They're being forced to live on crumbs, so nuns at a Hollywood convent famous for its pumpkin bread are warning that they may have to slice up the place for development.
The threat of a shutdown of the 75-year-old Monastery of the Angels below the Hollywood sign has prompted neighbors and supporters to mount a campaign to save the four-acre religious retreat.
The volunteers say they may turn to the nuns' moist and fragrant pumpkin bread to help make up a cash shortfall that has slashed the monastery's operating budget by more than 70%.
Twenty cloistered nuns live at the monastery, at Carmen Avenue and Gower Street. They devote most of their day to prayer but allocate three hours each morning to work.
That's when they bake their signature pumpkin bread, which is sold by the loaf alongside homemade candy in the monastery's tiny gift shop. Proceeds are applied to the retreat's $1.2-million yearly operating budget.
But the slumping economy has reduced gift shop revenue by 35%, slowed donations and put some anticipated bequests in jeopardy. At the same time, the Wall Street meltdown has cut revenue from investment interest by 70%, nuns say.
That has prompted them to post notices announcing that "our monastery is in serious financial trouble, running the risk that these four acres" will be "turned into a condominium or a mall or worse."
There is no proposal currently on the table to raze the monastery -- but the nun's alarming warning is prompting some neighbors to action.
"They are humble, devoted women whose peaceful little organization is threatened. It's a sad situation," said Kathy McGarrity, a West Los Angeles resident who has visited the monastery for 20 years.
Hollywood Hills resident Norma Foster has formed a five-member committee of financial and religious fundraising experts to create a rescue plan for the nuns who she considers to be good neighbors and an important part of the Hollywood fabric.
Foster is a film and television producer who is credited with saving the Hollywood Bowl Easter Sunrise Service from being taken over seven years ago in a controversial move by an Orange County televangelist. This year she scrambled with others to overcome economic pressure so this weekend's Easter event can be staged Sunday morning.
The monastery's fiscal problems are unrelated to economic problems facing the Archdiocese of Los Angeles because of molestation case settlements, said Foster, who is Presbyterian.
