Bridges’ Head for Peace, a fundraising effort for Zen Peacemakers, urges Head Keepers to take their ceramic heads on spiritual journeys.
Charlie? Well, he’s been to Auschwitz and among the untouchables in India.
“If you walk into their shadow, they can be killed,” Glassman explains. “They’re very poor, a little like our homeless. And Charlie will spend a week helping them to design and build businesses, health services and schooling.”
Bridges is creating 18 families of heads, which individuals can sponsor for $10,800 a head. Sponsors receive a head, a photographic book chronicling the collection of heads and access to a website where they can record travels with their own Charlie.
Read more about Bernie Glassman and Jeff Bridges’ Head for Peace at zenpeacemakers.org. Then learn about local social advocacy efforts at greyston.org.
Greyston Foundation does good for Yonkers and the world
“Bernie is a humble savior,” Floyd “Mustafa” Bailey tells me. “He places people out there to help those in need wherever he be around the world. That body, mind, spirit, harm-reduction thing. When you come here, you may be drinkin’ and druggin.’ They don’t push you out. They enlighten you to what harm the drugs is bringing you. Over time you stop using. Over time you start living. Over time you start giving back.”
Bailey first set foot in Greyston’s Maitri Day Program in 1999 after a life of hard blows that began on the Lower East Side, which led to a stroke and a fight to detox at Yonkers General Hospital.
“I couldn’t go into 30 days, because I had a failed kidney, and I had to go on dialysis,” Bailey explains. “Someone (from Greyston) came over there and talked about a Maitri program… I was like a worm. I was angry. I was messed up, bitter. But I felt the love. Now, all this time being here trying to give back. It’s a family, a wonderful place.”
Bailey has a warm smile and strong handshake.
He and Bernie Glassman embrace like they’re brothers.
In spirit, they are.
“Maitri itself is a direct translation that means love,” Glassman says, or, “meeting you in the wholeness.”
The Greyston Foundation of today is a $15 million integration of for-profit and nonprofit entities that provide employment, housing, child care, workforce development and health care programs to the disenfranchised.
It all began with the Greyston Bakery, which now churns out 20,000 pounds of brownies each day from of its waterfront plant in Yonkers.
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