Turquoise Chalice Award Past Honorees
2008 Award Recipient: Lee Maynard and The Storehouse
Lee Maynard was born and raised in the hardscrabble ridges and hard-packed mountains of West Virginia, an upbringing that hardened his life, shaped his writing, and created a restlessness that he has never lost.
And caused him to become a college drop-out.
Leaving West Virginia University out of sheer frustration, he wandered west, ending up on the street in Los Angeles. Finding street life not to his liking, he joined the army, spending three years as a criminal investigator. That experience was enough to fully demonstrate the value of education, of learning to do something else: he left the army and went straight back to college. This time he did not drop out, graduating with a degree in journalism and continuing with graduate work in mass communications.
As editor and publisher of a conservation magazine, he was an award-winning writer and photographer. Still restless, he began to write fiction at odd hours of hot Appalachian nights.
At the age of 29 he was appointed as the first secretary of the new West Virginia Commission on Manpower and Technology, the youngest to hold such a position in that state.
He joined the staff of Outward Bound, a national experiential education organization, eventually becoming national director of operations. It was Lee’s first full immersion into the private, nonprofit world.
The educational philosophy of Outward Bound was adopted by Prescott College in Arizona, and Lee was asked to join the college to meld the experiential and academic methodologies. He served as vice chancellor of Prescott College and president of the Prescott Institute for Experiential Education. After leaving the college, he served a term as chairman of the college’s board of directors. It was during his tenure in Prescott that he completed his first novel.
Always restless, he designed a ski resort in Colorado, then moved to Santa Fe, where he and his wife, Helen, created a number of businesses.
His combination of for-profit and nonprofit experience created a demand for his services as a consultant. Quickly developing a reputation as a “fixer”, he has been a consultant to local, national and international nonprofits, and a management and editorial consultant to newspapers, magazines and publishing companies.
And he kept writing. He has been published more than 100 times, including short stories and novels. His second novel was awarded a Literary Fellowship in Fiction by the National Endowment for the Arts. Much of Maynard’s fiction is highly controversial. His novel, Crum, was banned in his home state. In 1987 he wrote his first article for Reader’s Digest, and has written for them continuously since.
In 2003, Lee was asked to assess the situation at The Storehouse, a decades-old nonprofit food pantry. Initially of the opinion that The Storehouse should be closed, he quickly changed his mind. (“It was the children, hungry children . . . ”) With the backing of a dedicated board of directors and the assistance of an able staff, Lee kept The Storehouse open. Today, The Storehouse is the largest food pantry in New Mexico, providing more food to the hungry than at any time in the pantry’s history.
An avid outdoorsman and adventurer from the “old school”, Lee is a mountaineer, sea kayaker, and former professional river runner. He once co-piloted a single-engine aircraft from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Honduras; rode a motorcycle from Santa Fe to the Arctic Circle; and swam a major rapid in the Grand Canyon wearing a pair of child’s plastic water wings. (“That wasn’t my idea—but I learned a lot about managing things in time of stress.”)
The Storehouse
Hunger tends to focus the mind.
If you are hungry, there is little else you will be thinking about – not your lack of medical insurance, not education, not the health of your teeth . . . nothing. If you are hungry, you might not be too concerned that your child can’t read, or reads badly, because your child is hungry, too. You are not going to be too upset that your child is not in top physical shape—actually, you may be pleased that your child is still walking around. If you and your child are hungry.
And it gets worse. If you are hungry, such things as a home, job, medical treatment . . . Yes, deep inside you know how critical these things are. But you can’t pursue them as you normally might. After all, you are hungry. And until you can stop being hungry, you aren’t going to pay attention.
Hunger tends to focus the mind. Hunger brings people to The Storehouse.
The Storehouse is the largest food pantry in New Mexico, and ranks in the top 10 percent of food pantries in volume in the United States.
How did it get that way?
In 2003, The Storehouse knew that it must dramatically change the way it operated in order to gather the food necessary to provide (in fiscal 2007) 2.4 million meals to thousands of hungry families in the Greater Albuquerque area, and to raise the funds necessary to support full-time operations. The Storehouse embarked on a course of professionalism; it dramatically changed the way it did things.
The Storehouse established broad service guidelines as it strived to respond to the constantly growing demands for hunger relief in the community. The average food “pantry” (a woefully inadequate label for an organization the size of The Storehouse) operates one day per week, perhaps for a few hours in an afternoon. The Storehouse operates five days weekly. Production figures from The Storehouse are so far above the average food pantry as to be, literally, off the scale:
- In 2003, with a budget of approximately $467,000, The Storehouse provided more than 900,000 meals
- In 2004, , with a $410,000 budget more than 1.2 million meals
- In 2005, with a $420,000 budget, more than 1.7 million meals
- In 2006, with a $425,000 budget, more than 2.53 million meals (On November 21, 2006, three days before Thanksgiving, The Storehouse provided 19,826 meals in a single day, sixty percent of the meals provided in all of 1996.)
In three years, The Storehouse achieved an increase of 178% in productivity with a 6% decrease in operating expense, a management feat seldom equaled in either the for-profit or nonprofit worlds.
But The Storehouse is not a sterile, unfeeling organization. Even today, it seems there is little difference in the culture and operating methods of The Storehouse and in the needs of the mass of Albuquerque’s hungry that The Storehouse serves. In other words, The Storehouse provides free food and clothing, and the organizational philosophy of The Storehouse and its staff is built directly on that mission. The organization understands those who are hungry. In fact, of the nine staff members of The Storehouse, eight are either former customers or volunteers of The Storehouse. The compassion of The Storehouse is a direct result of that built-in life experience.
