…so here it is. This is a part of what I was up to for the majority of February:
Longtime readers probably remember me talking about this last year, but unfortunately, that post was lost in the site crash last year and (apparently) won’t be recovered by the WayBack Machine anytime soon. You can still see pictures of the last two years’ events here, however, and this year’s pictoral here. Please excuse my dorkiness if you know what I look like; I rarely take good pictures and this years’ collection is proof of that. 
When Joanne and I founded our community’s eating disorders task force, we were 100% gung-ho about events like this, thinking they would have huge turnouts and wild success rates, coupled with the fact that we were, in a way, planning a sort of party and it would be a blast for us all. We’d start with this event and work our way into holding similar “parties” throughout the year.
Well, that’s about half right. It is fun and we have seen quite a bit of success from a jeans drive like this, but it is a lot of hard effing work. You have to create fliers, distribute fliers, publicize the event in the media, make the rounds with local businesses for sponsorship, create displays, prepare a million other things and make even more decisions. The bigger and better we make it each year, it’s just that much more of an effort on our part - especially when dealing with sponsors. They are generous and give an event like ours much more credibility but they can also be picky and demanding, especially when it comes to their logo on your poster. (I now know this firsthand.) I’m not complaining - no, really, I’m not - but what I am saying is that if you get involved in something like this and there’s only a few of you like there are in my group, be prepared to work much more than you think you will. It takes a great amount of effort from everyone involved to pull this off successfully. When you do, it feels euphoric and you feel like you’ve done something amazing. But it’s sort of like Christmas: it’s a ton of effort and planning, all for one big day. Although we do have presence at events throughout the year, they are much more scaled back than what we do for the jeans giveaway. We set up booths at health fairs and expos and it’s mostly about handing out pamphlets and talking with people passing by. It’s much simpler but still puts us in the presence of the public eye.
We added one more public event to our NEDAW lineup this year, and that was a community forum. We had a panel of four people present on various topics related to eating disorders. We came up with a fairly diverse lineup: a dietitian talked about the nutritional elements of recovery; a religious-based group leader discussed her program, as well as her own journey through disordered eating; a fellow task member talked about body image; and I talked about my own story and the challenges of recovery in a “this is the reality” sort of way. Our turnout wasn’t high, but the people that did show up asked fantastic questions. It was also wonderful for networking in the community. A couple of us were asked by a school nurse if we would be willing to speak again at the high school where she works, so that alone made the experience worth it.
With all of this said, it is at this time of year that I look back and see that we really did (and do) have an impact. Al of the work is worth it.For those that want to do something like this in their own communities, go for it. It really is rewarding - just be aware of what you might be getting into. I’ll miss it all greatly when I leave town this summer. Chances are that the university I will be attending will have some sort of NEDAW events, but I probably won’t be nearly as involved in them as I am here. It will be a mixed blessing: I’ll have more free time in February 2010 but at the same time, I’ll be wishing that I was designing fliers, coming up with lists of potential sponsors, preparing a presentation, etc. Le sigh. So now you know why the site has been barren of new posts for the last few weeks. 
…so here it is. This is a part of what I was up to for the majority of February:
Longtime readers probably remember me talking about this last year, but unfortunately, that post was lost in the site crash last year and (apparently) won’t be recovered by the WayBack Machine anytime soon. You can still see pictures of the last two years’ events here, however, and this year’s pictoral here. Please excuse my dorkiness if you know what I look like; I rarely take good pictures and this years’ collection is proof of that.
When Joanne and I founded our community’s eating disorders task force, we were 100% gung-ho about events like this, thinking they would have huge turnouts and wild success rates, coupled with the fact that we were, in a way, planning a sort of party and it would be a blast for us all. We’d start with this event and work our way into holding similar “parties” throughout the year.
Well, that’s about half right. It is fun and we have seen quite a bit of success from a jeans drive like this, but it is a lot of hard effing work. You have to create fliers, distribute fliers, publicize the event in the media, make the rounds with local businesses for sponsorship, create displays, prepare a million other things and make even more decisions. The bigger and better we make it each year, it’s just that much more of an effort on our part - especially when dealing with sponsors. They are generous and give an event like ours much more credibility but they can also be picky and demanding, especially when it comes to their logo on your poster. (I now know this firsthand.) I’m not complaining - no, really, I’m not - but what I am saying is that if you get involved in something like this and there’s only a few of you like there are in my group, be prepared to work much more than you think you will. It takes a great amount of effort from everyone involved to pull this off successfully. When you do, it feels euphoric and you feel like you’ve done something amazing. But it’s sort of like Christmas: it’s a ton of effort and planning, all for one big day. Although we do have presence at events throughout the year, they are much more scaled back than what we do for the jeans giveaway. We set up booths at health fairs and expos and it’s mostly about handing out pamphlets and talking with people passing by. It’s much simpler but still puts us in the presence of the public eye.
We added one more public event to our NEDAW lineup this year, and that was a community forum. We had a panel of four people present on various topics related to eating disorders. We came up with a fairly diverse lineup: a dietitian talked about the nutritional elements of recovery; a religious-based group leader discussed her program, as well as her own journey through disordered eating; a fellow task member talked about body image; and I talked about my own story and the challenges of recovery in a “this is the reality” sort of way. Our turnout wasn’t high, but the people that did show up asked fantastic questions. It was also wonderful for networking in the community. A couple of us were asked by a school nurse if we would be willing to speak again at the high school where she works, so that alone made the experience worth it.
With all of this said, it is at this time of year that I look back and see that we really did (and do) have an impact. Al of the work is worth it.For those that want to do something like this in their own communities, go for it. It really is rewarding - just be aware of what you might be getting into. I’ll miss it all greatly when I leave town this summer. Chances are that the university I will be attending will have some sort of NEDAW events, but I probably won’t be nearly as involved in them as I am here. It will be a mixed blessing: I’ll have more free time in February 2010 but at the same time, I’ll be wishing that I was designing fliers, coming up with lists of potential sponsors, preparing a presentation, etc. Le sigh. So now you know why the site has been barren of new posts for the last few weeks.