According to CEO Peter Wrinch, “Hollyhock exists to create, curate, and host inspiring, meaningful experiences that provide both the inner and outer skills for personal growth and social transformation.” During peak season (July/August), the non-profit educational centre employs close to 10% of Cortes Island’s adult population. Hollyhock had a record year in 2019 and, expecting to repeat the experience, put together an ambitious slate of programs for the April 14 to October 24 season. Then the COVID-19 crises reached our area. Now the tentative opening date has been pushed back to the beginning of June, at the earliest. About 40 Cortes Island residents who had expected to be employed, are now sitting at home. How is Hollyhock coping? 

Show Up With Generosity & Core Values

“When crises like these happen, it is very easy to retract into ourselves and take care of our immediates. Although that is important, I think it is more important in this time to show up with generosity and your core values. That is absolutely what we are trying to do, and also pull together an organization that has been operating for forty years and provides great employment for the island,” said Wrinch. 

What Does Humanity Need Now?

He continued, “Ever since Hollyhock began, and even before that with Cold Mountain, we have been trying to answer the question, ‘What does humanity need now?’”

“Over the past 20 years in particular, Hollyhock has served as an antidote to humanity’s crises. When you are disconnected from your natural environment, you pollute it. You dump terrible chemicals in waterways. You cut down forests with disregard. When you are disconnected from yourself, you don’t take care of yourself. And when you are disconnected from your neighbours, you treat them poorly. At its best, Hollyhock is a place where people come together to explore alternatives to the dominant extraction narrative of western society.” 

The Season That Wasn’t

Andrea Fisher became Hollyhock’s Campus Director last year. She explained that the 2020 season was originally scheduled to start on the 14th of April. 

“We were going to start with a writer’s workshop and then continue into a two-week silent meditation. Unfortunately, we had to cancel both of those, as well as a watercolour painting workshop.”

Fisher described the decision to postpone this season as ‘pretty devastating.’

“For the past couple of weeks, we have been in crisis management. We’ve been looking into our finances, our staffing, our presenters. We have a programming team that put a lot of work into the beginning of our season. There has been a lot of time and energy invested in deciding on the programs, deciding on the calendar and then having to postpone them.” 

Looking Into Our Finances & Staffing

“We have seasonal staff on this island that have been returning to us for 5 years, 8 years, in one case 25 years …”

Fisher deals with up to 60 staff at peak season.  At the moment, there are only a dozen on campus and six on the Vancouver team. 

“We’ve had to lay off some seasonal workers, some full time workers, and then limit hours for everyone who is working. For those twelve people: some of them are only working 6 hours a week, some more than that. Normally our maintenance team wouldn’t be one person, it would be 3-4 people. Some would be working full time, not for 6 hours a week,” said Fisher.

The economic repercussions of this pandemic eats further into the local economy. Some of Hollyhock’s 150 presenters live on Cortes Island. The revenues of local businesses like Outlandish Seafoods, the Misty Isles and even Becca’s Beans will all dip. 

How Do We Rebound From This?

“We are looking into our financial stability right now, to see if we are able to open later in the season, or this year. What does that look like for this non-profit? How can we ensure Hollyhock will have a future next year and hopefully this summer,“ said Fisher. 

Wrinch added, “What Andrea and I, our senior team and our board of directors have been talking about – is how do we make sure we rebound from this so that we can continue to provide employment on the island?”

Not A Lot Of Fat

He continued, “I knew a little bit about the business model when I took this job [as CEO], but in the last three years I’ve connected with different centres like Hollyhock – Esalen, The Haven, Omega – and what I’ve realized across the board is this non-profit business model is really tough. We do not have a lot of fat, not at all,” 

“As an organization, we had suffered greatly during the 2008/09 recession and spent the last ten years coming out of that. We had a lot of momentum coming into 2020, we were making a lot of changes and to have this hit, feels really heartbreaking for me.”  

How Are You Going To Show Up Now?

“People connecting to themselves, nature and each other is more important now than ever,” said Wrinch.

“This moment is asking us, and humanity, how are you going to show up now? We hope to continue working the same way we have for the last 40 years, but we are also aware that this pandemic is sort of a wake-up call for all of us. Maybe the way we’ve done things for the last 40 years needs to augmented, or shifted. We’re definitely very open to that. I hope we never get away from our core offering, which is gathering people on this beautiful land and connecting them with each other, themselves, and the natural environment – but it would be a great thing if we came out of this crisis with some knowledge and skills in doing virtual gatherings.” 

Fisher added, “Our program team is looking into offerings for people connecting, as you and I are today, on video. 

The day that I interviewed Fisher, Karen Mahon Carrington launched a free six part web series called “Sheltering in Community.” It is broadcast every Thursday morning from 8:30 to 10AM. Two hundred people registered within the first few hours. 

Wrinch said, “We have also converted our Social Venture Institute Vancouver conference to a virtual offering and are trying to convert our leadership conference, ‘Activate,’ into another 4 to 6 part web series.” 

What Can We Do For This Cortes Community? 

“We are very keen to find out how we can show up at this time and have these conversations daily.”

Hollyhock participated in the community conference calls hosted by Regional Director Noba Anderson.  

Fisher said, “We are moving in an outward way, to see what we can do for this Cortes community. Instead of planting 500 annual flowers in our garden, we are going into food production: more vegetables, more lettuce. We are looking at ideas of who this campus can host because we are not going to be hosting our programs and guests. We also have a commercial kitchen that could be in support of this community. We have a shuttle van if people need rides. We want to be volunteering, offering space, whatever we can – as long as we can financially support it. If there are people out there in the community that know a way we can support the needs of Cortes in a safe socially distancing sanitized manner, we would love to have that conversation.”