I really never saw it going this way

I started scrapbooking four and a half years ago and fell in love with the hobby pretty quickly. For a while I've felt like it was my only passion (besides my kids) but couldn't come to terms with that and how I could pursue this passion as a vocation, so I tried to ignore that little voice in my head (and in my heart). But then I decided to give in to it. I decided to follow my heart and do what I really wanted to do. And, as they say, things started to fall into place. 

Okay, not everything has fallen completely into place, but things are falling into place. At one of the fairs I did in November, the Mandeville Craft Fair, I met someone named Marie. She's a social worker in private practice, specializing in therapy and rehabilitation for women and girls who have been victims of abuse. We got to talking about how scrapbooking could be used in the types of interventions that she does, and I gave her a pile of stuff to try it out with a project she was working on.

She used the supplies to make vision boards with a group of girls, ages 9-18, in a state care facility called the Granville Place of Safety. This group home had some problems earlier this year, and Marie was called in. One of the last exercises she did with the girls was for them to state some goals for themselves. She made labels with some of the girls' goals and, along with the scrapbooking supplies, each girl put together a scrapbook page with photos and their goals and of course some embellishments.

 *That's Marie in the photo making a heart, to the right.

I was so excited about all this that I put a note on the Studio Calico message board asking for donations of unwanted supplies, and got such a great response. And, to my happy surprise, Studio Calico sent me a huge box of stuff too! 

The project that Marie was hired for has ended, but she would like to do a follow up project with them, as the girls are in need of much more help. They are coming from very, very difficult circumstances, and though they are in state care, very little is provided for them beyond a roof over their heads and three meals a day. 

So now I'm working with Marie to try to get someone to sponsor the project, which would run for a year, and which would include the girls making life books for themselves. This is where will use all the stuff that was donated, and that's where I would come in. (The state says it does not have funds to do anything more.) I will be there as the "technical" scrapbooking person while Marie and her team will be doing the therapy side of things.

If we can get the funding, Marie and I will run this as a pilot project. ie. We will run the project with the intention of formatting it so that it can be replicated in other similar situations/contexts. And there's more too, but we are still in very early stages.

Can you believe it? Can you believe that THIS is where pursuing my passion for scrapbooking has led me so far? I think it's incredible. I've said so often how healing scrapbooking can be, and how I'd love to work with therapists using scrapbooking as a healing tool, and look at where I am now. And I still have such a ways to go... and I'm so excited about the journey ahead.