Team Voices of Veterans Story Submission Lancaster Chamber Connection Challenge

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1 2016 Team Voices of Veterans Story Submission Lancaster Chamber Connection Challenge Submitted by: Charlotte Droege 11/11/2016

2 Accepting the Challenge Our Impact Lancaster Connection challenge was based around the inspiration and success of local organization, Writeface and their Voices of Veterans workshop. These workshops were conceived and developed because the founders, Scott Hower and Annie Ginder, recognize that many returning war veterans, due to their military service, are experiencing readjustment issues. Research Writeface currently operates in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania but has plans to expand into five surrounding counties within the next two years and to be operating statewide within five years. Since commencing operations Writeface has served over 80 veterans. Their ages have ranged from 26 years old to 81 years old. According to the 2010 US census there are 35,058 veterans living in Lancaster County and 981,865 veterans living in Pennsylvania. According to the Veterans Administration (VA): 31% of Vietnam War veterans have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), 10% of the first Gulf War veterans have PTSD, 11% of Afghanistan War veterans have PTSD, 20% of Iraq War veterans have PTSD, and 17.75% average of all US veterans have PTSD. That equates to over 6,200 Lancaster County veterans and over 174,000 Pennsylvania veterans with PTSD. The VA also reports that 7.9% of all veterans commit suicide compared to a 2.5% rate among the general population, meaning almost 2,800 Lancaster County veterans are currently at risk of suicide and almost 14,000 Pennsylvania Veterans at risk of suicide. There are currently over 900,000 unprocessed disability claims at the Veteran Administration. These numbers are therefore somewhat underestimated. Writeface plans to expand its operational reach into Chester, Berks, Lebanon, Dauphin, and York counties within the next three years. The number of veterans in living in the surrounding counties according to 2010 US census is as follows: Chester County 31,143 Berks County 29,566 Lebanon County 10,979 Dauphin County 20,826

3 York County 34,528 Lancaster County 35,058 Total 162,099 Our Unique Connection - #IMPACTLANCASTER One cannot manage what one fails to understand. Readjustment without understanding is a trial and error process that can take years to grasp, and can often create co-occurring issues in the interim, including marital problems, substance abuse, loss of employment and isolation from family and friends. While Scott & Annie s program is absolutely fantastic they need help with exposure, publicity, a place to work, and support from our communities in order to reach their goals. That s where Mychal & Charlotte came in - to fill that gap and educate. Writing takes the unmanageable thoughts inside the writer s mind and puts them on paper, or a computer screen, where they can be carefully considered, processed and understood. Thoughts are fleeting, and often go in a circular downward spiral; the written word is not. It can be edited and refined. When a writer says exactly what they mean, they are able to more accurately interpret their inner life. The Team Mychal LaVia of the Hinkles is an artist with a life mission to make art available for EVERYONE. His passion and dedication to help everyone experience art in some way shape or form is the inspiration behind offering the Writeface Voices of Veteran s program the use of his studio space, dedicating countless hours to making crock pot meals, setting up the space every week for the Vets to come and CREATE and in general doing the grunt work to make the program easy to administer by Scott and Annie. Mychal enjoys constantly instructing a workshop or teaching art to all he meets. His positivity is contagious and he regularly hosts his community at his residence, Valley View Arts, for fun, creativity and collaborative adventures. Scott Hower, a Vietnam veteran, experienced the stress of readjustment personally. He learned through his writing to manage those issues. Scott s determination and positivity influence everyone he meets in a powerful way. He enjoys having the time (now that the children are grown) to be alone with his wife, Sabina, who regularly attends workshops

4 with him. Whether working around the house, traveling, or just sitting quietly watching TV or a movie, there is no one Scott would rather spend his time with. Scott has an extensive list of qualifications, a career unmatched by most and in his free time also likes to design and construct free form furniture. He considers himself a poet and loves the process of writing. Scott believes a well-crafted poem has a chapter of prose thoughts and emotions within it. He dreams of a world where there are no veterans to honor or help heal. But, in the mean-time there is Writeface. Annie Ginder is Writeface s program director, a certified Journal To The Self instructor who has taught journaling and poetry courses to individuals suffering from drug and alcohol addiction, Alzheimer s disease and dementia, as well as elementary school children. Annie s career is also great and diverse - writing for various newspapers and journals, working in many different roles in a local printing and marketing company and otherwise founding, supporting and growing several local community-based organizations. In her free time, Annie enjoys writing poetry, watching the New York Yankees (especially with her husband when they play the Boston Red Sox!), playing guitar, writing songs and singing (mostly in private), gardening and being outside as much as possible. Charlotte Droege is founder of local social media marketing firm, Create + Social, and her mission is creative art: to educate, connect, and inspire healing and expression. She fell in love with Writeface s mission and purpose and instantly knew she needed to help spread the gospel of the program far and wide. In her spare time (what spare time?) she enjoys playing with or taxi-ing her two young boys, doing Beachbody workouts, and creating her own artistic works. You can see her Trashion-fashion dress on display right now at the Hinkles! The Process Most classes and workshops employ writing techniques adapted from The Journal Ladder by Kay Adams, director at The Therapeutic Writing Institute and are designed around a theme or topic thread that runs through the entire 5 or 10 week curriculum. The class outlined below was conducted between the end of one five week curriculum and the start of another. This is a commonly used personality test in which we incorporated a writing exercise along with self-reflection. It can be pulled off several websites but we pulled our instructions off of the Oliver Pemberton site. Meditatation/visualization: I want you to imagine a desert, stretching out as far as your eyes can see. In this desert there is a cube. Your first task is to describe the cube. What does it look like? How large is it? What is it made of? Where exactly is it?

