Davie and Joy Napier made Pilgrim Place their home longer than any other community. They were devoted to it and deeply grateful for the privilege of spending their last twenty years as part of a retirement community so congruent with the life they had made for themselves at Yale, Stanford and Pacific School of Religion.

When Davie died in February 2007, four years after the death of Joy, their friends set out to find an appropriate way to honor and continue the legacy of this extraordinary couple.

What a legacy it has been! Throughout the Napiers’ long careers as educators and mentors, they opened their home to thousands of students, colleagues and friends for unforgettable times of laughter, music and life-shaping conversation. Countless individuals experienced Joy and Davie’s deep personal caring, which embraced them and brought them together as community, as family.

Joy and Davie also were thoughtful activists for civil rights, global justice, peace and the environment. Through them, numerous students and colleagues were introduced to the biblical vision of shalom, where justice, mercy and peace prevail throughout God’s creation.

To perpetuate this remarkable legacy, we—friends of the Napiers, leaders of Pilgrim Place and members of the Napier family—are pleased to announce plans for a two-part Napier Initiative:

The establishing of annual Napier Awards for Creative Leadership, which will identify and celebrate outstanding leadership by college and seminary students across the nation in the areas of global peace, racial justice and care of the Earth. Annual presenting of the Awards at a festive event will be the highpoint of a program undertaken by Pilgrim Place in collaboration with people associated with Yale, Stanford, Pacific School of Religion, the Claremont Colleges, and Claremont School of Theology.

The establishing of the Napier Center for Creative Change, in the middle of the Pilgrim Place campus, which will serve as a gathering place for dialogue, prayer and fun. This building, originally serving as Pilgrim Place’s administration building, will be transformed according to exacting environmental standards, making it one of three LEED-certified buildings at Pilgrim Place—an achievement unmatched among retirement communities in the United States.