Bridget Center of Wisconsin is a blossoming charitable education non-profit organization just West of Kewaskum, WI, founded in 2012. It has been a venue for celebrations and events that educate and build our community, while also forming partnerships with other groups and 501(c)3’s helping each other achieve our Missions and Visions. BC is currently going through a metamorphosis. In the past, BC has hosted a variety of events that have brought people together in many ways, but now Bridget’s new Mission Circle (Board of Directors) is breathing new life into the project. With so many great ideas, we have a lot of work to do to make our dreams a reality. We’ve made a prioritized To-Do-List, and starting to check things off one by one.

We found a new style of governance that seems to suit us well, Sociocracy! It is helping us establish how meetings are conducted, recorded and shared, and to build an ever-evolving non-hierarchical body operating with interdependent, autonomous circles that relate inwards and outwards rather than a top-down.  Members will not hold power over other members, but respectfully empower each other, finding value in their unique contributions to the group, holding each other accountable, and encouraging each other to take collective ownership.  

Our new Mission, Vision, and Values:

  • BC’s Mission is to celebrate our interrelationships with Nature.

  • BC’s Vision is to co-create a nourishing environment where people nurture the art of living in harmony with the Self, each other, and the Earth.

  • The Values of Bridget Center inform and guide our choices and actions.

    We…

    • Embrace sacred relationships with our life-giving Earth

    • Utilize the Art & Science and Principles of Permaculture 

    • Empower community to realize dreams through a collective effort 

    • Assume that parts of a whole are intimately interconnected

    • Honor our ancestors

    • Encourage child-like curiosity in learning

    • Practice gratitude

    • Recognize patterns of birth and death

Here are a couple examples of activities that have happened here in the past:

  1. Veterans’ retreat through The Sparta Project, fostering transformative healing and empowering experiences in our walking meditation labyrinth. 

  2. The Womb Rites Ceremony was a gathering to honor the powerful Creator within all of us and from which we came, and to recognize the nurturing power of the Womb and the Earth.  Participants had communion with one another, through personal sharing and reflection, readings of poetry and literature, co-creation of a seed mandala ceremoniously cast onto the land, and a water blessing ceremony.

  3. Memorial services have been held, the beginning of Bridget’s Green Burial Gardens: a growing movement reviving old ideas with new science to provide eco-friendly funerary services.  Green Burial eliminates the use of embalming fluid, coffin, casket or tomb, metal, or monument.  The idea to return the physical body to decompose and reintegrate into the Oneness of the Earth is a valuable and powerful spiritual, environmental and economic idea that BC embraces.  Cremated remains are mixed into compost soil and ceremoniously poured into the ground for a tree planting.  Families and loved ones of those buried support BC’s Mission and Vision and are happy to have a place to visit in loving memory.

  4. Small concert events have been held creating community and network opportunities with music, food and a “sharing blanket” helping everyone cycle junk from home into treasure for someone else.

  5. Nonviolent Communication Workshop through CNVC 501(c)3, empowering people to peacefully and effectively resolve conflict. NVC has been adopted into our Policies and Procedures, and into our daily lives.

  6. Classes on various Permaculture related topics including Hugelkultur Berms, Compost Gardens, Medicinal Herbs and Natural Remedies.  We aim to advance education in such fields to foster care for the Earth, which in turn cares for our body, mind and spirit, and for each other.

  7. Holistic Healing group sessions have offered a variety of ways for one to reconnect to a sound body and sound mind. Mental, physical, and spiritual health has been and will be a prime focus for BC. 

  8. Partnerships have been made with local Boy Scout Troop 744, New Fane Sportsman Club, and MKE Riverkeeper 501(c)3 to beautify and restore the Milwaukee River in Kewaskum’s River Hill Park and along Riverview Dr.  On numerous occasions work has been done to pick up litter and take out invasive species.  BC recognizes that the health of the River in our community is connected to the health of the River in other communities, and to our personal health.  Efforts have also been made encouraging the Village to consider the future of the dam in the park and how it affects the ecosystem.

On to the Future!  The Donation and Membership-Supported Bridget Center has a lot to offer!  Besides Activities and Event Programming, BC will also have renovated rentable spaces available to groups and individuals within and without the BC organization. These spaces include:

  • a gazebo with lawn space

  • an old stone chapel building, the future Temple of Sound and Silence, will host weddings, dances, performances, art exhibitions, retreats, practitioners’ offices, etc.

  • the old schoolhouse, the future Bridget’s Guest House, will have lodging options and a large community kitchen for educational purposes and small event catering. 

BC’s future Activities are largely considered Educational.  It is a home for transformational learning, providing diverse programming in three basic categories:

  1. Sustainability: Guided by the Principles of Permaculture, we explore methods, skills and lifestyles that individuals can practice to support themselves, their communities and ecosystems, big and small, near and far, promoting holistic efficiency, mitigating stress on greater systems and creating opportunities to help one’s neighbor.  Programming will include but not be limited to: General Permaculture Practices; Gardening; Agriculture; Livestock; Radical Homemaking; Food Cultivation and Preservation; Transition Culture; Green Burial;

  2. Communication Skills and Expressive Arts: The learning is in the process, not the outcome.  We find connection with others when we are able to express ourselves.  We feel seen and heard when we are able to successfully convey our ideas and emotions.  Communication skills and expressive arts can help us better understand one another despite having great differences and are beneficial to one’s mental health. Programming will include but not be limited to: Nonviolent Communication; Sociocracy For All; Guide to the Work That Reconnects; Performing Arts; Visual Arts; Art Therapy; Poetry; 

  3. Holistic Health and Healing Arts:  We explore ways to promote wellness with the understanding that the whole is composed of many integral parts.  Our health depends on the intentional care given to our body, mind, and spirit.  Programming will include but not be limited to:  Food as Medicine; Medicinal Plants and Natural Remedies; Farm to Fork; Meditation; Sound Healing; Yoga; Qi Gong; Tai Chi; Reiki; Ceremonies & Rituals; Birth and Death Doula Training; Grief Counseling;