Serving Our Neighbors
“To love God in the most practical way is to love our fellow beings. If we feel for others in the same way as we feel for our own dear ones, we love God.”
— Meher Baba
On June 22, 2023, just two months following Murshida Conner’s passing, she was memorialized in the Congressional Record, the official daily archival account of the proceedings of the U.S. Congress.
This significant recognition of the work Meher Baba entrusted to Sufism Reoriented was the most noteworthy of the dozen or more honors bestowed upon her by governmental bodies at the city, county, state and national levels.
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“I find all of this encouraging and also very important. The tribute to Murshida in the Congressional Record is particularly significant and worthy of our attention, not just because it is a great public honor, but because the spiritual leader of America’s Sufism Reoriented has been publicly recognized by the national government of the country Meher Baba said would one day lead the world spiritually.”
— Murshid Walker
Sufism’s Legacy of Service
The legacy of Sufism Reoriented’s community service programs had its start with Ivy O. Duce, who was appointed as Sufism’s first murshida by Meher Baba. Beginning quietly in the summer of 1975, Murshida Duce founded an affordable preschool and daycare program for children of working parents, most of whom were single mothers or fathers. Such programs were rare at the time.
The Meher Schools
Originally called The White Pony, the program was the fulfillment of Murshida Duce’s dream for a school based on Meher Baba's principles of love, harmony, beauty, and selfless service to life.
By 2003 when the program was separately incorporated as The Meher Schools, the preschool had expanded to include kindergarten and elementary grades. After fifty years,The Meher Schools continues to serve more than 300 children ages two through fifth grade with the understanding that...
“Love Nurtures Learning”
Service Programs Founded by Murshida Conner
“The service programs I have created in our community are not social work or ‘charity’. They are pursued in emulation of Meher Baba’s service programs begun in the 1920s and carried forward today. They give expression to the Truth that all are One. When we work in this spirit, He can use each occasion to spread the spark of His love and uplift all.”
— Murshida Conner
White Pony Express
As of 2025, White Pony Express has grown into one of California’s most active and far-reaching food and goods recovery programs. WPE has recovered the equivalent of 30 million meals — nourishing neighbors served by over 100 nonprofit partners.
Regarding the founding of White Pony Express (WPE), Murshida Conner recalled, “When I saw the disparities in my own neighborhood on my daily walks, I couldn’t help but ask, ‘What if there were a way for those who have more than they need to easily give to those with less, so that all could share in life’s abundance? What if such an exchange were done not as an act of charity, but with the love we feel for our own family?’”
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She launched the program in 2013 with the mission to eliminate hunger and poverty by delivering the abundance all around us to those in need — with love. Today that mission thrives. Year-round, seven days a week, WPE serves as a vital bridge between sources of abundance and neighbors in need through its Food Rescue Program and a range of other special initiatives.
Food Rescue
The Food Rescue Program lies at the heart of WPE’s work. Every day, volunteers and staff recover thousands of pounds of fresh, nutritious surplus food from grocery stores, markets, restaurants, and other partners — food that would otherwise be wasted — and deliver it free of charge to community partners that feed people facing food insecurity. This bridge between abundance and need ensures that healthy food reaches shelters, school pantries, and community kitchens.
Services for Neighbors Facing Homelessness
Murshida Conner recognized that homelessness is often the result of overwhelming challenges — from sudden job loss to a health crisis. To address this, she developed initiatives within WPE that offer practical ways to help people regain stability and balance.
WPE volunteers support warming shelters, faith-based outreach programs, and reentry services by providing meals, pantry items, clothing, personal care supplies, and loving companionship to people who are unhoused and housing insecure.
White Pony Express honors the fact of our oneness and unity — that everyone is a member of one human family — and that each neighbor should be met with special and specific care.
Cold Weather Clothing & Care Program
After the heartbreaking loss of two unhoused men to cold near her Walnut Creek neighborhood in 2016, Murshida Conner created the Cold Weather Clothing Program to help ensure no one in our region would have to suffer that way. Since then, hundreds of thousands of new coats, hats, gloves, blankets, and care items have been distributed where they’re needed most. Volunteers prepare and distribute life-saving backpacks filled with protective winter gear to unhoused neighbors across the county.
Emergency Response Efforts
WPE’s model of ‘love in action’ extends into disaster response — grounded in Murshida Conner’s understanding that neighbors care for neighbors, especially in times of crisis.
Fire Evacuee Relief
In the aftermath of the devastating Camp Fire in Northern California, WPE volunteers delivered ready-to-eat food, clothing, and cash assistance to evacuees twice a week for a full year — long after federal emergency services had departed. For these unstinting efforts, Murshida Conner was honored with AARP California’s 2019.
Watch the AARP tribute.
Support for Ukraine
Following the humanitarian crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, WPE mobilized to collect and ship essential supplies — including high-quality clothing, food, medical and hygiene items — to support our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, both refugees and civilians. Working with partners in Europe and local volunteers, WPE shipped pallets of critically needed goods overseas, illustrating how abundance in one community can travel around the world to meet urgent need.
Los Angeles Fires (2025)
Los Angeles Fires (2025):
Recently, WPE launched a Gift Card Campaign to support survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires. WPE teamed up with Following Francis to find families who quietly needed help; people who needed support but for whatever reason were not asking for it. WPE provided these families with gift cards so they could purchase what they needed, not what we thought they needed, sharing our community’s trust and love, with no strings attached.
From food recovery to disaster response, from clothing distributions to caring partnerships, White Pony Express continues to live the vision Murshida Conner set in motion: a world where abundance is shared with love, where communities take care of one another, and where every neighbor is recognized as family.
Following Francis
“Children growing up in inner-city neighborhoods are often surrounded by poverty, crime, and neglect,” something Murshida knew well from having worked with these children for years. “I saw how love and kindness could uplift their lives.” She created this program to convey the loving spirit of Francis of Assisi who, though born to wealth and comfort, embraced poverty but did not let it prevent him from living a life of joy and loving service to God and His world.
Francis in the Schools
Several hundred children at a time attend these outings, aimed at strengthening their core sense of self by giving them a day completely focused on their happiness.
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Children attend a lively and inspiring musical play and an exciting Faire with games, dancing, crafts, face painting, flower arranging, and more. Children have exclaimed, “This was the most wonderful day of my life.”
Francis in the Dunes
In the popular seaside resort of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, nearly a quarter of the residents live at or below the poverty line. Volunteers help support families living in the Carver Apartments, a low-income complex, by purchasing and delivering quality groceries, clothing, tricycles, bicycles, and beds to sleep in. They also arrange outings to strengthen the residents’ sense of community, such as going to the movies together. A six-week summer day camp for the children enables them to explore jewelry design, visual and culinary arts, floral arranging, music, dancing, and swimming.
Francis on the Hill
Francis on the Hill is dedicated to supporting children and families in Washington, DC, with a special focus on the Columbia Heights neighborhood. Its projects help alleviate economic insecurity by providing fresh, wholesome groceries, diapers, and gifts of new clothing and footwear for neighborhood residents. Volunteers also work to enhance the beauty of public spaces in and around Meridian Hill Park.
Gift Giving
During the winter holidays, volunteers in California and Washington, DC, provide children in lower-income public schools with personally selected gifts of food, coats, clothing, blankets, new educational toys, books at the children’s reading level, art supplies, and their favorite stuffed animal.