The Storehouse, as an organized ministry, was birthed by the New Mexico Conference of Churches in 1973. In 2003, NMCC assumed management of The Storehouse until it was able to become independent again in 2007.
2007 Award Recipient: The Rev. Joel P. Garner, O.Praem.
Rev. Joel P. Garner, O.Praem., a member of the Norbertine Community, has been in pastoral leadership at Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary parish in Albuquerque as well as Prior of the Norbertine Santa Maria de la Vid Priory since 1985. Prior to coming to New Mexico he was a member of the Religious Studies faculty and pastor of the campus parish at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin. He also directed a summer Theological Institute at the college for fifteen years. Later he became Director of Formation for the Seminarians and the founding director of the Norbertine Spirituality Center at St. Norbert Abbey. Fr. Garner has been involved in a number of ecumenical activities. He chairs the board of the Ecumenical Institute for Ministry, the educational efforts of which include a Masters of Theological Studies degree in cooperation with St. Norbert College. He is also a member of the project team of Called Back to the Well, an ecumenical program for clergy spiritual renewal funded by the Lilly Endowment. He has been a clergy participant in Albuquerque Interfaith, a broad-based community organizing effort which teaches people how to be active, effective citizens in working toward the improvement of the quality of life in their neighborhoods and city. Fr. Garner holds a Masters Degree in Theology from Marquette University in Milwaukee and a Doctorate in Religion and Education from Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University in New York City.
2006 Award Recipient: J. Paul Taylor
Mr. Taylor served for three decades in the Las Cruces Public Schools as a teacher, principal and as Associate Superintendent for Instruction. A long-time historian and activist, Mr. Taylor was elected to the New Mexico House of Representatives in 1988 and served until 2002. He has championed the causes of children, the elderly, the poor, the arts and historic preservation. Paul Taylor is descended from a family with deep roots and a record of public service in New Mexico, stretching back to the second wave of Spanish colonists who arrive in 1600, to ancestors who served in the Territorial Legislature. In 2002 Taylor and his wife, Mary, decided to bequest their historic home on the Mesilla plaza and collections to the state to be operated as a State Monument. They also leave their extensive collection of historic furnishings, art objects and paintings. The Taylors' have raised seven children and all have a deep commitment to the Mesilla community. Mr. Taylor is a Roman Catholic in the Diocese of Las Cruces.
2005 Award Recipient: Bishop Minerva Carcaño
The Reverend Minerva Carcaño is the first Hispanic clergywoman to be elected a United Methodist bishop. She has a master’s degree from Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, and a bachelor’s degree with a specialization in social work from the University of Texas–Pan American in Edinburgh. With a wide-ranging history of service in the United Methodist Church, she was previously the superintendent of the Metropolitan District of the Oregon-Idaho Conference. From 1996 to 2001, she served as director of the Mexican-American Program, the Hispanic Studies Program, coordinator of the Spanish Language Section of the Course of Study School and adjunct faculty at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
Bishop Carcaño has also been a district superintendent in the Rio Grande Conference, an organizing pastor in Albuquerque, and from 1979 to 1992 was pastor of local churches throughout Texas. She was a director of the former United Methodist Board of Education and has served as a director on the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Board of Church and Society and the United Methodist Publishing House. She served on two General Conference commissions–The Theological Task and the Connectional Process Team and on the South Central and Western jurisdictions’ Korean ministry councils. She was a delegate to the 1996 and 2004 General Conferences and to the 1998 World Council of Churches Assembly in Zimbabwe, Africa.
Bishop Carcaño was the first woman President of the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Conference of Churches.
2004 Award Recipient: Alice M. King
As First Lady of New Mexico, Alice M. King simply had too many accomplishments and honors to enumerate here. She chaired the Governorâs Task Force on Children and Families in 1991, holding Town Meetings across the state and developing recommendations for restructuring state government services for children. Mrs. King led the lobbying effort, which resulted in the creation of a first-in-the-nation Children, Youth and Families Department.
The Turquoise Chalice Award and Benefit dinner was attended by many people who were excited about Mrs. King receiving this prestigious honor in addition to numerous others for her work with families, youth and children.
2003 Award Recipient: Father Ernie Falardeau
A packed ballroom at La Posada Hotel in Albuquerque was on hand to participate in the first annual Turquoise Chalice Award and Benefit dinner. The evening’s speaker was noted New Mexico Author, Tony Hillerman (left). The award went to Father Ernie Falardeau (right), long time deputy for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe to the New Mexico Conference of Churches. Father Falardeau was the chair of the Faith and Order Task Force for five years at the NMCC. He assisted in forming several ongoing dialogues with the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande and with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Rocky Mountain Synod. A number of important initiatives were begun such as the signing of a special relationship with the diocese of the Rio Grande and the celebration of the Justification by Faith Accord between the Vatican and the World Lutheran Federation in 1999.
Fr. Falardeau has received a number of awards for his ecumenical ministry, notably the 1997 James Fitzgerald Award for “outstanding contribution and service to Christian unity” by the National Association of Diocesan Ecumenical Officers (NADEO) and the New Mexico Conference of Churches’ Ecumenical Pioneer Award in 1989 and Twenty Years of Service Award from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1999.
A native of Holyoke, Massachusetts, Fr. Ernie Falardeau, S.S.S. is a member of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers and Brothers, ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1965.
