Main fundraiser photo

Help La Casa Puerto Rico Rebuild

Donation protected
PLEASE HELP PUERTO RICO REBUILD BY DONATING TO LA CASA SPA & WELLNESS CENTER

(a not-for-profit foundation incorporated in Puerto Rico)

Friends and staff members of La Casa Spa & Wellness New York (La Casa NY) have been holding thoughts and prayers for all those, throughout the Caribbean, who have suffered from hurricanes Irma and Maria.

 If you are inclined to make donations to help Puerto Rico rebuild, you might want to consider giving to the first La Casa center: La Casa Spa & Wellness Puerto Rico (La Casa PR). 

La Casa PR is a holistic healing center registered in Puerto Rico as a Corporación Doméstica Sin Fines de Lucro (not-for profit): registration number 400094.

La Casa PR’s History: 

In  1987, Dr. Jane G. Goldberg visited Puerto Rico, fell in love with the island, and bought a 10-acre farm. After building new and renovating existing structures, she opened La Casa PR. Under her guidance, La Casa PR developed a reputation for being a small, but prestigious center for holistic vacations, retreats, and healing. A year and a half ago, Dr. Jane decided to give it a facelift and began an extensive renovation.

 During the period of renovation, La Casa PR opened three of their main house bedrooms as well as the one-bedroom cottage to airbnb. Thus, they continued to make a small income that helped to pay for the staff while the holistic center was closed. There are many reviews on the Airbnb website, and Airbnb guests have almost unanimously given enthusiastic thumbs up for the beauty and the peacefulness of the property, the care and warmth of La Casa's staff, and the enjoyment of going to sleep and waking up to the thrilling sounds of the rain forest. Unfortunately, La Casa PR has now lost that income, and is now in the position of having to depend upon "the kindness of strangers." (It's a quote from play-write Tennessee Williams.)

At the beginning of September, they were almost finished with new building and re-building, and had scheduled the first workshop of the beautiful revamped campus to begin Sept 20: a day that will live long in the memories of every Puerto Rican, and in the minds of those who have been enchanted by the “enchanted isle.”

 My name is Iva deMartelly, and I had been hired as the yoga instructor for the workshop. We had eight attendees signed up, and we were all scheduled to arrive on the same day as Miss Maria. Yet, we were forced to defer to Maria’s greater majesty, and the workshop was cancelled. (Delta Airlines agreed with our decision.)

La Casa PR’s Community Involvement:

Over the years of their operation, La Casa was actively involved in the local community. They have conducted free yoga classes for their neighbors. Before hurricanes Irma and Maria, Jane shipped 100 yoga mats to widen their reach of free yoga classes to the larger community in Northeast Puerto Rico.

 When the fruit trees bore fruits, neighbors were always invited to share the fruits of the land. When the mango trees were pregnant with fruit, the fallen mangos would cover the grounds under the trees with an intense (and exquisite) orange blanket. Mangos galore! Mango lovers, rejoice!

 La Casa PR offered many classes and workshops in all aspects of holistic health: vegetarian food preparation; wild edible foraging walks; composting; sprouting; making raw dehydrated foods; detoxification; and more.

 As well, La Casa PR offered therapies available nowhere else on the island. Resort guests and locals alike came to La Casa for its famous colonics. They also offered mud wraps, using the pristine clay from the near-by river (considered to be one of the cleanest rivers on earth). Massages were conducted under the huge ylang ylang tree, with its unparalleled sweet, savory scent. No bottled essential oils necessary here. Saunas used the leaves from La Casa PR’s  own eucalyptus trees. (There is a large row of towering eucalyptus trees on one of the walkways.) (Parenthetically, La Casa PR is home to a magnificent mahogany tree.) The natural aromas of trees, fruits, bushes create natural magic.

 Paying guests, friends, friends of friends, neighbors—all have found a welcome home in La Casa for the full 30 years since they first opened.

In spite of the damage wrought by Maria, and the delay of La Casa’s official re-opening, they count themselves among the lucky.

Jyl, La Casa PR's manager, Sequoia, Jyl's 3-month old infant, their two wwoofers (volunteers), and dogs -- all survived the ordeal by passing the hurricane in an interior room. The remarkable, Jyl (who has supervised the entire renovation), was prescient with stored food and water. The day before Maria arrived, Jyl took every piece of fruit she could find on our trees, and brought them into the house. After Maria passed, and they had eaten all the fruit and stored food, they then used root veggies that Jyl had planted a few months before. The cisterns collecting rain water that had been installed in the renovation were in good working order, and gave both humans and dogs sufficient water to drink. Humans and animals are still on the farm, living comfortably without electricity, but with sufficient food and water, because of Jyl’s careful preparations.

