Shoutout to The Piece of Mind group at middlesex school! Today, they are hosting a bake sale at their school in honor of 13 Reasons to Fly. We are so grateful for Natalie, her team & her initiative. Both of our groups are geared towards mental health awareness! We are so glad the conversation is being started in a lot of places. Best of luck to natalie and her team today! You guys rock.
If you’re interested in hosting an event for 13 Reasons to Fly, please reach out!! Every bit helps.
Today marks the first time we brought our message into a non hospital setting! It is also the first place of worship we’ve gone to! Huge thank you to my church family for all their support and especially to the youth for opening up & allowing this message in! It was great to finally bring this back to my own town!
If interested in bringing 13 Reasons to Fly to your place of worship, please email 13reasonstofly@gmail.com !
We are so grateful to have opened our first out of state chapter this weekend! We traveled to Utica, New York to The House of Good Shepherd. So thankful for this amazing crew! They had welcoming, hardworking staff and inspiring youth! This was our first real interaction with a school and we are excited to see what’s to come. This was an uplifting experience and we learned how our message needs to be heard on so many different levels. Can’t wait to come back:)
We are very excited to announce a new initiative 13 Reasons to Fly is spearheading called the My Body Project. The goal of the My Body Project is to increase self confidence of individuals as well as promoting positive body image through social media. Often times, we use social media to compare ourselves to others or to degrade ourselves because we don’t look like ______. Why don’t we change that? It’s not easy, and self esteem is complex but we have the power to make a change. We have the power to spread body positivity. It’s time we stop expecting perfection out of ourselves. It’s time we lift each other up and celebrate our differences!! The My Body Project is founded to do just that.
To show how real and important this is to me, I will be honest about where I was inspired to start this. I was at the Doctors recently, discussing my eating disorder, and my doctor referenced how society certainly doesn’t help any of these issues. Obviously, this wasn’t the first time I’d thought about this; I actually often think about the way society works and how mental illness is effected negatively because of the expectations the world places on us. But, we have the power to shift those expectations. Why don’t we turn our insecurities into something beautiful. I will be doing this with you all, through my recovery and treatment of my ED, I will lean on the My Body Project to try and accept and celebrate the imperfect way I am and the way I look. Approximately 10 million people suffer from an eating disorder. While we can’t make this go away, we can start to help.
How this is going to work: I ask that all of you follow the My Body Project page and follow the steps there. Through this process, you will be prompted to challenge negative thoughts, celebrate your imperfections, and promote body positivity on social media.
Just like recovery, this initiative is new and a work in progress. Please be patient as we figure out what works, what doesn’t and how to get this started! Also, while it makes it more real that I am going through this with you all it does add some challenges!
You are beautiful just the way you are! It’s time we start believing this and spreading this!!
Cohannet Academy, the treatment facility I resided in for 6 months, hosted us a few weeks ago! It was great to circle back to where this all began. We ravamped the chapter I started there back in June. It was great to reconnect with my old peers and staff. Thank you so much for this oppurtunity! Another chapter down for the books:) hope to keep moving forward and start even more!! Let’s spread this message together🦋💙
We are very excited to announce that 13 Reasons to Fly was featured in IACAPAP‘s bulletin for this month! Back in September, Dr. Gordon Harper and I collaborated on an article and it made its way to this wonderful organization. We are so grateful for this oppurtunity, for Dr. Harper, Joseph Ray, Bryan Lary and everyone else that collaborated and helped us get to this point! So excited for what’s to come, 13 Reasons to Fly has no boundaries, time to get international! Thank you!! Please take the time to read and check out IACAPAP! Thank you:)
Attended the Young Women in Excellence Breakfast this morning! So honored to be invited and featured in their presentation. Met so many strong women this morning! Thank you so much to Youth Villages for hosting- your services help me on a daily basis. Great to learn more about the intensive, family based treatment they offer to me and so many others. Great start to the morning, I was in awe of all the inspiring stories, philosophies and novels. I am so grateful to have had this oppurtunity to make new connections, be inspired, and spread the word! Truly so many excellent women- and men:)
What a great day!! SO lucky to have had the oppurtunity to come and start the first official chapter of 13 Reasons to Fly at Worcester’s Continuing Care Units! I have never met a more supportive and welcoming group of staff, residents, and families. Thank you so much to Caroline McGrath, Jen and the whole team at CCU, this day was amazing because of you guys! Great to hear peoples reasons and feedback! Our journey and work has officially begun! First step into spreading the message(: Spent the day with some pretty amazing people!
If you went today but didn’t get a tshirt or even if you weren’t there and would like a tshirt I have set up a group order form!! Thank you in advance!
If you’d like to be the next program 13 Reasons to Fly comes to feel free to reachout (13reasonstofly@gmail.com)! We want to spread our message to as many people that are willing to hear it!
Super excited!! Had an absolutely amazing time at the Building Bridges Initiative Conference. I am so grateful to have had this oppurtunity to speak on behalf of youth receiving residential services. I met so many great people doing great work.. keep it up!!! I also am so thankful to everyone who talked to me or wrote down their information ( I tried emailing those I could but please reach out if I haven’t done so already! ) Can’t wait to bring this thing nation wide- or to your program/ school!
Overall a great day, thank you to Beth Caldwell, Janice Label, Bryan Lary and many more!
I am so excited to announce 13 Reasons to Fly is now a registered Non-profit!!! (thanks to the help of a friend, Mr. Kimera). We are so grateful for his help as well as all the support from everyone! This is a big step in our journey but the work still needs to be done! Now we just have more means to do it!
