Starting to come out of COVID - with art in the garden!
The COVID-19 pandemic, world events, and national events have greatly impacted many lives across the globe. Daily living, work, school, friendships, and more have been interrupted, delayed, and in many cases destroyed. The harsh reality feels crushing and can cloud any visions of hope. And yet, we humans are resilient and find ways to take care of ourselves and others. We, at LifeSupportM.org, are doing our best to come up with ideas for action toward helping re-engage and rejuvenate (safely of course) as we all start to slowly and carefully come out of the deep shelter in place and emotional turmoil we have all been in for the past year.
Here are a few things we have been up to recently:
We had a garden, chicken coop, and mural day for our mentees from Minnesota, Leah and Bethel (and their parents), and their aunt, Hawi, who lives here in California. We all masked up and enjoyed each others’ company talking about what is important to us, doing an art mural project, learning about growing our own food, and playing with the chickens in the garden.
We’ve attended, virtually, with several of our board members, community action groups to support Black Lives Matter and the Limb Loss/Limb Difference Community.
We’ve begun several new mentorship relationships (which we will post about in more detail in the coming weeks) to help with job searches, fundraising for education, confidence building, and more.
And, we received the official notice from the federal government that we have been approved as a registered 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit organization.
This is just a small list of what we’ve been up to and there is always more to do and many more individuals, families, and community members to help, but we have recognized it is important to move at a pace that makes sense and that works for our organization and those we mentor. Slow but steady and caring is good for now.
We are so grateful for the art and garden day - all of the images, and especially the butterfly painted by Leah, the phoenix and lotus painted by Bethel, and the spring chicken painted by Aster, are incredibly positive metaphors that have helped rekindle our hope and energy to be even more at the ready to support those who call upon us for guidance in their lives.