A drive through Chimayó will reveal the fruits of some of Shelley Winship’s volunteer efforts.
Now, in the event of a residential fire, the Chimayó Volunteer Fire District can connect to any one of the several dozen fire hydrants Winship and her fellow volunteers, at the Chimayó Mutual Domestic Water Consumer’s Association, worked so hard to get installed along State Road 76.
Born to volunteer
Winship was born in Detroit, Mich., but when she was seven, the family moved to the Pacific Northwest, where she would spend her formative years with her parents and three older siblings.
Her mother and father worked with people all of their lives. So it is quite natural that Shelley Winship would follow in their footsteps.
“I grew up in a family that worked or volunteered in the nonprofit sector and it was important to give back to the community,” Winship said.
Her mother worked for United Way managing a clearing house that helped Washington residents connect with needed resources. This is much like United Way of Northern New Mexico’s 2-1-1 service.
“There were 30 agencies that provided assistance to needy families,” Winship said.
Her father worked as a traveling salesman, selling large pneumatic tools to companies that built large vessels such as airplanes and freightliners.
When he wasn’t traveling the country selling tools, he volunteered with the local volunteer fire department near the family’s home in Kent, Wash. He would eventually be elected to the volunteer fire commission, where he would go on to train firefighters and administer the firefighter competency test.
She said her father was eventually recognized for his efforts by receiving the ultimate recognition. To honor her father’s years of service, Renton, Wash. fire officials dedicated the volunteer station house in his honor.
“My parents were both from the greatest generation, as they called it,” Winship said. “They were always willing to give because they felt the world was good to them.”
Serial volunteer
Winship is steeped in community. So much so, some could call Winship a serial volunteer.
When Winship isn’t working as the director of development for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival or working with the water Association, she’s a member of the Acequia del Potrero, a community organization that shares the responsibility of keeping the irrigation ditch clean.
She has worked with the mayordomo preparing and submitting financial requests to raise the money needed to fix gopher holes along the ditch bank.
Winship serves on the Board of Directors of the Chimayó Cultural Preservation Association, the group that runs the Chimayó Museum.
There she utilized the communication skills she acquired after more than a decade in the advertisement industry, to promote museum functions.
“I help do publicity for events and whatever else I am asked to do,” she said.
As a member of the core committee of Chimayó Citizen for Community Planning, Winship plays an active role in creating a sustainable community that will thrive well into the future.
The committee is composed of citizens from both Rio Arriba and Santa Fe counties, who worked toward developing a “comprehensive community plan of what we would like Chimayó to be in 25 years,” Winship said.
Winship said from the input the community received, so far, Chimayó’s physical future would include safe places where residents could take walks and enjoy the area’s rural atmosphere. It would also include a safe place where children and adults could gather and participate in cross-generational activities, such as working out.
“Our goal is to involve community members of all ages, from preschool to senior citizens, in all aspects of the community life,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if they are farmers, business people, students or members of a religious congregation because we think the future of the community belongs to its people.”
If all the other volunteer obligations don’t keep Winship tied up, there is always her pro-bono commitment, as a supervisor of the Santa Fe/Pojoaque Soil and Water Conservation District. The District begins in Santa Fe County and extends into Rio Arriba County.
The District’s primary responsibility, in Chimayó, is repairing the earthen dams created by the Natural Resource Conservancy Service.
She said the District maintains the damns on a shoe-string budget with funds trickling in from various sources, including an annual $5,000 contribution from Santa Fe County.
However, that money doesn’t go very far considering the extra maintenance caused by All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) damage, Winship said. The ATV tire tracks create destructive furrows that interfere with the dam’s ability to work properly.
In a perfect system, an earthen dam releases water slowly to prevent flooding.
Recognizing her ability to get things done, the Santa Fe County Commissioners appointed her to the County Water Policy Advisory Committee. She said the group is charged with “investigating, informing and advising them on various water policy issues.”
Flowing water
Winship said the first step to securing the potentially life-saving water for Chimayó was to convince lawmakers of the need.
