Anthologies of Hope

This week's live Conversations Cafe episode is titled “PAWS to COPE - The Power of Pets”, and is filled with discussion & education on Therapy Animals, Emotional Support Animals, and Service Animals, no matter whether they are furry, feathered, or scaled.

Our guests this week include a plethora of Hope for the Day Family:

Pam’s upcoming book, titled Tails of Unconditional Love: Your Journey to the Other Side of Pet Loss Grief is available for preorder now and scheduled to be released on August 15th, 2019. You can find the Amazon preorder page via www.anthologiesofhope.com/paws (P-A-W-S)

The Conversations Cafe is a monthly live podcast recording at Sip of Hope Coffee Bar featuring education and open forum dialogue on the intersections of Mental Health within our communities. This education programming is brought to you by Hope For The Day with support from our partners in prevention, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention of Illinois, and Banyan Treatment Center.

Join the conversation. We are in this together.

Don't forget to check out our companion Spotify playlist at anthologiesofhope.com/playlist.

You can find us on the web at:

We are available anywhere you listen to podcasts:

Please leave us a review, let us know your thoughts, send us questions, and what else you'd like to hear on the future episodes of Anthologies of Hope.

The Wide Wonder Bus Tour, sponsored by Insight Behavioral Health Centers, made its Chicago stop at Sip of Hope and the Cruze-Harringtons participated in a fireside chat with Carl Evans, Director of Programming for Hope for the Day.

Robyn Cruze & Tim Harrington are the founders of Wide Wonder, described as "one bus, two parents, two teens, and a dog in a year of service in search of wide wonder". To date, they have traveled over one thousand miles in the quest for breaking stigma and bringing everyday mental health conversations to local communities. Sound familiar?

Robyn and Tim spoke with Carl and dished on what the experience has been like bringing Wide Wonder to a number of communities across the United States, what it’s been like to bring a family along for the ride, and why this mission is so important to them, both in proactive advocacy but also while being in active recovery themselves. You can find more information on their family and the Wide Wonder mission at their website www.widewonder.life.

The Conversations Cafe is a monthly live podcast recording at Sip of Hope Coffee Bar featuring education and open forum dialogue on the intersections of Mental Health within our communities. This education programming is brought to you by Hope For The Day with support from our partners in prevention, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention of Illinois, Banyan Treatment Center, and Eating Recovery Center.

Join the conversation. We are in this together.

Don't forget to check out our companion Spotify playlist at anthologiesofhope.com/playlist.

You can find us on the web at:

We are available anywhere you listen to podcasts:

Please leave us a review, let us know your thoughts, send us questions, and what else you'd like to hear on the future episodes of Anthologies of Hope.

This week wraps up our multi-part series celebrating Sip of Hope's first birthday! Celebrating on May 1st, 2019, we recorded founders, staff, friends, and family of Hope for the Day and Sip of Hope, capturing how the first-of-a-kind coffee shop - with all of its profits directly benefiting proactive suicide prevention - came to be, as well as what makes it tick on a daily basis.

Mike Vinopal, from Hope for the Day, joins us again as we bring you interviews with the awesome Sip of Hope baristas. Our interviews cover everything from what brought them to Sip of Hope, what they learned in the past year working at Sip of Hope, memorable experiences with shop patrons and community members, as well as how Hope for the Day's proactive suicide prevention (or "peervention") strategy has benefited their lives on a daily basis.

After listening to all the wonderful answers from the Sip of Hope barista family, you can see why the coffee shop has thrived in its first year and why the Logan Square community has embraced it wholeheartedly. Here's to the first year and many more!!!

Don't forget to check out our companion Spotify playlist at anthologiesofhope.com/playlist.

You can find us on the web at:

We are available anywhere you listen to podcasts:

Please leave us a review, let us know your thoughts, send us questions, and what else you'd like to hear on the future episodes of Anthologies of Hope.

Special Guest: Mike Vinopal.

