Explore how you might give and/ or tendril into the emerging network.

Help us birth an accessible grief sanctuary for New Mexico, and beyond. All proceeds are carefully distributed by Únashay’s board towards community grief care, internal staffing, admin and sanctuary program development.

  • Whether a 1-time donation or ongoing giving as a Sanctuary Patron, there are many ways you can offer tax-exempt donations.

    → DONATE

  • Support the grieving by sponsoring a tax-exempt Grief +/ or Artist residency. Help us bring under-resourced individuals out of isolation, and into the community care they need. Read below and visit “Sponsor a Residency” to give.

    → LEARN MORE

  • Tendril in to the emerging network of grief companions we’re building all across the queer spectrum of experience, skill, support + wisdom. This includes volunteer + paid independent contractor roles.

    → LEARN MORE

Above is artist friend Taliah Rey, drawing in our woodshop shed. 2023.

 

Sponsor a Residency: give the gift of sponsorship

Support the grieving, by sponsoring a Grief +/ or Artist residency. Help us bring under-resourced individuals out of isolation, and into the care they need.

This is at the root of Únashay’s work. It's about bringing presence to the isolated, staying with what hurts, and insisting that no one should be unnecessarily isolated while grieving.

Consider a (tax-exempt) residency sponsorship to bring under-resourced individuals and groups into the rest, connection and community care they need. 

Residencies will:
* Offer space to slow down, be with the land, create, and in one’s solitude.
* Provide connected presence and land-based care by qualified grief-aware Companions, Artists, Cooks, Movers, Body Workers and more, according to one's needs.
* Provide ongoing care, community and resources (local and online).

Click below to learn more and give.

See below all the ways residencies might look.

  • Grief residency for a loved one

    This is for those who have a loved one(s) who you wish to gift a residency, to step away from their day to day life, collapse, rest and be supported. It would be a 3 to 7-day residency, and designed according to their needs.

  • Group residency

    This is for groups in need rest together, nourishing food, ceremony, play, training and more. Write us to discuss.

  • Artist residency

    If you have an artist/ writer/ musician loved one, who could benefit from time away to work on their creative project, consider sponsoring a residency for them.

  • Caretakers residency

    This would be for the caretakers, Elders, culture workers, in need of space to grieve, eat nourishing food, and be supported by the land and community. Write us to discuss.

  • Queer grief residency

    This is for the wide spectrum of queer-related grief, whether you were born into a religious family and feel as if you lost the sense of belonging that once brought, have undergone gender transition, have lost loved ones to death, and so much more, write us to discuss.

  • Collective genocide grief

    This is for those struggling and grieving over the genocide in Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Ukraine, and more. As well as all past and present colonialism, including the deep trauma with Indigenous community that has happened on this very land we inhabit. Write us to discuss.

  • Other

    We know we are barely touching the surface of all quiet, painful and (often) isolated grief. Write us with your need/ idea, and we can discuss.

  • Veteran grief

    This is for veterans who might benefit from a stay with us, to listen to/ and explore their grief in a supportive environment. Write us to discuss.

  • Relationship loss

    This, like all grief, is a wide spectrum of experience… and, hurts like hell. Relationship loss, in all its many forms, can break the heart open, over not only the loss of that person(s), but who you were when with them. Write us to discuss.

See spaces + inquire

Volunteer +/ or Apply to be a Grief Companion

There are many ways to volunteer or be a paid contractor to offer your skill set (whether it is cooking warm meals, offering qualified grief counseling, ritual, body work, art, music, writing support, and more).

For support related to our monthly Noria grief cafés, visit Noria café.

Want to learn more and be a Companion?

Want to volunteer?

Transparency as we go

As Únashay develops, we recognize that (for now) we have to build a world within a world, in order to do this work. As such, we are working hard to build transparency and a generative, collaborative, relational way forward, in the council of land and community.

With that said, we run as a non-profit and LLC, foR paid and unpaid offerings for the grieving. The LLC (small for-profit business) helps us maintain the spaces and personal living needs. And the non-profit, Únashay Sanctuary, Inc, will enable us to seek broader resourcing to develop and sustain the sanctuary, as well as cover the cost of under-resourced community. The dream is to balance the scales and move attention and resources to who needs it most. And, the non-profit will help us do this.

Up until now, we have received support from generous donors (i.e. a $20,000 gift directed by neighbor Pat McCabe from Jubilee Gift), as well as grant awards/ sponsorships from The Envision Fund of Santa Fe Community Foundation and McCune Foundation, from which we have used to build more operational capacity, to develop our programs and make them more accessible to under-resourced community.

Frankly, we hope to some day not need to be a non-profit. If there is any ‘goal’ on our part, it is that the notion of ‘grief sanctuary’ will be (re)ignited in our collective memory, and shift into something entirely different, blooming as a new ancient culture that inhabits sanctuary, everywhere.