Shanti/Healing Waters 2012 Rafting Trip Fun!

Shanti/Healing Waters Rafting Weekend 2012

July 7th and July 8th

"The laughter and community I felt this weekend – its exactly what I needed.”

Living with an illness can be very emotionally and physically draining. Healing Waters Wilderness Adventures exists to help us step outside of our everyday stress for a weekend by offering an incredibly fun weekend of Whitewater Rafting on the South Fork of the American River.

A couple of folks with us were new to camping and a few had not been able to camp for a while before this weekend. Quite a few of the volunteers were there for the first time as volunteers themselves. Yet everything was perfect.

The early morning meet up in front of the Healing Waters Office was easy. You could tell who had coffee and who didn’t but we were in high spirits.

Once at Camp Lotus everyone pitched in to set up tents and help each other out. With the light lunch and safety talk was done we were out on the river for “the longest 45 minutes” in my life – lasting about 4 hours. The water was wonderful and the other river rafting people friendly – even the little girl and father who ambushed us with splashing buckets of waters.

Some of us stopped to look at the old nut pits in the river boulders. These pits were made by the local First Nations women preparing grains for their family meals thousands of years ago.

Off the river and back at the campsite we had dinner and a relaxing evening by a "raging" campfire – once the karaoke family finished celebrating! (It was fun – and we were all invited to join in with glow bracelets).
And no mysterious banjo playing this year!

The next day we had a lovely breakfast, a closing circle and underway home. Blissfully weary!
Oh! How can I forget the lovely stop at Dairy Queen!

All in all - the river was cold and the weather as well as the company was warm.

Thanks to Redge, Jorlan, RIck and Joel for the great pictures! And the Healing Waters staff and volunteers for a great weekend outing. Of course thanks to all of us participants without whom this would have not happened at all!

Here is the photo slideshow! -

Please join dot429 and Shanti for The Salon Series: conversations about success.

Please join dot429 and Shanti for The Salon Series: Conversations About Success.

When: Wednesday, July 25th from 6-9 pm
Where: Foreign Cinema, 2534 Mission Street
Ticket Price: $25 advance--$35 door

The second in a series of six events will feature Jana Rich, Managing Director of Russel Reynolds Associates. With hosted cocktails at the beautiful Foreign Cinema. Valet Parking available.

This event will benefit Shanti's Breast Cancer Program.

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HIV Story Project - STILL AROUND wins Festival Award

Report from The Out in the Desert 2012 – Tucson’s International LGBT Film Festival On Feb 27th Marc Smolowitz announced STILL AROUND – the film short portion of the HIV Story Project screened in Tucson, AZ at the Out In The Desert LGBT International Film Festival over the previous weekend. The film was represented at the event by the HIV Story Project’s Executive Producer, Marc Smolowitz. This was the festival inaugural affair and he says that it was small, friendly and well organized also that the audience was extremely kind and enthusiastic. At this inaugural event STILL AROUND won the CRYSTAL CACTUS JURY AWARD for BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY. The jury was an independent group of evaluators, largely film professionals and academics from Arizona, and at the closing night event, there was a strong consensus that STILL AROUND was an impressive and important contribution to the canon of films about AIDS. The HIV Story Project and STILL AROUND was conceived initially as part of the Shanti L.I.F.E. Program’s L.I.F.E. Goes On (LGO) Project that quickly evolved - under the aegis of Jörg Fockele and Marc Smolowitz as an independent non-profit, multi-platform story telling/media endeavor. (http://www.thehivstoryproject.org/)