June's episode is in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Dedicated to celebrating the power and history of PRIDE, we will be using pieces of art to start these important conversations about the origins of PRIDE, mental health and the intersection of gender, identity, and orientation, and how to advocate and be an ally of the LGBTQ+ community.

Our excellent guest panelists joining us this week are Dr. Ashley Molin, Gracie Fischer, and Krystal Baisden.

Special thanks to Partners in Prevention, Busy Beaver Button Co. who gave participants the opportunity to take part in a special art engagement, creating their own buttons to celebrate the stigmatized parts of our own individual identities be it gay, trans, non-binary, immigrant, or suicide survivor.

Join the conversation. We are in this together.

The Conversations Cafe is a monthly live podcast recording at Sip of Hope Coffee Bar featuring education and open forum dialogue on the intersections of Mental Health within our communities. This education programming is brought to you by Hope For The Day with support from our partners in prevention, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention of Illinois and Banyan Treatment Center.

The visual aid used during the live recording is available at https://www.anthologiesofhope.com/pride. The PRIDE-specific, curated Spotify playlist used for the live event is available via https://www.anthologiesofhope.com/pride-playlist.

You can find us on the web at:

We are available anywhere you listen to podcasts:

Please leave us a review, let us know your thoughts, send us questions, and what else you'd like to hear on the future episodes of Anthologies of Hope.

This week kicks off our multi-part series celebrating Sip of Hope's first birthday! Celebrating on May 1st, 2019, we recorded founders, staff, friends, and family of Hope for the Day and Sip of Hope, capturing how the first-of-a-kind coffee shop - with all of its profits directly benefiting proactive suicide prevention - came to be, as well as what makes it tick on a daily basis. This episode brings you a handful of awesome long-form interviews with Jonny Boucher, Founder and CEO of Hope for the Day; Kyle Hodges, Minister of Propaganda for Dark Matter Coffee; Luis Arroyo, Cook County Commissioner; and Brian Kmiecik, General Manager of Sip of Hope. Mike Vinopal of Hope for the Day joins us to bring you this week's interviews!

Background music for this week's interviews comes from Soundstripe artist, Shane Becker:

Don't forget to check out our companion Spotify playlist at anthologiesofhope.com/playlist.

You can find us on the web at:

We are available anywhere you listen to podcasts:

Please leave us a review, let us know your thoughts, send us questions, and what else you'd like to hear on the future episodes of Anthologies of Hope.

Special Guest: Mike Vinopal.

The Conversations Cafe is a monthly event at Sip of Hope Coffee Bar featuring education and open forum dialogue on the intersections of Mental Health within our communities. This education event is brought to you by Hope For The Day with support from our partners in prevention, Banyan Treatment Center, Dark Matter Coffee, and Three Run Two.

This episode is dedicated to Partners in Prevention, the forward-thinking businesses that help to support the HFTD mission and amplify the message that IT'S OK NOT TO BE OK®️ featuring podcast interviews with representatives from Three Run Two, Sip of Hope Coffee Bar, Dark Matter Coffee, and HFTD's founder and CEO, Jonny Boucher.

Stay tuned after the episode for the full version of the song used in this episode's interludes - Sleep On It's Everything All At Once!

Don't forget to check out our companion Spotify playlist at anthologiesofhope.com/playlist.

You can find us on the web at:

We are available anywhere you listen to podcasts:

Please leave us a review, let us know your thoughts, send us questions, and what else you'd like to hear on the future episodes of Anthologies of Hope.

Similar to the end of Season 1, our interview this week with Jennifer May is another case of saving the best for last. There’s much of the conversation this week that wraps up many different threads across both seasons of Anthologies of Hope - intricacies of diagnosis with mental health conditions, following along with and feeling like you’re failing at the “checklist of life”, where friends and community play a major part in recovery of both of those, as well as how these will all permeate into everyday life.