“We had to meet with our legislator and representatives and explain to them it was an emergency health situation,” Winship said. “We had to complete several applications for funding. Some of them quite lengthy.”
Next the crew needed to secure the millions in federal and state funding needed to carryout their mission.
She said they contacted the state’s Water Trust Board as well as the United States Bureau of Reclamation to raise the needed money.
“We have about $15 million in the ground,” Winship said. “A lot of that money came from government sources. Some from the feds and some from the State and from Santa Fe County.”
The Consumer Association consists of a five-member volunteer Board that works to bring safe and healthy drinking water to Chimayó residents.
She said more work is needed to complete the water system that will increase the Association’s ability to provide water to area residents.
“The water system is still in development,” Winship said. “In addition to running the water and providing water to the fire department, we are trying to expand the system to bring healthy water to people who don’t have it.”
Association President Mark Trujillo said Winship is worth her weight in gold. He said she has an easy-going nature and strong work ethic.
“She is a pleasure to work with,” Trujillo said. “She is an excellent board member because she goes beyond the call of duty. She is a go-getter.”
As an example of Winship’s and the other volunteers’ hard work, Trujillo refers to the Association’s crowning accomplishments, a 500,000 gallon water tank.
He said she played a key role in drawing up the necessary paper work to complete the project that resulted in the 500,000 gallon Potrero Water tank getting built.
“She has been a big contributor to the water system that benefits the people of Chimayó,” Trujillo said. “She was able to obtain money from Santa Fe County because she was familiar with the type of paperwork and she is a good spokesperson for our system.”
Chimayó Volunteer Fire Chief Julian Sandoval said the fire hydrant project goes a long way to keeping people safe.
He said before the 46 fire hydrants were installed, the Department pumped water from the Santa Cruz reservoir.
“It helps big time,” Sandoval said.
Not only does the water system provide a much needed layer of security, it also helped to boost the Department’s Insurance Safety Office (ISO) rating.
Sandoval said improving the rating is significant because it increases the department’s ability to receive funding and lowers home insurance premiums.
The new water tank replaced a much smaller tank that wasn’t very efficient for fighting fires.
“The old tank was only 50,000 gallons and ran out of water in 19 minutes when fighting a fire,” Winship said.
Winship and the other Association volunteers hope to expand the system to lower Chimayó in the near future. Right now the water system stops at the Holy Family Church.
Learning to volunteer
Winship has volunteered in every community she lived in from Washington state to Chimayó.
Winship said although she was raised in a household steeped in giving, she didn’t get her first taste of helping others until she was in the seventh grade.
While in middle school, she would go to her mother’s job and help pass out food baskets, during the holiday season. She said passing out the boxes, along with watching her parents work to promote community growth has had a lasting impression on her and her three siblings. Winship is the youngest of four children. She has two older brothers and an older sister.
“We were all impacted by our parents’ community involvement,” she said. “My older brother joined the foreign service, and my other brother is very active in community issues in his home town.”
Winship attended the University of Puget Sound, a small liberal arts college, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a minor in Business.
Winship said the family chose a school close to home because she started college at an unusually young age.
“I was 16 years old,” Winship said. “I was one of those child experiments of open-concept education in elementary school where they just sort of moved you up a grade when they saw fit.”
She said that experience, coupled with the confidence her parents instilled in her, helped shape who she is today.
Shortly after elementary school her mother placed a hefty responsibility on the young Winship’s shoulders.
“When I was in middle school my mom decided she wanted to go back to work and she asked me if it was okay,” she said. “Of course, I said, yes.”
The decision helped develop Winship’ keen sense of responsibility.
With both parents out earning a living, Winship was in charge of cooking her parents’ dinner when they got home from work.
After Winship graduated college she got a job working for Easter Seal Society running special events.
Winship traveled the state of Washington organizing fundraising events such as golf and volley ball fundraisers.
However, Winship would eventually outgrow the job as she advanced further into adulthood.
