn's garage ‚ and told Carolyn about this intuition. Carolyn was drying dishes. She said, simply, "Why don't we try it?"

Carolyn asked Burr Heneman, a young Yale-trained naturalist, to join us in starting the new enterprise. I approached RCA Global Communications, which owned the site, and asked if they would donate the 1,000 acres and the cluster of old buildings to us to start a new health center. They said they would not donate the site, but would sell it to us. After complex negotiations, we ended up with a fifty-year lease on the site, which is now part of the Point Reyes National Seashore. That is where we created Commonweal together over the past 28 years.

Carolyn helped thousands of children and their families. She helped these families one by one. Her core principle was that no child was beyond hope. Her core belief was that children with special needs should be helped to grow up without humiliation. She was a brilliant, intuitive diagnostician, able to spot hidden learning disabilities, undiagnosed neurological disorders, and untreated physical conditions. She forged close relationships with outstanding psychiatrists, neurologists, learning disabilities specialists, and others to whom she would turn for help. She used the diagnostic testing to "reframe" the way the child or young person and the family understood their situation. The new picture she painted for them was one without blame that held dignity and hope. Then she would help define the next steps for the child or young person that held the greatest possible promise.

If you want to understand the way Carolyn looked at special children, read Mel Levine's extraordinary book A Mind at a Time. Levine, a pediatrician at the University of North Carolina, is one of the most enlightened voices for children whose minds work differently. Carolyn deeply appreciated Levine's insights, and had come to similar conclusions through her own work.

Carolyn went into hospice care at home within a month after my heart attack. She spent her last months saying goodbye to the people she loved. She lay in a hospital bed in her living room, as serene and gracious for her visitors as always. She was supported beautifully by her children, Cameron, Christopher, Charlie, Melanie, and Stephanie, and her daughter-in-law Anita, who was like a daughter to her. Her grandchildren were also with her. As she lay dying, Carolyn was entirely at peace with her life.

Carolyn was a great spirit. She had the three qualities of a great spirit: She was loving, she was wise, and she had an unshakable will to be of service. She was like a great oak tree. Many of us grew to maturity under the shelter of her wisdom and love. We miss her. But she lives in us because we are so much more than we would have been if she had not touched our lives.

A Heart Opening

I had a heart attack on June 7. I later learned that half of those who experience first heart attacks do not live through them. I had just taken a walk with my friend Shelley Hearne, a longtime Commonweal friend and Director of Trust for America's Health. Shelley and her partner and I had walked to Agate Beach and up the beach toward Commonweal, and then back to my house. We were sitting by the fishpond talking when I felt pressure in my chest. Shelley called 911 immediately. My neighbors from the Bolinas Volunteer Fire department helped bundle me into an ambulance.

I was driven to the Bolinas Firehouse and placed in a tiny helicopter. Hovering between heaven and earth, flying over San Francisco Bay, I knew that I wanted to live with all my heart. But I also knew I was unafraid to die. Ten minutes later, I was at Doctor's Hospital in the East Bay. Within a half-hour, two competent cardiac surgeons were placing a stent in my heart while the CD in the background was playing "Knocking on Heaven's Door." Because of the speed with which I got treatment, my heart suffered relatively little damage. Four days later I was home, taking my first tentative steps into a new world, wondering each morning whether my heart would continue to beat through the day.

Dean Ornish, my friend and physician for many years, has been a godsend throughout this experience. I am following the Ornish Heart Disease Reversal Program, which seeks actually to reverse coronary artery disease, otherwise naturally progressive, by a combination of lifestyle interventions. The Ornish Program includes a 10% fat vegetarian diet, yoga, meditation, exercise, and group support. Sharyle and I also participated in the TAM Program, an excellent cardiac support program directed by my cardiologist, Mark Wexman. The major difference between the two programs is that Ornish offers residential week-long retreats and Wexman offers eight-week non-residential support programs as well as longer-term, follow-up services. The Ornish program uses yoga for stress reduction and the Wexman program uses Tai Chi and Feldenkrais, the latter a system of slow stretching exercises done on the floor.

The science behind embarking on this rigorous way of life is quite compelling. Wexman recently completed a five-year study of the effects of his program on 103 TAM graduates. Compliance was highest in exercise (82%) and nutrition (80%) but lowest in stress management (35%). Compliance in all three areas yielded a lower rate of recurrence of cardiac problems (12.5%) than non-compliance (25.6%). "Five year event-free survival (76.7%) and mortality (3.88%) were remarkable when compared to the historical literature."

In the historical literature to which Wexman refers, the five-year mortality rate is in the 9 to 15% range, compared to the 3.88% in the TAM Program. The rate of recurrent cardiac events in the historical literature is 35-55%, compared to the 12.5% among TAM compliers and 25.6% among TAM graduates who do not keep up fully with the program. In brief, if you stay with the kind of lifestyle program that Ornish and Wexman offer, your risk of a recurrence declines very dramatically ‚ by roughly 66-75%. The numbers Wexman analyzed were small and the study had no control group. But Ornish's pioneering study suggests broadly comparable results. Other cardiologists across the country are now offering similar kinds of interventions. It is a real revolution in cardiac rehabilitation. The fact is that, unlike cancer studies to date, where these interventions yield gains in quality of life but life extension has not been demonstrated consistently, these treatments actually work in preventing recurrence of heart disease. The implications for the optimal, integral treatment of heart disease are profound.

But the lifestyle heart programs are not without controversy. There is a high-level debate going on now between believers in the Mediterranean diet and the Ornish diet. Thoughtful cardiologists across the country are distributed along a continuum between the low-fat Ornish-type diet and the Mediterranean diet. It is no trivial decision to choose the rigors of the Ornish diet over the comforts of the Mediterranean diet. There has been no controlled clinical trial comparing the two. I have chosen the Ornish diet out of an instinct that a diet that takes off fat the way the Ornish diet does is likely more effective in the actual reversal of coronary artery disease than the Mediterranean diet. I understand the arguments on both sides.

Most people who do Ornish-type programs lose a good deal of weight. I have lost about the average for men, 23 pounds, and appear to have stabilized at my college weight of 160. The diet also tends to reduce caloric intake. There is a substantial literature suggesting that lower caloric intake extends life and reduces cardiovascular disease and other diseases in both people and in animal studies. So the program I am following represents the best judgement I can make about what is most likely to keep me healthy. The flow of new studies on cardiac rehabilitation and heart health is continuous, and I continue to follow the emerging literature.

What is life like for me now? Usually I awaken at 6 a.m. I do an hour and a half of meditation, yoga, and Tai Chi. I work about five hours a day. I also walk, bicycle, and swim in some combination for at least an hour a day. I participate in a support group once a week. I do a lot of reading in the psychological and spiritual literature, keep a journal, do art work, and spend much more time in nature than before.

