Joan's Birthday Fundraiser - Silver Spring, MD

On Sunday July 7th, our board member Joan Susie invited us to facilitate a workshop for her birthday. The workshop was a fundraiser for our current project, Say You’re Sorry. Many lovely people attended and donated to our project. After some mingling and snacks, we lead the attendees in a workshop around our Forgivability Scale. 

The activity was similar to the performance experiment we conducted at FORCE in January 2019. Once again, we read a series of wrongs and had participants walk a quilted scale from "Easily Atoned" to "Unforgivable." We adjusted some of the content for our new audience based on what we observed in January. 

​The second iteration of the Forgivability Scale generated some very interesting discussion. This time we added one or two “caveats” to each scenario, in order to clarify/complicate the scenario and give it context. We talked about intention vs. action and the importance of context when wrongdoings are committed. The most compelling part of facilitating this activity for a second time was that the same prompts with small changes often warranted vastly different responses.

One notable moment was a discussion about how people neglect/care for their kids and pets. This brought up how vulnerable it can be to ask for help caring for someone and how certain types of care are inadequate. Is it harder to forgive someone who hurts a loved one than it is to forgive someone who hurts you? This all came from the prompt “They lied about caring for your pet.” Almost everyone found this nearly unforgivable. 

The fundraiser had many cool moments. To name a few: 

• A comment about how our work verges into categories of mental health and psychology
• Another conversation about stealing labeled lunches and food insecurity from a different perspective. This time someone lost their job over it! What role does the informer play in defining punishment? 
• A talk about forgiving people for yelling at your kid. Did the kid deserve it? 

We are so grateful our generous and enthusiastic participants and contributors. The conversations we had gave us much to think about. We are excited to continue pursuing responses to these big questions and developing thought-provoking content around those responses! ​​