McCurdy Ministries
Grants Awarded
McCurdy Ministries is enhancing its campus to develop community-friendly spaces, including improved walking trails and gathering places. In collaboration with Northern Youth Project, initial efforts involve gathering public ideas, especially from youth, for the trails' design, amenities, and layout. The subsequent phases involve refining the trails with educational signage, installing gathering locations, and restoring ecological structures like pollinator gardens and the acequia system, all to foster a vibrant, inviting atmosphere.
McCurdy Ministries creates hope and empowers the lives of children, youth, adults, and families through education, life skills, and faith-based programs in the Espanola Valley. We are an historic United Methodist Institution, formerly a mission school, seeking to become a true community center that serves the needs of the community through collaboration, partnerships, and direct services. In addition to programs such as full-day PreK, After School Care, and our counseling program for school-age children (Project Carino), in the past couple of years we have expanded our programs to include the Light House (a clothes closet developed in collaboration with Locker 505 from Albuquerque), a food pantry (in partnership with the Food Depot from Santa Fe), and in 2024 we were designated a Family Resource Center in partnership with the State of New Mexico and the Children, Youth, and Families Department (CYFD). We also provide office space or co-locating spaces on campus for a number of non-profit partners and collaborators, including the United Way of Northern New Mexico, Las Cumbres/Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, CASA First, and Northern Youth Project. In 2025 we launched LEER (“to read” in Spanish), our program focused on improving childhood literacy in the valley and hosted a successful, six-week literacy-based summer camp serving over 40 children. Our vision is to revitalize and re-animate our historic 20-acre campus through expanding opportunities to serve, partner with, and welcome the community.