The most powerful unanticipated aspect of this experience has been a kind of inner awakening. Some kind of awakening is not uncommon for people who come on the Cancer Help Program. Many people refer to their cancers or heart attacks as a "wake-up call." People awaken to different kinds of insight. Some awaken to a greater sense of integration of their personalities. Others have a more vertical dimension of awakening, which can, but need not, be called spiritual.

Staying awake is not automatic. The tendency to become a sleepwalker again is strong. Many alumni of the Cancer Help Program report having felt awake during their health crisis but then report they fell back into old patterns after their health crisis ended and life returned to something approaching normal. They often deeply regret the loss of the intense sensitivity to life that their awakening brought them. I am making a strong effort to stay awake.

One of the things I have done since the heart opening is to talk with many others who have had cardiac "events," as we like to call them ‚ the phrase "heart attack" is such an aggressive phrase for this blockage of a coronary artery. Most people who have a heart "event" take at least six months to begin to feel some confidence in navigating through the world again. It often takes a year before the sense of tentativeness fully subsides. That is my experience. I am now six months along. I can function in the world but I have distinct limits on energy. I know this is largely a result of the medications I take that slow my heart, dilate my blood vessels, and thin my blood. I hope to be able to reduce these medications during the coming six months. On the other hand, I have considerable energy for the quiet yet intense inner work I am doing.

That is a brief account of what this heart opening has been like. I want to wait a bit longer before I undertake to describe the inner dimensions of this experience in more detail. I can say that one of the best guides to inner awakenings remains William James' classic, Varieties of Religious Experience. I can also say that my core readings have included the Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and Steven Mitchell's two wondrous anthologies, The Enlightened Heart and The Enlightened Mind. I have also been reading in Jungian psychology and in psychosynthesis, a wonderful psychological tradition founded by Roberto Assagioli, who was deeply interested in the role of spirit in what Jung called the individuation process. Both Assagioli and Jung were intrigued, as was William James, with the conditions under which people experience awakenings of various kinds ‚ awakenings in which their personalities may reorganize around higher centers within themselves. We have known for many years at Commonweal that a life-threatening illness can help precipitate such transformations. But it is one thing to help others with their transformations, and something else to experience such a transformation oneself. I will be writing more about this in the coming year as my reflections on this experience mature. I will share these thoughts with those of you who find this of interest. Now we can turn to the very good news about our new Executive Director.

Charlotte Brody Becomes Commonweal Executive Director

We have known Charlotte Brody for over seven years, since she participated in the founding of Health Care Without Harm at a Commonweal conference in September 1996. We worked closely with Charlotte as HCWH grew to be one of the premier environmental health campaigns of the decade. HCWH now has over 400 member organizations in over 52 countries. It has changed how hospitals see the toxic substances in their materials stream across the United States and around the world.

We also worked with Charlotte in winning the Persistent Organic Pollutants ("POPS") Treaty, the first international treaty to ban twelve of the most toxic chemicals in the world. And Charlotte was a participant in the "Body Burden" study that Commonweal undertook with Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the Environmental Working Group. This was the historic study where a cohort of Commonweal colleagues and friends had our body burdens of persistent chemicals tested and learned what was in our bodies.

When Director of New Initiatives Catherine Porter began our search for an Executive Director, Charlotte was one of the first people we identified as a "model" of the kind of person we wanted for the job. Our search letter said we were seeking a candidate who knew Commonweal and was known to the Commonweal community, who had expertise and a passion for at least one of our major areas of work, who had led nonprofit organizations of comparable size, and who had the vision and integrity that would ensure the prospects for Commonweal's future.

Charlotte has a wonderful life story. She was born to immigrant Holocaust survivors, and spent her early childhood living over the family store in Detroit. At 16 she started to take a bus downtown to volunteer at the local office of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, where she first learned the skills of an organizer. After studying Far Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, marriage took her to Boston where she worked for an underground newspaper. Then Charlotte moved south, where she worked first with returning Vietnam veterans in Tennessee, next with coal miners in Kentucky, and then with cotton mill workers in North Carolina. She earned a degree as a registered nurse, working primarily in obstetrics and gynecology, and then joined a regional Planned Parenthood center in North Carolina, where she rose to be Executive Director.

Charlotte was next named Organizing Director for Lois Gibbs' Center for Health, Environment, and Justice (CHEJ). Lois initiated the struggle of residents of Love Canal for justice when they found their families were getting sick because the community was built on an old toxic waste dump. When Lois and her neighbors in Love Canal were bought out by the government, she took the payment designed to enable her to buy another home and instead started a national center to help grassroots groups across the country facing the same struggles that she had faced.

Charlotte was working at CHEJ when she and Gary Cohen facilitated the Commonweal conference that led to the founding of Health Care Without Harm. CHEJ in fact housed HCWH throughout its early years, before HCWH grew so large that it made sense to create a separate nonprofit to house it. For the past six years, Charlotte has served with Gary as Co-Executive Directors of HCWH.

When Charlotte came out to talk with us at Commonweal, what struck us all was how natural the fit seemed between this extraordinary friend of Commonweal and our community. Charlotte clearly cared as much about the other Commonweal programs as she cared about her field of expertise, our environmental health work. Catherine Porter, Director of New Initiatives at Commonweal, and I conducted a national search focused largely on finding candidates who met the criteria outlined above. We found five outstanding candidates. Charlotte turned out to be, in the unanimous view of the search committee, the staff, and the Commonweal Board, the best fit for us.

Because Charlotte has a son finishing high school in Washington, she will be a bi-coastal Executive Director for the coming eighteen months before she and her husband Tom Schlesinger move to Bolinas. Most important, Charlotte will not give up her leadership work with HCWH, but will bring a substantial piece of that work with her to Commonweal, where Davis Baltz is also a longtime leader of the California HCWH campaign.

It is difficult to put into words how much gratitude I feel that we found a person of Charlotte's caliber to assure the future of Commonweal's work. Having been administratively responsible for Commonweal for 28 years, I turn over these daily responsibilities with a great sense of the timeliness of doing so. At a very literal level, having an able Executive Director at Commonweal lightens the load on my heart . I now am working with capable Executive Directors at Commonweal, at Smith Farm, our center for the cancer work in Washington D.C., and at the foundation office that houses the three small foundations that partially support Commonweal and Smith Farm, and do other useful work in the world. My goal since my heart attack has been to do everything I can to be able to continue our work for many years. But at the same time I have sought to put Commonweal, Smith Farm, and the foundations in a place where they have the leadership to continue the work without me if the universe calls me back. Commonweal is, of course, the mother ship, the place where this network of service all began. Charlotte Brody comes to Commonweal at just the right time.

