February is always an exciting month at WholeHeart. It is our scholarship fundraiser that coincides with Valentine’s Day. We invite people to send Valentines of Gratitude to those who inspire them to live wholeheartedly and thus pay it forward to others who want to attend our programs.
This year, we were feeling the pinch between those who wanted scholarships and the limited funds we had to offer.
We were also inspired by stories of impact that taking time to learn to listen more deeply to the layers below a hello, email or tweet. Creating trustworthy space for us and in us is a practice. We all need ways to breathe a little wider so our inner knowing can connect us more deeply to the collective web of being we are a part of.
Reshaping and reclaiming a commercialized day of expressing love is aligned with our version of “fierce love.”
Some of our wonderful Valentine-Making-Elf-Volunteers admitted that Valentines Day wasn’t their favorite. Yet this event helped shape-shift it into being a part of community activism.
Nine people came together to cut, address, stamp, sticker and make sure the personalized valentines ended up in the right envelopes! Over cocoa and cookies, they made 117 Valtenintes of Gratitude in a record 1 hour and twenty minutes! (with gratitude to Tara Reynolds for all the organizational finesse beforehand and the follow-up virtual email valentines!).
We successfully raised $6,688! Scholarship recipients are already submitting requests, meeting our goal of expanding the reach of this work.
Gratitude abounds to all who donated, volunteered, received and were touched by this initiative. May the spirit of Valentines of Gratitude spark your love-in-action and support your practice of living wholeheartedly!
With deep gratitude from the WholeHeart team and future participants!
“Gratitude is a life skill that can improve with practice. Even during the toughest trials, we can learn to find things to enjoy and appreciate. I don’t mean to imply that we can manage to be grateful every moment. That would be an unrealistic demand on ourselves. Feeling gratitude is not a moral injunction, but rather, a healthy habit that we can learn to employ with greater frequency.”
Mary Pipher,Women Rowing North:Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age.