Wellesley Youth Group

Since 2012, the Wellseley Village Church youth group from Massachusetts has volunteered with Cornerstones, in Santa Fe and its surrounding communities, helping to preserve the Santa Domingo Trading Post, the San Miguel Chapel, the Agua Fria Village entrance monument and other similar projects. This year they returned to Santa Fe in April to inaugurate an adobe yard in the Plaza del Cerro in Chimayo, a National Historic District. Fifty high schoolers and their advisors spent spring break mining clay dirt, making 715 adobe bricks and mud plastering, all essential to preserving parts of the plaza. The Chimayo community and Cornerstones are so grateful to this hardworking group of young people and are hoping to see them in April 2019!
We recently received a thank you letter from the Wellesley youth group along with pictures and comments. We'd like to share a few of them with you!

“Thank you, Jake, for making a difference and showing us how to do so.” Stacey
“Thank you all so much! Fun and rewarding work - absolutely loved it.” Kelly
“I enjoyed building a wall.” Billy
“Glad we could help!” Anna
“We are so happy the bricks we made will rebuild the plaza buildings.” Jim
“Inspiring!” Dave
“We are grateful for muddy hands!” Pam

Adobe Brick-Making during the Historic Preservation Month of May

Over four consecutive Saturdays in May, Cornerstones and Historic Santa Fe Foundation celebrated Heritage Preservation Month by conducting our 2nd annual adobe brick-making workshop series in the courtyard of the Palace of the Governors and at San Miguel Chapel in Santa Fe. Over 200 volunteers made bricks and/or stayed to learn. The bricks will be used to restore buildings in northern New Mexico and each participant who signed up will be mailed a Certificate of Accomplishment with detailed information about the new home for their bricks. We greatly appreciate the volunteers who came from across the country and from as far away as Taiwan. Along with the thousands of other volunteers who help in earthen architectural preservation, their enthusiasm and hard work are the heartbeat of our mission. We look forward to welcoming many more brick-makers in May 2019!