Charlotte writes: "Michael has already provided you with an elaborate retelling of my life story. I wanted to add a sense of the great honor and deep hope I feel about becoming Commonweal's Executive Director. Commonweal has an extraordinary reputation based on 28 years of service in healing people and the earth. At Commonweal, I see an openness to new ideas and new ways of being and a desire to work towards excellence. So I am thrilled to be able to add my head, hands, and heart to the fine work that Michael and the other Commonweal staff, board members and supporters have been doing. I hope to personally meet as many of you as I can over the next months. But please feel free to contact me at cbrody@hcwh.org or by writing to me or leaving a phone message at Commonweal."

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Headlines from Commonweal Programs

Now we turn to the reason all that we have discussed above is of interest ‚ the work that Commonweal does in the world. If I were to summarize the state of Commonweal programs, I would say that Rachel Naomi Remen's work with physicians and medical education is in extraordinarily high gear, and has added a new workshop on "Finding and Telling Your Stories" for the public. The Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE), our national environmental health partnership led by Jeanette Meyers, Steve Heilig, Sharyle Patton, and Catherine Porter, continues to grow and prosper, as do our other environmental health projects on Health Care Without Harm, the Precautionary Principle, and international chemical policy. Burr Heneman's work on California Ocean Policy continues to make California a model of enlightened coastal ocean conservation practices. Steve Lerner has finished a book on our work in Norco, Louisiana, where we helped an African-American community win the right to move away from a Shell chemical plant. David Steinhart has been rescuing juvenile justice funding from the financial morass in Sacramento.

There are also the quiet activities that continue through the year at Commonweal. Commonweal General Manager Waz Thomas, Vice-President for Finance and Administration David Parker, and Director of New Initiatives Catherine Porter were the triad of Administrative Committee members who held the ship steady during my heart attack and Carolyn Brown's passage. Jenepher Stowell and Mark Rafferty shepherd the work of the Retreat Center, where all our residential programs, as well as retreats for many longtime Commonweal partners and friends, take place throughout the year. Mimi Mindel curates an ongoing series of art exhibits that enliven the Big Room in the Main Office building. Nadine Parker helps her husband David keep Commonweal's financial house in order. My assistant Michael Rafferty sits at the eye of the storm in his ground floor office with two parakeets that will fly down and sit on your shoulder if they like you.

On the Commonweal Board of Directors, Colleen Hicks is rotating off the Board after over 26 years of extraordinary service. Colleen remains on staff at Commonweal, where she administers the Children and Young Adults Program and is helping us think about next steps for that program. Martin Krasney is joining the Commonweal Board. Marty, the longtime Co-Director of the Commonweal Advisory Board, is a fiction writer and longtime leader in the California nonprofit community, where he has served as senior staff for California Tomorrow and Board Chair for Marin Country Day School. Marty is a former senior staff member with the Aspen Institute. He joins a Board whose other members include architect Simon Bruce, educator Win Mauzy, entrepreneur Beth Setrakian, artist Arthur Okamura, and me.

The other principal developments at Commonweal are that we are rethinking the Children's Program and the Cancer Help Program. We are rethinking the Children's Program because, with Carolyn's passing, it needs new leadership. We are rethinking the Cancer Help Program because, for the first time in eighteen years, applications for the program are down. The need to rethink the Children's Program is not surprising. The need to rethink the Cancer Help Program comes as a considerable surprise, I am sure, to many readers. But from a broader perspective, this has been the nature of Commonweal programs for many years. Most programs are, at any given time, thriving and making remarkable contributions; others, often deeply valuable, need special care and tending. It is a lot like a family. Here is the story in more depth.

Rachel Naomi Remen's Institute for the Study of Health and Illness Has a "Breathtaking Year" of Accomplishment

Bob Rufsvold, M.D., the Administrator of ISHI, shakes his head when he tries to put into words the explosion of interest at medical schools across the country in ISHI's The Healer's Art Program. He writes: "This past year for The Institute for the Study of Health and Illness has been almost breath taking in its fullness, but all the while deeply gratifying as our work expands in what seems to be some much needed areas. We invite you to see our new websites (www.commonweal.org/ishi, www.meaninginmedicine.org) for a closer look at our program, but here are some brief highlights to bring you up to date.

"This year we held three ISHI Tradecraft Training workshops for medical and other health care educators. Two of these were faculty development workshops for deans and faculty from medical schools who are implementing The Healer's Art. The third provided general faculty development for those who are interested in bringing the ISHI/Commonweal discovery model of experiential, transformative education to their home institutions and communities.

"Rachel Remen and ISHI's Healer's Art Project Coordinator, Jan Ellis, also offered a 3-month long training in facilitation for small group process in transformative education. Our first "class" of nine physicians were all alumni of previous ISHI workshops and are looking forward to bringing this work to their own clinic settings, and to helping ISHI in its future retreat and other workshop offerings.

"Our Second Annual ISHI Alumni Retreat brought together 15 old and new friends and partners for a gathering that strengthened our sense of community and meaning for the healing work we are called to serve.

"In November we offered our first public workshop using ISHI's discovery model. It was highly successful. 65 people attended the Kitchen Table Wisdom Workshop: Finding and Telling Your Stories and discovered the healing power of story. Through the use of imagery, reflections, poetry and Rachel's gifted storytelling, the participants had the opportunity to remember their own stories ‚ of loss, healing, mystery, love, and birth - and to remember what most sustained them in difficult times.

"This year our outreach program, Finding Meaning in Medicine, continues to expand around the US and Canada and in other areas of the world as well! More than 60 groups and nearly 300 online participants are building community and re-discovering the joy and satisfaction that many in medical practice are losing.

"We are pleased to let you know about some recent kudos for Dr. Remen:

"Needless to say, we're all extremely proud of Rachel's efforts to bring heart and soul back to the practice and education of medical professionals.

"Last, but certainly not least, we are pleased to report that our curriculum for medical students, The Healer's Art, is quickly spreading across the US and into Canada. This course enables medical students to serve the needs of the whole patient, and to preserve and strengthen the Hippocratic values of compassion, relationship, service, harmlessness and reverence for life in their work. It also enables the students to maintain a personal sense of meaning in the practice of medicine. This course has been offered at UCSF Medical School since 1993 and was featured in the US News and World Report special issue, Best Graduate Schools, 2002, as an example of innovative excellence in medical education. The course has inspired great enthusiasm and interest among medical educators nationwide. We've developed effective resource materials to enable interested faculty to replicate the curriculum at their own schools. Currently, 28 medical schools are offering this course. Dr. Remen presented The Healer's Art to the Association of American Medical Colleges on Nov. 11, 2003, to the deans and senior faculty of 30 new schools. Many of these participants expressed a deep desire to return to the traditional values of compassionate caring and healing relationship as the core of medical education and practice. We need not say more."