“I wanted to buy a house, and I wasn’t making enough moolah,” she said. “So, I went in the for-profit sector as a copywriter”
However, while working as an advertisement copywriter for retail giant Nordstrom, Winship continued doing volunteer work. She helped music nonprofits get established by sharing her intimate knowledge of nonprofit organizations.
“I continued doing volunteer work,” Winship said. “I helped set up music nonprofits like orchestras by helping them get their 501(c) 3 status, establish governing boards, write by-laws and develop fundraising strategies,”
United Way
But, it was her work at the national retailer that would emphasize the importance of community service.
“I worked for their corporate office and they were really big on the United Way,” Winship said.
The company gave Winship and her coworkers time off once a year to volunteer.
Winship found herself painting playground equipment at a drug treatment program that had a daycare for the children of the center’s clients.
One day when the group finished early, the center’s staff asked the volunteers if they wanted to read to the children.
She said that is when she came in contact with Elisa.
Elisa picked out a book and hopped up on Winship’s lap to hear the story she’d chosen.
But, Winship said something wasn’t right because the little girl couldn’t sit still and her stomach grumbled. After questioning Elisa, Winship learned Elisa’s family had a peculiar way of making ends meet.
She said Elisa told her that she didn’t eat breakfast because “it wasn’t her turn.”
Recalling the conversation she had with the little girl evoked emotions.
“I was blown a way by that,” Winship said. “I think that everyone has a right to eat. I think putting kids in a position to have to wait to eat is really heartbreaking.”
The experience had a profound influence on Winship.
Married life
She said once she and her husband, Doug Clark, decided to get married she moved from the Seattle area to Eugene, Ore.
For Winship getting married meant she would be a part of a two-income household, so she could probably return to the nonprofit sector.
While in Eugene, Winship started working for the Food for Lane County, a clearing house that supplied the County’s food pantries and soup kitchens.
She said she saw a real need because the building that housed the distribution center was very small for the amount of food the outlet distributed.
“They were turning over their inventory in four days,” Winship said. “I went to work for them as their development director. I helped them raise the money to build a new, much larger facility, and it was really because of Elisa.”
She said her encounter with Elisa educated her on the importance of nutrition in a child’s life.
“I was really unaware of food insecurity in terms of children’s development,” Winship said. “There is something called ‘failure to thrive’ when a child doesn’t have enough to eat or the right food to eat, it can cause lasting damage.”
She said she supports the Santa Fe’s Food Depot efforts to provide food to area food pantries and soup kitchens. Besides helping to feed the area’s less fortunate, the Depot provides excellent opportunities for citizens to get involved in community work.
Winship said she chose to focus on the water issues because it would have a long lasting impact.
“I wanted to do something right in Chimayó,” she said. “That is why I got involved in the waters association because it is a basic human need to have healthy safe water. I think in New Mexico water in general is such a precarious resource because there are so many outside forces working to get the water and it’s my priority the water stay in our community.”
Stumbling on
New Mexico
The couple’s decision to relocate to New Mexico was impromptu at best.
Needing a vacation, the couple planned an excursion to the Santa Fe area, where Clark lived for a brief time in the early 1970s. The couple stayed at a Chimayó Bed-and-Breakfast and the Land of Enchantment hooked them.
Their B&B host told them about a nice house and before you know it, she was on the phone arranging for the out-of-towners to take a look.
Winship said that particular house was under contract so she and her husband struck a deal with the contractor and in less than two years the state reeled in the couple.
That was nine years ago.
The couple didn’t waste any time getting involved with community.
“I wanted to re-engage with our community when we first got here,” Winship said.
Clark came out of retirement and for four years served as the director of the Chimayó and Abiquiú Boys and Girls Club.
Through his work with the Boys and Girls Club and her work with the Acequia Associations, the couple made a lot of connections.
“To me it’s all about connections,” Winship said. “The more you understand and learn what is happening with your community, the more you are able to learn about people’s needs and what opportunities there might be to help. It makes it easier to connect the dots.”
Winship said she hopes to form a watershed district to serve as conduit for watershed restoration and reduction of fire hazards.