Mission statement

 

Peaceable Projects Inc. is a new U.S.-based non-profit group that identifies needful projects in the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage network and joins them up with resources and volunteers. We sometimes initiate and execute our own charitable projects as well.   

We are not overtly religious, but we are motivated by grace – a Biblical ideal and a living truth – that unconditional love can change the human heart and save a fallen world. We believe the Camino de Santiago is a holy place, and we uphold traditions of hospitality, generosity, and gracious give-and-take that make this Way unique in the world.  

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims travel to Santiago each year, and many of them wish to support the pilgrimage after they return home. Peaceable Projects is their link to dozens of pilgrim-centered charities scattered along the Road.   

After a decade of village life and work at the heart of the Camino pathways, Rebekah Scott, an American, and Patrick O’Gara, an Englishman, are uniquely positioned to lead this charitable work. 

Peaceable Projects Inc. is incorporated as a non-profit charity in Massachusetts, USA. Contributions to Peaceable Projects are tax-deductible in the United States.

 
For it is in giving that we receive.
— Francis of Assisi

The Board

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Rebekah Scott
President and CEO

Rebekah Scott is president and CEO of Peaceable Projects Inc. 

Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Rebekah was raised in a military family that often welcomed lonely soldiers and sailors to share dinner and the spare room. Rebekah studied history, religion, art, and architecture, and spent 22 years as a daily newspaper journalist and magazine writer. She continues to work as an editor and translator of book-length manuscripts. 

A love of history first brought her to the Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail in 1993, where she “fell in love at first sight.” She walked the entire 550-mile trail for the first time in 2001.

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Patrick O'Gara
Chief Dog Wrangler

Patrick O’Gara is an Englishman who spent 30 years in London´s Fleet Street tabloid newspapers before fate took him to the United States. He was editor at a daily newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, when he met Rebekah Scott, editor of the religion section. Patrick does not have much truck with religion, but he walked the first ten days of that 2001 Camino with Rebekah, and finished the trek himself the following year. The couple married in 2003, and spent their summer holidays volunteering in pilgrim shelters throughout Spain. They retired from the news business in 2006, and moved permanently to Moratinos. Peaceable Kingdom Spain opened its doors to pilgrims in October of that year. 

 

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Kathy Gower
Director

Kathy Gower, director of Peaceable Projects, is an bookkeeper and retired Waldorf teacher based in San Francisco, California, where she´s founded and directed several non-profit enterprises. She first walked the Camino de Santiago in 1999, and co-founded American Pilgrims on the Camino (APOC), a non-profit association of U.S. pilgrims that has grown to more than 60 chapters throughout the nation. Kathy was the first visitor to stay at Peaceable Kingdom Spain in 2006, and has supported and attended Peaceable activities throughout its existence. She continues to apply invaluable common sense and clear vision to help guide our development. 

 

I would sooner be a foreigner in Spain than in most countries.
How easy it is to make friends in Spain!
— George Orwell

 

Friends of Peaceable Projects

Federico Sheppard
Comic Relief

John Rafferty
Our Man in Santiago

Bruno Bernoni
Good Neighbor

 

Philip Schreffler
Legal Advisor + Clerk

George Greenia
Academic Advisor

Melissa West
Illustrator

Donald Weaks
Architectural Advisor

Oliver Kloidt
Hospitalero

Lucia Miguel Bores
Translator

Rennie Archibald
Memorial Grove Coordinator

Lourdes Lluch Calomarde
Spiritual Advisor

David Stiksma
Systems Consultant

Ivar Rekve
Non-profit Guru

Leonie van Staveren
Hospitalera

Jim Mercereau
Food Supply


CONTACT

PEACEABLE KINGDOM SPAIN

+34 648 854 765  •  email: peaceableprojects@gmail.com

Peaceable Kingdom Spain, our site on the Camino de Santiago, is at
Calle Ontanon 2, Moratinos 34349, Palencia ES. Peaceable Projects Inc.

U.S. headquarters address is P.O. Box 1322, Haverhill, MA 01832 USA. 
Peaceable Projects Incorporated is Massachusetts nonprofit no. 001283510. National 501 (c)3.