Collaborative on Health and Environment Triples in Size as Partners Join To Build Awareness of the Contribution of Chemical Contaminants to Many Diseases

There is an interesting structural parallel between two of Commonweal's most dynamic programs -- Rachel Naomi Remen's ISHI and the Collaborative on Health and the Environment. ISHI helps physicians rediscover meaning in medicine. CHE helps health professionals, patients, and others discover the meaning of the growing scientific understanding of the links between personal and environmental health. It has been fascinating to watch these two national efforts grow in tandem, and with mutual support, at Commonweal.

The Collaborative on Health and the Environment is a national network of scientists, health professionals, health-affected groups, environmental activists, and community groups that recognize our profound common stake in spreading awareness of the known or suspected contribution of chemical contaminants in the etiology of over one hundred diseases and conditions. CHE now has active Partners concerned with autism, allergies, asthma, birth defects, breast cancer, toxins in breast milk, infertility, lymphoma, prostate cancer, learning disabilities, mental retardation, multiple chemical sensitivities, Parkinson's disease, and many other conditions.

Commonweal co-founded the Collaborative with one hundred colleagues from across the country at a conference at the San Francisco Medical Society in March of last year. The Collaborative tripled in size this year. We have close to 800 Partners and are continuing to expand. Frieda Nixdorf joined our staff as the Administrative Associate while Jeanette Meyers, CHE Program Coordinator was on leave during the summer with her new baby girl. Jeanette is now back and brings her baby, Annala, to work with her at Commonweal. Catherine Porter, Sharyle Patton, Steve Heilig, Davis Baltz, and I all continue to work on CHE as well.

Jeanette Meyers writes: "We held CHE's second national conference at the University of California San Francisco, School of Medicine on November 15th, 2003. The conference was chaired by Philip R. Lee, M.D., former Undersecretary of Health in the Clinton and Johnson administrations, former Chancellor of UCSF, and Founding Chair of the Collaborative. He was ably assisted by Steve Heilig of the San Francisco Medical Society. The room was filled to capacity with health professionals from around the country, many of whom were in town attending the annual American Public Health Association meeting. Three hundred attendees came to the CHE conference. Many received CME/CNE credits. There was incredible energy and enthusiasm from the CHE community and we feel the momentum building as we enter 2004.

"In 2003 CHE sponsored regional meetings in Boston, Seattle, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in the hopes of creating regional centers of collaboration between key constituents. In 2004 we will have regional CHE Conferences in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Florida, and Texas. CHE Northwest formed out of our Seattle meeting in March 2003. There have been three follow-up meetings since then, as well as the establishment of a listserv with over 200 participants. Currently, one major focus for the groups is broadening regional education on environmental health issues. CHE-NW has developed a new work group on the Precautionary Principle to encourage city and county governments in the Seattle area, and potentially state-wide, to pass a Precautionary Principle statement. Another collective target is supporting collaborative efforts to eliminate persistent bioaccumulative toxics (PBTs) in Washington state. This regional center of activity is being led by Elise Miller, Executive Director of the Institute for Children's Environmental Health and a core senior member of CHE.

"CHE California Partners have been involved in the California Environmental Health Tracking Project through its planning consortium activities which include outreach and education about the need for setting up registries for chronic diseases in California, especially for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. California State Senator Deborah Ortiz has proposed a new biomonitoring bill that has been co-sponsored by Commonweal and The Breast Cancer Fund. This bill will mandate biomonitoring for Californians, and if passed will begin with three pilot studies on breastmilk monitoring. The intent is to set standards for the monitoring of breastmilk which also support and enhance breast-feeding on a community level. Sharyle Patton, Director of Commonweal's Health and Environment Program, is leading this effort with our colleagues at The Breast Cancer Fund.

"The Collaborative has three active working groups and several discussion groups that have emerged from interested Partners in the network. The Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative (LDDI) Working group is led by Elise Miller, Director of the Institute for Children's Environmental Health on Whidbey Island near Seattle. This model group has engaged seventy health-affected groups and individuals. Some key players include the Learning Disabilities Association, the American Association on Mental Retardation, and Cure Autism Now. Some LDDI members have already been instrumental in passing legislation on neurotoxicants such as PBDEs and mercury in several states. LDDI is also exploring the opportunity to partner with other CHE members on legislation relating to organophosphates.

"Our Science Working Group has been focused on making the latest science accessible to the network. Be sure to check out CHE's science website www.protectingourhealth.org, as well as the excellent resource on environmental health www.environmentalhealthnews.org. CHE's Science group has been working on peer-reviewed disease fact sheets that provide a summary of the latest science. Current topics include asthma, brain cancer, breast cancer, childhood leukemia, endometriosis, infertility, learning/behavior disorders, prostate cancer, and testicular cancer. Fact sheets on ovarian cancer are underway. Scientists Gina Solomon, M.D. and Ted Schettler, M.D. have been developing a spreadsheet that summarizes what research is known about the connections between exposure and health outcome. This powerful tool shows a connection between over one hundred diseases and conditions, with a special focus on twenty-five diseases where the evidence of a contribution from environmental contaminants is particularly strong and the disease is of broad concern. It is being peer-reviewed now and will be available on our website in 2004.

Steve Heilig will be launching our new Health Professionals Working Group early next year. There has been significant interest in CHE from doctors, nurses, and public health workers. We hope to become a solid resource for health professionals and build a working group that addresses their needs.

CHE hosts monthly calls for the Partnership. We gather experts from around the country to discuss the latest science and thinking about a particular health issue. Recent calls have included body burden testing, breastmilk monitoring, asthma, autism, the precautionary principle, birth defects, European chemical policy, and infertility. Often these conversations continue off-line and become CHE discussion groups. Three active groups are underway right now.

Breastmilk Monitoring: Researchers from around the country have gathered via conference call to discuss research methodology and challenges facing breastmilk monitoring efforts. It has been a useful forum for networking and information exchange. Sharyle Patton coordinates this effort.

Fertility and Pregnancy Compromise: A stellar group of advocates and researchers came together for this CHE Partnership call and decided to further their discussion around advocacy and reproductive rights. This group is being led by Alison Carlson, Senior Research Associate at Commonweal.

Autism: Researchers from the autism and learning developmental communities decided to use the discussion group as a safe forum to continue dialogue about the etiology of this disease. Elise Miller coordinates this discussion group."

It is easy to join CHE and we welcome all readers of this Letter. Just go to www.healthandenvironment.org and sign on, or email Fnixdorf@aol.com. We promise: no membership fee, no more than two emails a month, and opportunities to participate in the exceptional monthly conference calls Jeanette described above, or to get more involved in a CHE working group or discussion group.

