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I first met Sunny Dooley, a Diné (Navajo) storyteller from Chi Chil’ Tah—“where the oaks grow”—when I hosted her at the North Texas Storytelling Festival. From the moment she opened her mouth, something ancient stirred. Sunny carries generations of Blessingway stories in her voice—tales that teach harmony, balance, and belonging. She is one of the great storytellers of the Diné Nation, a keeper of language and ceremony, weaving Navajo and English into narratives that heal the connection between people, land, and spirit.

Wonder Voyage teams began visiting Navajoland over a decade ago, and whenever Sunny joined us, she anchored our journeys. Her stories illuminated Diné beauty, resilience, and the painful history that shaped their struggle with the United States. She spoke truth with tenderness. Her voice became a compass—not toward information, but toward understanding. Hundreds of our pilgrims have sat before her fire, undone and remade by her stories of endurance, sorrow, and hope.

When COVID-19 swept across the Navajo Nation, it struck with devastating force. An entire generation of elders—keepers of language, wisdom, and healing traditions—vanished almost overnight. In that convulsive silence, Sunny stepped forward. She became a lifeline: gathering supplies, visiting isolated families, sitting at the bedsides of dying elders, listening as fading voices entrusted her with stories that might have otherwise disappeared. In those years of grief, a mantle settled onto her. Sunny became, in the truest sense, a healer—a storyteller carrying the medicine of memory.

Yet even as her role deepened, her circumstances remained fragile. The Dooley family land—a cluster of ancestral homes near Gallup—had fallen into disrepair. The small family hogan was crumbling. The house where her parents lived was no longer habitable. And the half-built hogan Sunny once dreamed of finishing stood frozen in time, perched on a bluff overlooking a valley she longs to call home. For years, the greatest barrier to restoration was simple and immovable: there was no functional road to reach the property for half the year.

In late 2024, Legacy Voyages sat with Sunny as she shared a quiet vision: to step fully into her ancestral identity as a healer, to offer trauma care freely to families in crisis, and to create a sanctuary on her family land where healing stories could take root. She had the calling, the skill, and the courage. She only lacked a way to begin.

Stage One of Project Bluebird—The Road to Believe—is now complete. Through the passionate leadership of Wes and Jill Hirsch and the generosity of many, more than $50,000 was raised to carve a proper road into Sunny’s ancestral property. Completed in September 2026, that road became more than infrastructure—it became an act of belief.

Now we step into Stage Two: renovating the family home and the ceremonial hogan so Sunny can finally move onto her land and begin her healing work in a place worthy of her calling.

Project Bluebird continues—and we will walk every step with her. Learn more at legacyprojectbluebird.org