Christ the King issued the following announcement.

Valley of Our Lady Monastery, a community of Cistercian nuns in Wisconsin, is raising funds for a new monastery complex following a vocations boom.

The planned monastery is being designed to house up to 30 nuns. There are presently 22 in the community.

Valley of Our Lady was founded in 1957 on a small plot of land in the Diocese of Madison. The existing buildings are both too small and in poor condition. A relocation projected was begun in 2000, and the site of a new monastery in Wisconsin's Iowa County was purchased in 2011.

The community has a master plan for their new monastery, to be built in two phases.

According to the monastery's winter 2019 newsletter, their Phase 1 goal is $12 million, and another $1.8 million in pledges is needed before continuing with schematic design. This phase includes a temporary chapel, living quarters, an altar bread workshop, and guest quarters. The nuns support themselves by baking altar breads.

The second phase, for which $8 million is needed, would complete a cloister with a church and guesthouse.

The contemplative community is the only foundation of Cistercian nuns of the Common Observance in the English-speaking world.

The Cistercian order was founded at the end of the 11th century to return to a literal observance of the Rule of St. Benedict by cloistered monks and nuns. St. Bernard of Clairvaux was an early abbot of the order and promoted its expansion across Europe.

Original source can be found here.