Commonweal Ocean Policy Program Helps Secure $21 million in State Funding To Initiate Model Ocean Monitoring System for California Coastal Oceans

Any accounting of Commonweal's highest impact programs would include the California Ocean Policy Program. Commonweal co-founder Burr Heneman, Director of the Commonweal Ocean Policy Program, has played a central role in California ocean policies for the past decade. He drafted the legislation that resulted in former Governor Wilson signing an historic ocean policy bill. He has been a key player in implementation of the legislation. Now, in spite of political turmoil and bleak state fiscal circumstances, Burr and Paul Siri, his colleague in the Ocean Policy Program have secured $21 million in funding to initiate a long-term ocean monitoring system along the California coast. This was achieved working with the Resources Legacy Fund in Sacramento.

Information from the system is intended to benefit a wide range of state ocean management concerns, from fisheries management to oil spill trajectory prediction, from salmon recovery to coastal pollution, and from current information for the maritime industry to shoreline erosion. The Coast Guard and Navy are interested in this kind of system for its search-and-rescue and homeland security applications.The funding, from Propositions 40 and 50, passed by California voters last year, will go to the State Coastal Conservancy, an outstanding small state agency that specializes in protecting and restoring coastal natural resources.

The system will rely primarily on high-frequency radio technology that provides constant, real-time information on the complex surface current patterns within about 200 miles of the coast. Paul Siri was centrally involved in developing a small-scale prototype using this technology when he was Associate Director of UC Davis' Bodega Marine Laboratory. For the past four years, Burr and Paul have been promoting state investment in a coast-wide system, culminating in their success over the past year.

The California surface current monitoring system is expected to become a regional element in a planned national integrated ocean observing system which, in turn, will be part of a global ocean observing system. Burr and Paul say we all will likely hear more about ocean observing systems soon; the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, appointed by President Bush, will include them prominently in its recommendations. The Commission's report will become public in December or January. Also, the Senate has already passed a bill by Senator Olympia Snowe (S. 1400, with co-sponsors that include California Senator Barbara Boxer) that would establish a national integrated ocean observing system.

In November, Burr and Paul presented the planned state surface currents monitoring system (which, with $21 million, is the best funded in the country) at a meeting of the national ocean observing system steering committee. The committee's response was to recommend that California's system become the national pilot program.

Earlier this year, the Coastal Conservancy asked Burr and Paul to help their staff plan and oversee implementation of the system and have given Commonweal's Ocean Policy Program a $275,000 grant for that work. Installation and operation of the system will be done by marine science institutions, and the selection process is well underway.

In April, the Coastal Conservancy issued a request for pre-proposals that was intended to encourage formation of multi-institution consortia. In November, with the assistance of science and agency advisors organized by Paul and Burr, the Conservancy chose a northern and a southern California consortium to develop detailed plans. The consortia include almost all of the leading marine science programs in the state, including, so far, scientists from five University of California campuses, four California State University campuses, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Detailed planning is to be completed and grants made in May, 2004.

Commonweal Helps Bay Area Take a Precautionary Approach to Public Policy

One of the key principles of CHE, built into its Consensus Statement, is the Precautionary Principle. The Precautionary Principle (continuing our observation about the parallels between ISHI's work with physicians and CHE's work on environmental health) is essentially the Hippocratic Oath for the environment: Primum non nocere ‚ Above all, do no harm. As a charter member of the Bay Area Working Group on the Precautionary Principle, Commonweal was closely involved in the past year with public education about this important tool for making better environmental decisions. The European Union has proposed a far-reaching precautionary approach to chemical policy, but the Precautionary Principle remains intensely contested in the United States. Senior Research Associate Davis Baltz writes:

"The Precautionary Principle stipulates that when threats of serious harm to people or natural systems exist, precautionary measures to reduce or eliminate harm should be undertaken even if cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. The Precautionary Principle calls for a careful analysis of alternatives using the best independent science.

"Most environmental and health decisions today ask the question, 'How much damage is allowable?' The Precautionary Principle, by contrast, asks a fundamentally different question, 'How little damage is possible?'

"On June 24, 2003, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 8-1 to adopt the Precautionary Principle as city policy, a dramatic breakthrough that received international attention. The ordinance reorganizes eleven separate pieces of environmental legislation into one Environment Code with a visionary Precautionary Principle policy statement serving as its first chapter. Commonweal Senior Research Associate Francesca Vietor played a key role in this victory. Francesca formerly served as Director of the Department of the Environment for San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

"Similarly, the Berkeley City Council voted 8-1 on October 14, 2003 to adopt a resolution in support of the Precautionary Principle. Berkeley's resolution charges staff with developing a draft ordinance to set forth a general city policy of precautionary decision-making."

Local ordinances and resolutions involving the Precautionary Principle, supported by constituencies concerned with environmental health across the country, build momentum for state laws which in turn prepare the way for national legislation. This is one of the critical ways in which the environmental health movement is gaining ground across the country.

Health Care Without Harm Continues to Drive Market Change in the Healthcare Industry

While work on the Precautionary Principle is going forward in communities across the country, the strongest movement for environmental health is taking place in grass roots-based, market-focused campaigns like Health Care Without Harm. Commonweal has helped launch a number of these campaigns in different industrial sectors. But Health Care Without Harm remains the flagship environmental health initiative that Commonweal has been involved with since HCWH's inception. This make sense - HCWH seeks to help the healthcare sector live by the Precautionary Principle, the Hippocratic Oath for the environment, and to do no harm.

In addition to his work on the Precautionary Principle, Davis Baltz also serves as Coordinator of Health Care Without Harm for California. HCWH has won significant victories by convincing the healthcare industry to change harmful practices, based on sound science and dedicated organizing.

In California, Davis writes, the most notable achievement this year was the listing by California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) of the phthalate di2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) as a reproductive and developmental toxicant under the state's Proposition 65 law. HCWH has worked for several years to replace this chemical in medical products, and the CalEPA listing will greatly accelerate the trend to safer alternatives. HCWH California partners produced four case studies of DEHP phase-outs at California hospitals, and developed a comprehensive list of DEHP-free alternative products, which is widely used in hospitals.

Meanwhile, the enormous opportunities to "green" design and building practices of the California healthcare industry multiplied as California hospitals continue to face statutory obligations to seismically retrofit all existing facilities. HCWH, in collaboration with the Healthy Building Network, produced a June 2003 symposium in Oakland entitled, "California Sustainable Hospital Forum: Designing and Building for Health" which attracted an overflow crowd from across the state.

HCWH also turned its attention to the use of pesticides in hospitals with the release of its report "Healthy Hospitals: Controlling Pests Without Harmful Pesticides." The report details hospitals' unnecessary use of dangerous pesticides, and includes suggestions and resources to help hospitals manage pests with the least toxic control methods.

Commonweal Works for Breast Milk Biomonitoring Supportive of Nursing Mothers

Sharyle Patton, Director of the Commonweal Health and Environment Program, has been working to heal the breach between environmental health activists and proponents of breast feeding since 1998. Last year she received an award from La Leche League International for helping these two communities understand and work more effectively together. The basic problem facing the two groups is that breastmilk is for many reasons an excellent substance to monitor for body burdens of toxic chemicals, but breastfeeding groups have been understandably concerned that discussion of chemicals in breastmilk can discourage women from nursing their babies.