5 There are no right answers here, only your answers. Take a moment before you continue - the detail is important. You look at the desert and your cube, you notice there is also a ladder. Your second task (there are just five) to describe the ladder. What is it made of? How big is it? Where is it, in relation to the cube? Now imagine that in the scene there is a horse. (Yes, a horse. I didn t say this desert made sense) Your third task: describe the horse, and what is it doing? Where if anywhere is it going? We re nearly there now. In the scene before you are flowers. Your penultimate task: describe the flowers. How many are there? What do they look like? Where are they, in relation to the horse, cube, ladder and sand? Final question. In the desert there is a storm. Describe the storm, what type of storm is it? Is it near or far? What direction is it headed? Does it affect the horse, flowers, cube or ladder? Once the visualization is completed the class is assigned an art and writing project and results look something like this:

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9 The Challenges Faced After each workshop we would gather as a team to share photos and stories of the day and develop or curate the content. The most significant challenge we faced on this front was technology (learning curves, each individual s comfort level with their smart phone, facebook marketing, etc) and TIME! We persevered with late nights, more meetings than we would have originally anticipated and COFFEE!

10 Our Connection team, the Writeface organization, and the Voices of Veterans workshops will always face a funding challenge. The workshops always have and always will be free to Veterans, who have paid it forward, many times over, by giving selflessly to protect our countless freedoms. Our hope is to continue to inspire the community to come together, learn, grow and support us with their dollars and/or time so Writeface can continue to offer these valuable services to our veterans. Measurement The ARTS at Hinkles mission is to facilitate creativity, collaboration and personal growth by offering as many opportunities as possible for creative arts experiences within the community. Through our tireless social media content, photos, posts, videos and collaboration, the November workshop is growing daily. The next workshop is slated to see a 30% increase over last month s attendance! New Veterans workshop participants are commenting on posts asking to come to the workshops. The feedback has been incredibly positive and absolutely inspiring! Writeface has worked with veterans who were on the brink of suicide and have seen them evolve through the writing process and, emerge with a newfound, self-awareness and confidence in their own abilities to manage their response to civilian life.

11 We started the ARTS at Hinkles Facebook page on September 28, 2016 in order to promote awareness and involvement in the community for the Writeface workshops. With zero Likes and no interaction, we built a community of over 180 page Likes - growing in interaction by the day.

12 A look at our Facebook community in the past 28 days shows incredible Connection and Growth! The FEEDBACK (and smiles witnessed) from ATTENDEES [says it all]: I have PTSD and have seen many psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors. I am on drugs to help with my symptoms but the Writeface workshops have something that none of the others have. It has given me a voice and if this class can help more people as it has helped me then it absolutely needs to be in this world. Please hear me and help Writeface grow. 50 year-old US Navy Veteran ( ) and Writeface Voices of Veterans workshop graduate NOTE: You can also view additional testimonial videos on our facebook page the ARTS at Hinkles!

13 Next Steps for IMPACT on Lancaster county The collaboration will continue tirelessly until Scott and Annie s original goal to expand to the five surrounding counties within the next two years and to be operating statewide within five years is met. The PR Team of Charlotte & Mychal is creating additional marketing collateral and plans to reach out to local organizations personally to ask for support whether it be in the form of money, like the Local Columbia ELKS provided to fund October s program, or whether it be grocery gift cards, like the local Musser s Family-Owned Markets has provided. No donation is too large or too small. We will also continue to utilize our proven digital marketing strategies to grow awareness and positively impact more and more veterans. Stay tuned for more Facebook LIVEs from participants, Twitter accounts for and by Vets and Writeface, Instagram accounts showcasing the beautiful artwork created during class and blog posts with helpful tips, strategies and exercises to provide self-help tools around PTSD. Action expresses priorities. ~Mahatma Gandhi ### Therapeutic Arts for Veterans - #IMPACTLANCASTER CONNECTION CHALLENGE SOCIAL MEDIA SAMPLES Links to Videos on their Twitter and Facebook accounts: Click Here to find The Arts at Hinkles Facebook page, and scroll down through to see video interviews with several participants. Here are the screen shots of the videos so you know what to look for: (Unfortunately, I was not able to link directly to the videos, but they are really easy to find on the Facebook page.)

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