Holly Noonan, director of the Crooked Forest Institute, will speak to Rotary at noon Nov 18th at the GMC conference room. The Institute is a sustainable community and economic development project in Grant County. 

Holly partnered with veteran Earthen Architect Joseph Kennedy to develop business scenarios where small, non-toxic adobe homes could once again become housing for low- and moderate-income New Mexicans. The inspiration for the project came from her own experience of homelessness after an illness made her too sensitive to chemicals to live in a conventionally built home. By pairing a Vocational Education program with a Nonprofit Housing Developer program, Crooked Forest Institute aims to create durable, fireproof and carbon-negative neighborhoods on a local Community Land Trust. 

Crooked Forest Institute purchased 52 acres in 2024 and plans to develop the land into its education campus over the next 10 years.  Community Land Trusts are vehicles for community landholding that remove land speculation from the home ownership picture. 

Noonan, a masters-level social worker and functional medicine health coach,

moved to New Mexico from Maine in 2016. Noonan became a Lincoln Vibrant Communities Fellow; the fellowship focuses on research, strategic communication and leadership in the context of housing and land use policy with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The institute's website is at CrookedForestInstitute.org.

The Rotary Club will meet in the conference room of Gila Regional Medical Center. Visitors should enter through the main entrance. There is a brief "meet and greet", and then the speaker has the floor. The club welcomes members of the public to the meetings. Lunch is available in the hospital cafeteria. Guests are advised to arrive in the cafeteria well before noon.

Rotary is an organization of business and professional persons united worldwide to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. Since its founding in 1923, the Silver City Rotary Club has provided support and service to numerous non-profit organizations and civic causes in Silver City and Grant County as well as supporting and participating in humanitarian projects sponsored by Rotary International.