Sharyle writes: "Discussions among environmental groups, breastmilk advocacy groups and Commonweal, begun at the first United Nations treaty negotiations on persistent organic pollutants in 1998, have resulted in breast-feeding advocates playing a deeply important role in a critical policy initiative in Europe over the past month. Record numbers of women concerned about the presence of toxic chemicals in breastmilk contacted their European legislators in support of a new approach to ensuring the safety of chemicals under consideration by the European Union. The new program is called REACH, a comprehensive new approach to chemical management that calls for the testing of 30,000 chemicals whose health effects on humans or ecosystems have not been adequately studied. This surge of interest in chemical body burdens by breastmilk advocacy groups and others has been informed and supported by work Commonweal has done throughout the years we have worked for the passage of the POPS (Persistent Organic Pollutants) Treaty. REACH, like the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, takes a strong Precautionary Principle approach to chemical safety. And, indeed, members of Congress in the United States have begun to ask why Americans do not deserve the same standards of chemical safety being pioneered in Europe. They have begun to introduce legislation to bring a precautionary approach to chemical management to the United States.

"Continuing the kind of work that has led to the breakthrough of concern of European women with toxins in breastmilk, Commonweal has co-authored with the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, La Leche League International, and others, a fact sheet to be used by groups in their response to women concerned about whether they should breast-feed their babies, given the ongoing headlines about chemical body burdens. In this fact sheet, we point out the value of testing breastmilk as a means to monitor human exposures to bioaccumulative and persistent chemicals while we support the critical importance of breastfeeding. This is the critical dual message that brings environmental health advocates and breastfeeding advocates together in their shared concern with safeguarding breastfeeding. It has sometimes been difficult to convey."

Last month Sharyle attended the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) General Assembly in Bangkok to discuss with others who worked together for the passage of the POPS Treaty the best use of the two-year grant awarded by the United Nations' Global Environmental Facility to IPEN for implementation of the POPs treaty through the establishment of regional hubs. This is a critically important grant from the UN that recognizes the essential role IPEN played in the passage of the POPS Treaty and recognizes its ongoing contribution to implementation of the treaty. Sharyle served as Co-Chair of IPEN during the successful fight to win the signing of the POPS Treaty. As current Chair of the IPEN community-monitoring working group, Sharyle will help these regional hubs develop as information exchange centers and project facilitators of non-governmental activities designed to eliminate or restrict those chemicals mandated for action under the terms of the treaty.

Steve Lerner Finishes Book on Norco, Louisiana; Continues Study of Fair Growth

Commonweal Research Director Steve Lerner has finished his book on Norco, Louisiana, the town where Commonweal worked with many allies and friends for two years to forge an agreement that allowed the residents of the African-American sub-division of Diamond to sell their homes for a fair price and move away from the fence line of a Shell chemical plant. The book is being considered by two publishers, and will likely be published by a major publishing house next year. Steve is now completing a study for the Ford Foundation on "Fair Growth," the national movement to supplement environmentally sensitive "Smart Growth" with urban and suburban development strategies that pay attention to the needs of low-income communities and communities of color.

Juvenile Justice Program: California Budget Squabble Is a Major Concern for 2004

Many readers know that David Steinhart, Director of the Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program, is an attorney that has done more for juvenile justice policy reform in California over the past twenty years than anyone else. What does the revolution in California politics mean for juvenile justice? David writes: "A central focus for the Juvenile Justice Program in 2004 is continuing work on our Wellness Foundation youth violence prevention grant. Our goal is to preserve the youth crime and violence program funding streams we were fortunate enough to create and sustain over the last three years. Success on this advocacy trail is usually based on how well you know the top-echelon leaders in Sacramento, plus some alchemy of opportunity, timing and luck. That's how we got Gray Davis to sign off on $120 million per year for county-level youth programs in 2000.

"What will Governor Arnold do with these funding streams now? His new budget slasher from Florida, Donna Arduin, has not even told the just-convened special session of the California legislature what cuts are recommended. As for the rest of the Governor's team, Schwarzenegger has put together an eclectic, experienced leadership group, but we have no easy connections. And, we see hints that the midstaff levels in the Governor's office are being filled by former Pete Wilson staffers, eager to return to the Capitol power base (not great news if you are working on juvenile justice reform). One thing is sure: the big bucks for after-school funding (Arnold's Proposition 49) will stay in the budget. On other fronts, we have submitted a proposal to the Walter S. Johnson Foundation to develop a model aftercare program for children released from county juvenile facilities, and if it is approved, which seems fairly likely, we will begin work on that project in January."

Cancer Help Program at a Crossroads as We Contemplate Future Work in Healing

The Cancer Help Program, which has been a signature program for Commonweal over the past eighteen years, is at a crossroads. I wish the truth were otherwise because it is always more comfortable to continue to do something you know you do unusually well. But, as Plato observed, the soul is unwilling to be deprived of truth. Truth, however challenging, is always more interesting than anything else. So I want to tell you the truth about the challenge before us for the Cancer Help Program.

After eighteen years and more than 120 week-long Cancer Help Programs, the CHP waiting list is at its lowest point since the early days of the program. And yet the CHP is as good a program for people with cancer as it ever was. We continue to get letters from alumni whose lives have been changed. CHP alumni days continue to draw together remarkable groups of people who want another taste of what they found at Commonweal. What happened to the waiting list, which used to be 18 months long? Our best guess is the following.

First, for almost twenty years, demand for the CHP was based on Rachel's two books, Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather's Blessing, my book, Choices in Healing, and the Bill Moyers documentary about the CHP, "Wounded Healers." During much of this time, Rachel and I were flying around the country speaking about the Cancer Help Program, which represented a significant contribution to healing with cancer. Now, Rachel is speaking more frequently about medical education and about the healing power of our personal stories. I have been grounded by my heart attack for the past six months, but for the past several years I have been speaking in public more about environmental health than about the Cancer Help Program. As a result, far fewer people heard about the Cancer Help Program in the past several years. We have never done any systematic outreach for the CHP ‚ we do not even have a brochure! We always let word of mouth be the means by which people heard about this remarkable program.

Second, there is a broad secular trend of declining demand for healing programs across the United States. It has probably been fueled in part by the post-September 11 mood of caution, in part by economic worries, and in part by changes in the culture. The point is that the decline in demand for the CHP may be partially explained by similar reduction in demand for many other healing programs. Our Smith Farm Center in Washington, D.C., is also facing a decline in Cancer Help Program enrollments, although its day-long cancer support workshops and its programs for art in hospitals are both thriving. I know of many other examples of retreat programs for healing that are facing declining enrollment. Something is happening in the economy or the culture or both that is changing the demand structure for residential retreats for healing. What it is, and whether it is permanent or not, we do not know.

