Closing Remarks #17

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be included in a really great collection of writing in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. In it, I discuss the work that I do as the facilitator of Composting and Hospicing Community of Practice under the umbrella of the Stewarding Loss project and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Emerging Futures Initiative.

In the community, we chat (over Slack and Zoom) about facilitating ends across a number of areas --- art institutions, theaters, academia, homeless services, and even actual physical death. In the group, we are slowly coming together around some principles that we are holding in common. For example, there is a lot of enthusiasm for the idea of "discussing the end at the beginning" as well as banishing the use of the word "permanent". We are playing with ideas of archival and even exploring what it means to embrace "graceful" degradation.

I've been grateful to have been given the opportunity to hold this space for people who are also gazing into areas that we are so often discouraged from looking at or discussing. As we experience more inevitable collapses and intentional sunsets, I hope to keep finding ways to navigate these things in community rather than in isolation.

5) Legacy alzheimer's care provider to sunset
For 35 years, Alzheimer’s Services of the East Bay provided critical daytime activities for those suffering from dementia and critical relief to their caregivers. Overwhelming expenses forced the board to make the decision to shut down and sell their building in Berkeley, California. The organization's executive director and board chair, Michael Pope, maintains that she and the board still feel their services are needed in the community and have vowed to explore other options. In the article, she states, “I’m hoping that we will have a phoenix story,”

6) Another animal rehab center lost
Michigan's Howell Nature Center has had to make the difficult choice to lay off staff and end their Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. The center says the cost of caring for injured animals has increased and donations have decreased.

7) Pay-What-You-Can eatery serves its final meal
The Kitchen Table was a donation and volunteer-based eatery/community pay-what-you-can café located in northern Illinois. The group has served over 100,000 meals since it was started in 2013. While the restaurant building has been sold to a for-profit eatery, the team is exploring whether they can be of service to the community in another way.

8) A Shuttered Prison, A Lost Community
"I'm not saying that I am against the closure of prisons. I truly do believe that in the fight for a more fair criminal justice system, some of our country’s archaic institutions need to shutter its doors. But there should be more thought put into these decisions."
In this beautiful piece, Rashon Venable, a Muslim poet and AIDS educator incarcerated in the New York State prison system, reflects on how the sudden closure of the facility in which was housed cost him his spiritual base.

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