We talk about her growth with and through pretty severe anxiety and how she handles that on a regular basis. We dive into a pretty spectacular transformation from a self-ascribed “girl who was afraid of everything” to someone who has challenged herself to being on a plane at least once a month and exploring everything she can!

Don't forget to check out our companion Spotify playlist at anthologiesofhope.com/playlist.

You can find us on the web at:

We are available anywhere you listen to podcasts:

Please leave us a review, let us know your thoughts, send us questions, and what else you'd like to hear on the future episodes of Anthologies of Hope.

Special Guest: Jennifer May.

Sarah Colbert joins us this week and discusses her trip to Heart Camp in detail, but more importantly, the journey up to that point that led her make the decision to attend.

Throughout our conversation, we cover a topic that hasn't been touched on much throughout any of our Anthologies of Hope episodes so far - the aspect of mental health and the professional workplace. We have a pretty frank conversation about what it’s like to work in an environment that is detrimental to your mental health, how big of a difference it makes to work in an environment that benefits your mental health, and using all the tools at your disposal to be able to make that change for the better.

My conversation with Sarah is one that hopefully brings light to the fact that returning to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

Don't forget to check out our companion Spotify playlist at anthologiesofhope.com/playlist.

You can find us on the web at:

We are available anywhere you listen to podcasts:

Please leave us a review, let us know your thoughts, send us questions, and what else you'd like to hear on the future episodes of Anthologies of Hope.

Special Guest: Sarah Colbert.

This was a very special Conversations Cafe event dedicated to Abuse, Consent, & Agency - in honor of April being Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

In this episode, emceed by Carl Evans, Director of Programming for Hope for the Day, we combine past formats for Conversations Cafe where we feature education segments to raise the visibility of resources from community partners, including YWCA of Chicago and Porchlight Counseling Services, interspersed with performance pieces from talented members of our local community, to talk about the intersections between abuse in all of its forms, sexual assault, mental health, and self-expression.

Surrounding this special live event, YWCA of Chicago hosted a Denim Day Ribbon Making activation at Sip of Hope on Friday April 12th. Denim Day was on Wed. April 24th. If you are unfamiliar with the Denim Day Campaign, you can checkout denimdayinfo.org for more complete information.

In between the excellent education pieces and audience discussion, our live performances include some powerful spoken word poetry from Natalie Dykema.

Wrapping up the night, we close it out with a powerful performance from Alex Subak, founder of the Be Victorious Project. After you hear the performance, you will definitely want to check out victoriousproject.org for more information on their mission to provide resources and support to people who have experienced or are experiencing intimate partner violence and their loved ones.

As always, you can find future Conversations Cafe events at PEERvention.org, Hope for the Day or Sip of Hope’s Facebook pages, or just check in to Sip of Hope on the third Wednesday of every month!

Don't forget to check out our companion Spotify playlist at anthologiesofhope.com/playlist.

You can find us on the web at:

We are available anywhere you listen to podcasts:

Please leave us a review, let us know your thoughts, send us questions, and what else you'd like to hear on the future episodes of Anthologies of Hope.

This week's episode is all about the mental health boom and the language of mental health making its way into all sorts of the media that we consume regularly and for self-care. Rick dives deep into movies, television shows, stand-up comedy, podcasts, books, and Ennegram resources that have been discussed on Anthologies of Hope so far, detailing the background of what they mean to him or the individual guests from each episode. We hope that some of these resources are helpful for you to laugh, learn, escape, and thrive; as well as also look forward to hearing some of your favorites of each type. So don't be shy - hit us up on any of our social media or email and let us know what your favorite mental health-related movies, television shows, stand-up comedy sets, podcasts, and books are!

Some references from this week's episode:

Don't forget to check out our companion Spotify playlist at anthologiesofhope.com/playlist.

You can find us on the web at:

We are available anywhere you listen to podcasts:

Please leave us a review, let us know your thoughts, send us questions, and what else you'd like to hear on the future episodes of Anthologies of Hope.