Damage and Repairs:
Thankfully, the whole construction crew working at La Casa PR still has their own homes--damaged but standing. Although there was no way of communicating after Maria (and even now, cell phone service throughout the island is still sparse), the crew showed up immediately to help, and have continued working, as best they can, with no electricity. 

Damage to La Casa PR came from roofs and porches blowing off all of their buildings, and water damage to everything that was under the roofs. Yet, all is repairable or replaceable.

In spite of this major setback for their planned re-opening, the La Casa PR staff is hopeful for a bright future for their center. But they need the support of friends and family more than ever before. They need to repair the damage from Maria in order to resume offering their profoundly effective healing services. 

Your tax-deductible donations to La Casa will target the following immediate needs of Maria-repair issues: 

*Keeping our staff working, and getting paid

*Repairing roofs and rebuilding porches on all structures

*Replacing a 30 foot yurt that had just been set up weeks before. (It took 6 men three days to put it up.) 

 *Re-planting avocado, mango, (they had two of the largest mango trees in that part of the island), panapain (breadfruit), papaya (they had planted a whole orchard), and haguas (a fruit specific to the Puerto Rican rain forest) trees. They lost many of them. 

*Re-establishing walk trails all through the property they had recently created so that guests could enjoy a rain forest experience right after rolling out of bed. All the trails are now covered with fallen trees. The fallen trees need to be cut, and paths re-established.

*Fencing around the property is needed to keep the dogs safe, and to bring back to the farm, TerraMoto, their donkey, and to make a home for the gift from a neighbor of baby goats, born right after Maria.

*The water cisterns are functional, but need some repairs, and they need more of them. Had it not rained most days after the hurricane, the current cisterns would not have fulfilled their drinking water needs.

About Dr. Jane:

In my opinion, Dr. Jane is a legend in her own time. She isn’t about theory. She walks her talk. At 71, she looks and has the energy of a woman a couple of decades younger. I have seen people get bug-eyed when she tells them her age. No one believes her. And this is not a plastic surgery look. She has had no plastic surgery, no invasive cosmetic procedures. (She does, however, partake of La Casa NY’s facials—therapies that she herself designed to create the most powerful anti-aging effect possible.) It is from living the life-style that she believes in, has practiced her entire adult life, and promotes through her two La Casa centers and her writings. She is not only the owner and director of both La Casa centers, but she is a practicing psychoanalyst, and author. She has had her own television show, as well as her own youtube channel, on which she has created an information-packed library of videos unsurpassed in their depth. She has written 8 books, more articles than any person has a right to write in a lifetime, and she blogs for most of the important holistic health platforms, as well as for HuffPo and Thrive. Her own blog, Musings From 20th Street (because La Casa NY is on 20th Street), has information that I have read nowhere else.

 Dr. Jane has helped me enormously in my personal quest for health. She is generous in the information she shares about health. I have experienced this first-hand, but also have witnessed her interactions with others. She truly is a phenomenon—in terms of her knowledge base, her empathy, her deep understanding of people, and her very alive engagement with the world around her.

 Dr. Jane created both La Casas out of her passion to help others recover from illness, or to maintain their health. She has helped so many. And now, I want to do my part to help others help her.

 Your generous tax-deductible donations will be integral to Dr. Jane’s mission: to heal and contribute both to the community of Puerto Rico as well as for resort guests who come to partake in their effective (and sometimes unique) healing therapies and natural life-style vacations. 

link to La casa Puerto Rico:
http://lacasaspaandwellnesspuertorico.com/


More Links for La Casa and Dr. Jane:
La Casa Youtube Channel 
La Casa Spa And Wellness NYC 
La Casa Spa And Wellness PR 
Musings From 20th Street 
Dr. Jane Goldberg
Dr. Jane Goldberg's Youtube Channel

Organizer and beneficiary

Iva DeMartelly
Organizer
New York, NY
Jane Goldberg
Beneficiary

Your easy, powerful, and trusted home for help

  • Easy

    Donate quickly and easily.

  • Powerful

    Send help right to the people and causes you care about.

  • Trusted

    Your donation is protected by the  GoFundMe Giving Guarantee.