Best wishes to all for a happy and peaceful year. The last quarter of 2009 and the first few months of 2010 have seen change and continuity. Our intrepid operations manger, Kasee Fuller, received a full scholarship to get her Ph.D. back home in Iowa near her family with her old mentor and couldn’t pass up the opportunity. We were sorry to see her go and happy for her at the same time. Nicolette Segell has taken over admirably as Retreat Planner, planning all six 2010 retreats. Amanda Schoeneman is joining us as Program Coordinator, rounding out the office staff that also includes Lauren Rettberg as our Office Manager. If you have applied for or attended a retreat, you’ve certainly had the pleasure of speaking or emailing with Lauren. Kevin Walsh has joined us as Finance Consultant.
We said goodbye to Helen Marlo, Ph.D. and Larry D’Arcangelis, long time Board members and had the pleasure of welcoming three new members: Dan Lowenstein, M.D., Mai-Ling Garcia, MA and Janice Pettey. Please read about them below.
Life is full or joys and sorrows. On the sorrows side, we experienced the tragic loss of one of our retreat participants, Russ Anderson. It was heartening to see the extended Coming Home community reach out and support Angela and the kids during this tragic time.
I spent two weeks recently visiting Vietnam, my first trip to Asia. It is a beautiful and serene country whose inhabitants practice equanimity and forgiveness naturally. But the signs of war and suffering are everywhere. Riding up the beautiful Perfume River in Hue in the early morning, I imagined vividly the documented ferocity of the conflict during the war. I thought, Perfume and Blood. Holding the joy and pain of life in the same palm. I had the good fortune to visit with Vietnamese veterans from all sides of the conflict, NVA, South Vietnamese AF and Viet Cong. (see pictures) The encounters were deeply moving and I learned that their experience during and since the war was more similar than different from those of many American veterans.
During a recent trip to New York I had the pleasure of presenting about our program to IAVA’s (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America) NYC and DC contingents. We were all excited to learn about our respective work and explore opportunities for collaborating. In DC I had good meetings with VA and White house officials to explore opportunities for partnering. I also had lunch with a group of DoD chaplains very interested in addressing the bio-psycho-social and also the spiritual needs of our service members and their families. We look forward to our planed partnering with Operation Homefront who are providing logistics volunteers for our new retreat venues in San Diego, San Antonio and DC metro area.
We had a facilitator training conference to prepare for our regional/national retreat rollout and full slate of retreats in 2010: one provider self-care retreat in February and another in October, and 4 regionally based veteran and family retreats. Our vision is of integrative networks of service in each of the regions: Northern and Southern California, Texas and DC Metro area. Our retreats will serve as portal and hub--connecting people to one another, themselves, their families and to services in their regions.
To kick this off and begin to make this a reality, we are planning educational programs in the Bay Area in conjunction with the Concord Vet Center and possibly with the VA in Martinez. These will include, both in the East and South Bay, a parenting education class for veterans and spouses, and a wellness class for veterans and service members. We are also planning additional video trainings on self-care, holistic approaches to trauma, and spirituality. Stay tuned.
We are delighted to have received a grant from the Bob Woodruff Foundation for $100,000 in support of our service provider retreat in February. We are grateful to their organization, ReMind, and look forward to working together to provide self-care opportunities to combat compassion fatigue and burnout and enhance wellbeing and workplace sustainability.
Support
We are grateful for support from all quarters. Our programs are free and we want them to stay that way. Because they are free to participants, they cost our organization a great deal. Help comes in many forms: strategic, human energy, expertise, elbow grease, spiritual support, financial assistance are a few. We welcome all of them. We want to make opportunities available to old and new friends and program participants to be of assistance. If you or someone you know, perhaps from your family or your circle of friends, acquaintances and colleagues, is able to help, we welcome your assistance. Feel free to let people know about our programs and to enable those who can assist the Coming Home Project.