Third, and this may be related to the second point, the CHP was quite revolutionary when we introduced it eighteen years ago. During the past two decades the mind-body-spirit health movement, in which Commonweal has played a central role, swept the country. Now, the CHP is still excellent, but it is no longer revolutionary. It is an example of best practices for helping people heal with cancer, but people can find many of the component pieces of the CHP in their home communities. In fact, Commonweal contributed a great deal to the development of local programs for people with cancer through the Commonweal Cancer Help Program Tradecraft workshops and through Rachel's Institute for the Study of Health and Illness programs. A case in point is the spread of psychosocial support groups for breast cancer patients. Breast cancer patients were always the lead group among participants in the Cancer Help Program. Now, with outpatient breast cancer support programs becoming ubiquitous, many women may feel less need for a residential retreat like the CHP.

If the CHP had done its job, we would be happy to declare victory and go on to other work. But we are not convinced that this is the case. The CHP remains, we believe, the best psychospiritual residential support program for people with cancer available in the country today. It can help people reach levels of inner experience that are rare in outpatient support groups or individual therapy. So the value for people with cancer remains. The obvious thing for us to do is to spread the news about the CHP, and we intend to do exactly that.

But spreading the word is not the only thing we should do. The fact that Waz Thomas, who has been at the heart of the CHP for eighteen years, is planning to retire speaks to an intuitive sense I have that we will need to reinvent the CHP. And reinventing the CHP for the changed needs of a new period of time also makes sense. What would be the cutting edge contribution we could make for people with cancer now?

And should we restrict ourselves to helping people with cancer? My experience with this heart opening has certainly led me to the conclusion that there could be a special place for Commonweal if we decided to work with heart disease. We have also discussed the possibility of healing programs for people with a wider and more diverse range of healing issues and interests. The point is that this decline in enrollment in the CHP, coinciding as it does with Waz's plans to retire, have given us a strong stimulus to re-think the Cancer Help Program and our work with residential healing programs more generally.

In considering the renewal of residential and non-residential healing retreats at Commonweal, whether for cancer, or heart disease, or indeed for the wounds that all of us carry in one way or another, I have been talking with Rachel Naomi Remen and others about what the best contribution we can make now would be. Part of the challenge of thinking about this renewal process for me is personal. I am certain that the heart opening I have experienced following the heart attack will enable me to speak about the healing process from a new and deeper perspective than ever before. The question before me personally is how best to share my story with others and to learn from the stories of friends old and new about their wounds and their quests. Rachel recently offered, as we mentioned above, a new ISHI retreat that gave people the opportunity to tell their stories. So we are reflecting deeply both on the evolution of the Cancer Help Program and the evolution of our work in healing more broadly.

We welcome your thoughts about the Cancer Help Program and other possible Commonweal healing programs. What would serve you best in Commonweal's work in healing? What do you think might be the greatest service for Commonweal? CHP alumni know that the Cancer Help Program changes lives. The core of the CHP is based on a perennial wisdom that will never be in need of change or renewal. But whether we should rethink how we offer this perennial wisdom about healing is a valid question.

The take-home message for you, gentle reader, is to help us spread the word about the Cancer Help Program. Many people tell me they do not apply for the program because they assume it would take too long to get in or they assume the program is only for people with advanced cancer. Neither of these things is true! In the best of all worlds, we renew demand for the CHP by spreading the word and we explore new contributions that we can make to a wider circle of people interested in healing and consciousness. So please, tell a friend about the Cancer Help Program. Spread the good news.

Thanks to the Foundations That Make Commonweal's Work Possible

The heavy lifting that makes Commonweal's major educational and policy programs possible is done by a dedicated group of foundations. We owe deep gratitude to the following foundations (and several nonprofit organizations) for their support this year:

The Alan and Nancy Baer Foundation, Alberta Kimball Foundation, Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, Beatrice Renfield Foundation, Beldon Fund, Benificus Foundation, Bernard Osher Foundation, Boeschen Family Foundation, The Breast Cancer Fund, California Wellness Foundation, Colleen and Robert D. Haas Fund (San Francisco Foundation), Dallas Jewish Community Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, David H. Smith Foundation, David L. Klein, Jr. Foundation, Ford Foundation, George Family Foundation, Health Care Without Harm, Homeland Foundation, Jenifer Altman Foundation, Jennifer H. Small Trust, John Merck Fund, Katz-Snyder Fund (Jewish Family and Children's Services), Marin Breast Cancer Council, McCarthy Family Fund, Michelson Foundation, New York Community Trust, Open Society Institute, Panta Rhea Foundation, Roy A. Hunt Foundation, San Francisco Medical Society, San Francisco Foundation, Seven Springs Foundation, Szekely Family Fund, Tides Foundation, Triangle Community Foundation, and the United Way.

Heartfelt Thanks to All Commonweal Friends Who Supported Us Last Year — Please Keep Us in Mind as You Make Year-End Contributions

Commonweal is extraordinarily fortunate to have an almost uniquely loyal and supportive community of friends who contribute to our work. These individual contributions provide the real glue that keeps Commonweal together. They also provide most of the support for our direct service programs ‚ especially the Cancer Help Program. And they contribute to all Commonweal programs by helping us meet core costs that are not covered by larger grants. The support we receive from you, the Commonweal community, is really the lifeblood of our work.

We hope that you will join the community of Commonweal Friends who contribute to Commonweal and continue to make our work possible. We offer our profound gratitude to the following Commonweal Friends who have given us their support this past year:

