Remembering Jordan Gutierrez
July 2nd, 2026
Honoring Jordan on What Would Have Been Her 21st Birthday
jordan’s council ring
At the center of Nora’s Sun and Moon Park is a stone circle. At the center of that circle is a fire. That simple shape, drawn around a flame, represents one of humanity’s oldest traditions - gathering together for warmth and communion.
Jordan’s Council Ring is the spiritual center of our park, bringing light in darkness, warmth in cold, and a space where we can gather to share stories, spread joy, and provide support. Since its creation, Jordan’s Council Ring has been a haven for both the school and local communities as a venue for school lessons, social events, and memorials.
jordan gutierrez
In April of 2021, our community lost yet another student to pediatric cancer. Jordan is described by her teachers and friends as carrying a warm light that brings people together.
The Council Ring at the center of the park cannot match the warmth that Jordan herself brought to her community, but each time it is lit, it will be lit in her honor, providing physical and spiritual nourishment to those around it. We are honored to be able to keep Jordan's spirit bright by imbuing our park with her joy, vibrancy, and strength.
A Letter from Erin Gutierrez
Jordan Gutierrez spent nearly her entire childhood with you. She arrived at CWS at two years old, and this community became the center of her world — her teachers, her friends, the hallways she walked through every single day. She was here for fifteen years. And then, in 2021, cancer took her at fifteen, just weeks before her sixteenth birthday.
She was extraordinary in the quietest ways. She played softball and danced and made art and devoured history. She loved deeply and broadly — camp friends, softball friends, Waldorf friends — but it was her Waldorf community she held closest. And above everyone, she adored her little brother Noah. They didn't need a reason to be together. Being together was enough.
This July 2nd, Jordan would have turned 21. Five years. It is hard to believe, and somehow also impossible to forget.
In the days and weeks after we lost her, this community showed up in ways I will never be able to fully repay. Letters and photographs from students and teachers, more than once. Meals at our door. And on the day she died, I'm told classes simply stopped — so that she could be remembered, together, by the people who loved her. That is who you are. That is what this place is.
It is why Jordan's Council Ring and Fire Pit in Nora's Sun & Moon Park carries so much meaning for our family. Jordan believed in honest conversation and the kind of warmth that pulls people in. A fire circle where children gather to think and talk and belong — she would have loved every moment of it. She would have been the last one to leave.
As we mark this fifth anniversary, we are asking you to consider a gift to the Community Fund in her honor. The ring is built. The fire burns. And every child who sits in that circle carries a piece of her forward. There is no better way I know to keep Jordan alive in this world than that.
With all our love and gratitude —