I’m so excited that the 2012 National Eating Disorders Awareness week is almost here!! Beginning February 26th and running until March 3rd, this week is all about raising awareness and education about eating disorders. There are events happening all over the country — so raise your voice and help us eliminate these devastating disorders!
Here are a few things to check out in the Denver area:
Tuesday, February 28th from 6:30-8:30pm
Giving Voice to Hunger – An Evening in Two Parts
Part 1: Join poets Karen Douglass and Carolyn Jennings for an evening “meal,” a reading to explore many of our appetites, in recognition of both the physical need in our community and National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, two facets of hunger in our world.
Please bring a favorite poem about food, hunger or body image/eating disorders by anyone of your choosing to read at open mic. Please bring a non-perishable food donation for Food Bank of the Rockies.
Refreshments will, of course, be served.
“There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.”
~Mark Strand, “Eating Poetry”
Part 2: Please join Mirror Image Arts for a preview of our original play “Breaking the Silence“, a series of vignettes that showcase the various faces of eating disorders. We will be performing two vignettes and will be available for a discussion, along with a licensed therapist, Kate Broyles Daigle, to help process the intense emotions surrounding eating disorders and disordered eating. Eating disorders thrive in silence. Breaking that silence and facing the issues is the best way to fight back.
Bios:
For over twenty years, Carolyn Jennings (www.WritingOurWings.com) has used her journal as a primary tool for recovery from an eating disorder and in creating a thriving life. This experience inspired her to write the award-winning Hunger Speaks: a memoir told in poetry and to become a Journal to the Self® certified instructor. She now guides others to uncover awareness, wholeness, freedom and abundance through their pens.
Karen Douglass writes poems, novels, a blog, and grocery lists. She lives in Colorado with three dogs, one cat, and her family. You can visit her at www.kvdbooks.com or you can come to Broomfield. Her books include Red Goddess Poems; Bones in the Chimney (fiction); Green Rider, Thinking Horse (non-fiction); Sostenuto, (prose poems) and The Great Hunger (poems), which is available from Plain View Press (2009). A new poetry chapbook, Two-Gun Lil, is scheduled for independent publication this year.
Mirror Image Arts is a non profit educational theatre company that uses their original play “Breaking the Silence” to raise awareness, inspire change and spark conversation about the emotional topics of eating disorders and body image. “Breaking the Silence”, written by a woman recovering from anorexia and bulimia, is a series of vignettes showcasing the various faces of both eating disorders and disordered eating. Mirror Image brings “Breaking the Silence” to area schools, churches and community centers free of charge. After the show the actors of Mirror Image, together with a licensed therapist, lead an in depth discussion with the audience. Mirror Image aims to break the silence surrounding these all to common issues. For more information contact Erin Jorgenson at e.jorgenson@mirrorimagearts.org or visit our website at www.mirrorimagearts.org.
Thursday, March 1st, 6pm
Eating Disorder Foundation’s Fifth Annual Candlelight Vigil
We invite you to join us for our fifth annual Candlelight Vigil during National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (February 26 – March 3, 2012). Take this opportunity to visit A Place of Our Own and join us as we remember those who have passed away and to honor those still on the path of recovery.
Mingling and hors d’oeuvres begin at 6:30pm with the candlelight ceremony to follow at 7:00pm.
Light a candle and say a prayer with us as we come together on this night to join in the spirit of remembering and healing.
A Place Of Our Own — the Eating Disorder Foundation’s new support center
The Eating Disorder Foundation’s new support center, A Place of Our Own® is open and ready to welcome you for a broad range of classes and support groups designed to enhance eating disorder recovery or for informal drop-in visits for those wishing to talk, find time to be alone or meet people on the recovery journey.
A Place of Our Own is located at 1901 E. 20th Ave Denver 80205. For more information, visit www.eatingdisorderfoundation.org; this is a unique center with ongoing events – so keep checking back to see what’s going on!
Other events around the country!
To find out more information about Eating Disorders Awareness Week and to learn what you can do to support, visit the National Eating Disorders Awareness Week website. I also came across a helpful post for those looking to learn more about eating disorders and how to help those suffering from an eating disorder heal. You can read it at When Food Is Family blog.
Eating disorders thrive in silence. Let’s break that silence! If you know of any other events or ideas to lend support to this cause, please feel free to leave a comment here. We are powerful individually, we are a unstoppable as a group!