Daniel Aarons, Bernard S. Aarons, Suzannah and Gerry Abrams, Martin and Cessy Agegian, Edward K. Aldworth, Donna and Tom Ambrogi, Anne M. Andrews, Rita Arditti, Justine Auchincloss, Alan Baer, Bradford A. Balkus, Iris Baranof, Debra Barry, Katherine Barshay, Carl Bellini, Ian Berke, Gerda and Jeffrey Bernstein, Sally, Nelson and Jake Blower, Seymour Boorstein, M.D., Wendy Botwin, Barbara Boucke, Ed and Nancy Boyce, Katherine C. Bradley, Ursula Brandt, Ph.D., Paula Braverman, Janet Breuner, Anne Maiden Brown, Elliott D Buchdruker, Diana Klotz Buckner, Jody Bush, Andrew and Dawn Carman, Steven Chase, Ronald Chez, Lena Choo, Steve Christensen, Stephen Christensen, Virginia Coe, John Colla-Negri, Philip J. Collora, Carroll Covey, Madeline Crivello, Karen Cunningham, Barry Custer, Justine Daniel, Nicholas J. Daniello, M.D., Marcy Darnovsky, John Davey and Lisa Ericksen, Art Davidson, Karen A. Day, Electra De Peyster, Thomas and Gun Denhart, Mia Dodson, John and Ann Doerr, William Drayton, Barbara Duchon, Arthur and Carla Eaton, Edith Eddy, Barbara and Richard Edmonds, Kofoworola Egbeyemi-Domingo, Nancy England, Hilarie Faberman, Monique Ferris, Wayne L. and Margery G. Field, John E. Fischler, Samuel and Juliet Fleischmann, Theresa Fletcher, Rochelle D. Foster, Helena R. Foster, Mrs. Margaret Francis and Family, Arthur and Carolyne Frasco, Charles L. and Virginia M. Fritz, George R. Fulginiti, Matthew Gardner, Howard Gardner, Scott Gardner and Michael Duncheon, Louise Gartner, Deborah J. Gerner, Louise Gilbert, Cynthia Gin, Ruth Glanz, Daniel Goleman, Gene Gordon, The Gormley Family,Tom Goselin, Susan Gotbetter, Sally and Gil Gradinger, Cynthia J. Graham, Lindy Graham, Richard M. and Gretchen D. Grant, David A. Greenburg, Sadja Greenwood, Sharon Grodin, Gene and Elogeanne Grossman, Joan and David Grubin, Jessie Gruman, Ph.D., Charles and Susan Halpern, Robert and Joy Hausman, Frances Hayden, Steve L. Heilig, Sharon Herman, Evangeline Hermanson, Susan Hester, John Hidalgo, Sally Hindman and Daniel Sawislak, Chris Hitt, Lois Crozier Hogle, Connie Holmes, Roy W. Howard, Barbara Olivia Jackson, Marty Johnson, M.F.C.C., Robert and Kelly Jones, Robert Emlen Jones, Karen Jurgens, Dieter Kallinke, Stephen and Carol Noel King, Joan Klagsbrun, Ph.D., Nan Schuman Klein, Maxine Kraemer, Alyse Laemmle, Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., Kathy Larocque, Cathryn Lee, Lenore Lefer, M.S., M.F.C.C., Mary Lenox, Beth Lepore, Iyana Christine Leveque, Thomas Lewis, Noreen and Mitchell Linden, Barbara Lipkin-Luther, Dr. Michael Litrel, Erika Bast Little, Madeline Littlefield, Betty P. Lupton, Donald Magnin Family Fund, Idelisse Malave, Bonnie Maly, S. Jerome Mandel, Susan Mangum, Bennett and Wendy Markel, Mary Marcus and Richard Muse, Joan Martin, Colleen Martin, Joseph E. Mason, Jr. M.D., Joe Matazzoni, Elaine McCarthy, Mary Lee McCune, Susan B. McIntosh, Rohana McLaughlin, Margaret McNamara, Richard and Anne Melbye, Margaret G. Mellon, Josie Merck, Pamela Meyer, Frances and Warren Michael, Patricia Mickey, James S. Miller, Elise Miller, Malvina Miller, Iris M. Milne, Martha Missirlian, George G. Montgomery, Jr., Barbara Moorman, Richard Morrison, Dorothy Mozen, Craig Mukai, Fitzhugh Mullan, M.D., Nolan and Mary Murdock, Mary Louise Myers, Stephen Myers, Michael Myers, Anne Firth Murray, Anita Nager, Ronald and Irene Nakasone, George S. and Penny L Nann, Albert P. Neilson, Marion Nestle, Jane Norling, Rochelle Nwadibia, Mary and Kevin O'Connell, Carol Oja-Tucker, Nancy and James Osborn, Gail Paradise, Martha Payne, Keith I. Block, M.D. and Penny B. Block, Stephen R. Perry, Joan E. Peterson, Edith Piltch, Diana Pittman, Nancy A. Presson, Virginia Presti, Mia Radtke, Sharon Malm Read, Andrea Reed, Timothy Reilly, and Kathleen Hayden, Beatrice Renfield, James Renfrew, Bob Riboli, J.P. Richards, Vicki Robin, Susan Robinson and Joyce Clements, Ruth Rosen, Roger A. Rosenblatt, Debra and Bill Rostenberg, Diana and Don Rothman, Les and Roxanne Cramer, Debra Samuel, Kelly Sanders, Reuben Hale and Sarah Schafer, Steve Schechter, Joyce Schnobrich, Robert and Catherine Scholes, Beth Setrakian, Peter and Carol Shaughnessy, Norman and Claire Sherman, Suzanne Silkworth, Marilyn Silva, Sidney and Margaret Silver, Sandra Silverman, Jay Simoneaux, Deloy Simper, Norval Sinclair, Robert and Wendy Singley, Andrew J. Small, Mary Stephens Smith, Alan Snyder and Susan Katz-Snyder, Marcia Soffer, Shelly S. Sorenson, Charles and Tracy Stephenson, James Steyer, April Strasbaugh, Sara Stuart, Shira Stutman, Carolyn Svenson, Anne Symens-Bucher, Toby Symington, Deborah Szekely, Gregory Tarsy, Sally Tilton, Tricia Skennion, Mary Ann Valiulus, Valerie Vargas, Elizabeth Vayhinger, Francesca Vietor and Mark Hertsgaard, Murry and Marilyn Waldman, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Walker, Harold and Laura Ware, Debra Weinberg, Arnold Weiss, Albert and Susan Wells, Paula Gordon White, Elizabeth Williams, Melissa Wong, Jane Holt Wythe, Wen Winny Yang, Rachael Young, Julie Yozamp and Rick Giardino, Suzanne Zane and the FSU Marching Band Half Time Club, Robert J. Zimmer, and Matthew B. Zwerling.

Heartfelt thanks to each of these true Friends of Commonweal.

Conclusion

As you can tell, dear reader, this has been a remarkable six-month period for Commonweal. It has been a time of challenge, of loss, and also of renewal. The good news is that most Commonweal programs are as strong as ever. The other good news is that we have an extraordinary new Executive Director in Charlotte Brody, who will help guide Commonweal in the coming years. It is a wonderful challenge to reinvent our work with children over the coming year. And it is a deep challenge to ensure that the Cancer Help Program remains as vital as it has been for the past eighteen years as we consider other contributions we can make to work in healing. These cycles of reflection and renewal in our programs are as natural as the cycles of change we have experienced in the Commonweal staff. They are not always easy. But loss and renewal, death and rebirth, are forever linked in the cycle of all life.

I do hope you will help us continue our work. I enclose an envelope for your convenience. Contributions in memory of Carolyn Brown will be dedicated to supporting and renewing our work with children. You can specify which program you want to support or send a contribution for general Commonweal support.

Thanks for being part of the Commonweal community in this time of transformation of our work. And please remember to hold Commonweal in your thoughts and prayers.

With warm best wishes,

Michael Lerner President

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