An Open Letter to the Lincoln Community

After much trepidation, consideration, and sadness, a consensus has been made to put an indefinite pause on the project known as Sycamore Family Resource Center.  Although it's been an interesting and informative year of starts and stops, it turns out to be the next logical step for us to take a big step back, reassess, and focus our energies in other ways that benefit our community.

This decision is in no way a reflection of the importance of providing diverse resources for families in Lincoln. I started this project as an opportunity to address the need for resources for expecting families who had little access to alternatives.  Sycamore Center started with a great vision of celebrating the families in our community, as Lincoln has a beautiful variety of people with different needs.  By building on this vision, I came to learn that my passion for community and women’s health is most effective in focused, collaborative projects.  I had the wonderful chance to train with the Office of Women’s Health as a Community Health Worker, and I am excited to build on my experience as a birth worker and activist for health equity and reproductive rights.  I’m grateful for the learning experience this has been and hope to continue working with you all in the future.

It would be a shame not to shed all of our light on the amazing investment of time, encouragement, and money we've received from our community.  A huge thanks to:

• Alene Swinehart for the beautiful space to dream this project up in
• Chris Funk and Ann Seacrest for meeting with me early on to share their expertise
• Olivia Garza, Carol Dicks, Kitty Fynbu, Julia Slagle and the lovely Lauren Turner for their organizational support
• the ladies at A Novel Idea for knowing their stuff
• Adam Hintz at Meadowlark Coffee & Espresso for the ever-abundance of free coffee
• Alex Svoboda for talking about herbs
• Katie Briggs for her lovely graphic designs skills
• Elbeth Magilton for her legal knowledge and direction
• Eric Shanks whose experience is invaluable for creating change
• Jean Krejci for being a total joy and inspiration to work with and keeping the fire alive
• Hilary Stohs Krause for rocking the universe
• Gerardo Mesa, HoneyBee & Hers, All Young Girls Are Machine Guns, and Black Cohosh for providing the spell-binding entertainment for our benefit and making it a success
• the exquisite Samantha McCulloch with Hannaya Healing
• Trina Derickson for reading Tarot
• Shannon Claire with B-Sides Photography  
• all of the dozens of donors for our silent auction and raffle, which were too numerous to mention- your donations were an incredible act of generosity and faith.

A few loose ends that need to be tied up include our finances- we have a balance of roughly $350 that we need to make a decision about.  If you consider yourself a stakeholder in this community bucket, please access our Facebook page to find a poll to help us decide how to spend it.  We will post it on August 31, 2012, and make a final decision for these funds on September 15, 2012.  

Also, we have a collection of feminist and health literature, homeschooling supplies, and children's books and toys that will be still be accessible to the Lincoln community by contacting me, Stephanie Dank, at 402-309-0470, or emailing Olivia Garza at electricgarza@gmail.com.  

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us through our email: sycamorefrcenter@gmail.com.  This email address will remain active until January 1st, 2013.  If you are interested in staying up to date about my work as a Community Health Worker and Doula, follow my blog: motherfront.blogspot.com

Many blessings,
Stephanie Dank