FPF Marissa-Kanduri Helping Hands Initiative: Supporting our Seasonal Staff

Inspiring and supporting individuals to live a more healthy and conscious life is fundamental to the Feathered Pipe Foundation’s (FPF’s) vision. With that front of mind and heart, in the fall of 2023 we launched the FPF Marissa-Kanduri Helping Hands Initiative (“FPF Helping Hands”) to support the personal growth of our phenomenal seasonal staff.

FPF Helping Hands

FPF Marissa-Kanduri Helping Hands Initiative: Supporting our Seasonal Staff Made possible thanks to generous support from Sudhanshu Kar (“Sudz”), FPF Helping Hands provides financial support to core members of our hardworking and passionate team in education-related endeavors and self-initiated projects that align with and enhance the Foundation’s values and needs.

Unsurprisingly, many of our staff are drawn to working at the Feathered Pipe Ranch because they enjoy proximity to the healing, health-giving, community-focused, and compassion-based programs that are the bedrock of our operations and reputation for nearly 50 years. We are eager to encourage and cultivate those values with the people who are essential to making it happen each year.

This initiative is a means of honoring the diligence and devotion of our seasonal employees. It is named in part to honor Sudz’s grandfather, Sri Kanduri Charan Kar—a mystic and healer from a tiny village in Odisha, India who never hesitated in helping others— and in part to honor Marissa Ward, a college student from Eastern Montana who works seasonally at the Feathered Pipe Ranch. When Sudz met Marissa during his 2023 visit to the Ranch, he was inspired by her goals of studying and working in nonprofit for the service of others and wanted to find a means to assist her along with all staff members in their continuing growth and education.

Heart-felt Dedication to Service

FPF Marissa-Kanduri Helping Hands Initiative: Supporting our Seasonal Staff Anyone who’s been to a Feathered Pipe Ranch program witnesses our staff’s continual attentiveness and dedication to serving our guests alongside meeting the nonstop demands of maintaining and improving Ranch facilities and grounds. From preparing delicious food and cleaning rooms to maintaining grounds, tidying common space, and transporting or running all kinds of special errands for guests, our seasonal staff pour hearts, minds, and bodies to put our guest’s needs first.

FPF Helping Hands underwrites up to $500 per person annually of the costs of outside educational and Foundation-enhancing endeavors for seasonal staff to include, for example: participation in yoga, mindfulness, and meditation training; furthering their education in matters related to global sustainability, nonprofit work, and reverence for preserving the natural world; involvement in social justice initiatives; healthy food preparation; regenerative agriculture; creative expression through arts that enhance personal development and reflect FPF values; and securing supplemental training in techniques and modalities that align with the values, needs and mission of the Feathered Pipe Foundation.

The Feathered Pipe Foundation expresses profound gratitude to Sudhanshu Kar for bringing this long standing desire to tangibly support our seasonal staff to life! Contact us directly crystal@featheredpipe.com if you are interested in supporting FPF Helping Hands.