Blossom House
Outreach
Blossom House Outreach extends Blossom House services of trauma-informed yoga, art therapy, and other wellness programs into the community at large and is sustained by the proceeds of Blossom House Healing Arts studios, grants, and other generous donations. Our goal is to provide accessible community outreach services to residential treatment centers, drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, correctional facilities, youth organizations, senior centers, women's shelters, agencies for people with disabilities, etc. while supporting and sustaining the work of our Elders, facilitators, and teachers.
Blossom House 501(c)(3) currently sponsors programs of community outreach at Fairbanks Correctional Center, Fairbanks Youth Facility, and Family Centered Services Residential Treatment Center (formerly the Boys and Girls Home):
• Yoga Service Project Alaska
Yoga Service Project Alaska is an organization of yoga teachers committed to seva yoga–service to community–by creating accessible, trauma-informed programs of yoga for people in isolated communities, people who may not otherwise have the opportunity to attend a yoga class, and to people of all ages, experiences, and backgrounds. In creating equal access to yoga and mindfulness practices, these programs support healing, resilience, self-development, community building, and positive social change. YSPA currently offers yoga practices at Fairbanks Correctional Center, Fairbanks Youth Facility, Family Centered Services Residential Treatment Center, and The Door and is developing a Yoga Teacher Training program for people who are incarcerated to facilitate their own practice both inside and out.
• Breadcrumbs Theatre Company
Breadcrumbs Theatre Company creates opportunities for healing through the performing arts and is committed to:
-
providing theatre workshops to all ages
-
creating theatre for social justice, healing, and community building
-
employing and engaging individuals from diverse backgrounds
-
promoting self-expression
-
encouraging people from marginalized populations to tell their own stories
-
exploring identity and culture
Breadcrumbs Theatre facilitates two forms of Applied Theatre:
Playback Theatre asks audience members to share stories and a troupe of actors and a musician replay the stories back to the audience (immediately and without planning). The teller (audience member sharing a story) benefits from the validation of seeing his/her story replayed. S/he may also gain a deeper understanding of his/her emotional experience. Other audience members may relate to the experience of the teller and feel a similar sense of validation or understanding.
Theatre of the Oppressed can be combined with Playback and asks audience members to brainstorm situations of oppression, and then act out those situations and solutions to them.
Breadcrumbs Theatre Company are trained theatre professionals who bring a wealth of knowledge from various vocational backgrounds in education, art, anthropology, farming, social work, nursing, and activism.
• L.I.O.N.
Learning Inside Out Network is a collective of community members both inside and outside facilities of the criminal justice system who create collaborative works of arts and wellness. L.I.O.N. currently facilitates the Women Writing Workshop inside the Fairbanks Correctional Center (FCC) and its blog Voices Uncaged, as well as the mens' Area 111x writing class which works as a University of Alaska Fairbanks entry level composition course. Blossom House also sponsors Newspapers for Inmates: a program that brings daily newspapers into FCC and the Fairbanks Youth Facility.
• Community Care Collective
Fairbanks Community Care Collective is self care in community. We are a group of people interested in collaborative, consensus-based, anti-oppressive, anti-racist, and trauma-informed ways to support each other personally and professionally. We aim to educate and immerse ourselves in practices of community care, so that we may create access to such resources in our community at large. This description is always open for update, debate, and revision from the collective.