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
Regarding the founding of White Pony Express (WPE), Murshida recalls, “When I saw the disparities in my own neighborhood on my daily walks, I couldn’t help but ask, ‘What if there was a way for those who have more than they need to easily give it to those with less, so that all could share in life’s abundance? What if such an exchange was done, not as an act of charity, but with the love we feel for our own family?’”
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She began this program in 2013 to address hunger and poverty in her California county. Today White Pony Express provides the connecting link between sources of abundance and those in need through its major programs: Food Rescue, White Pony General Store, and Homeless Services.
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Food Rescue
Food Rescue uses the challenge that food markets face – what to do with surplus fresh food – to solve the problem of hunger. Every day team members pick up over 12,000 pounds of excess nutritious food from area markets, then deliver it free to shelters and service organizations that feed people suffering from hunger.
General Store
The White Pony General Store receives or purchases surplus items from stores, distributors, and manufacturers and gives them to those in need through its programs. Volunteers take these high-quality new and like-new clothing for adults and children, plus toys and children’s books to lower-income neighborhoods where they stage Boutiques that create the atmosphere of an upscale store. Wardrobe consultants help guests find attractive outfits for job interviews, church, and school meetings. This free shopping experience is always filled with beauty, good fashion, courtesy, and respect.
Homeless Services
White Pony Inn
Individuals can be sliding down the slope to homelessness because they face challenges they find overwhelming. The White Pony Inn provides individualized counseling, medical advice, and loving aid to help people regain balance in their lives.
Volunteers also aid agencies, such as warming shelters and faith communities that serve the homeless, by providing hot meals and clothing for people being released from hospitals and prisons.
Watch the AARP tribute.
Cold Weather Clothing Pr0gram
In the winter of 2016, when two homeless men died from the cold not far from her Walnut Creek home, Murshida Conner created this program to ensure no one in the region would suffer that way again. The program has given away thousands of winter articles – new warm coats, hats, gloves, and more. Volunteers also hand homeless people life-saving backpacks filled with these protective items, and partner with church groups, police departments, and others to serve those without shelter.
Fire Evacuee Relief
After the devastating Camp Fire in Northern California, volunteers delivered ready-to-eat food, clothing, and cash donations to evacuees twice a week for a year, after federal emergency services left the area.
For inspiring and organizing these unstinting efforts, Murshida Conner was awarded AARP California’s 2019 Andrus Award for Community Service.
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.