In celebration of Mother’s Day, the Karsh Center created the space for creativity and self-care to celebrate all of the moms and caregivers in our community. We know being a parent or caregiver in these times is incredibly difficult, and it can be hard to prioritize spending time on ourselves. Finding time to relax, connect with community, and pamper yourself is critical for our overall well being. Honoring this, the Karsh Center organized a wonderful morning of self-care on Monday, May 9th for 80 clients. Our volunteers helped put together goodie bags that included workshop materials that could be delivered to all clients registered, along with self-care kits prepared by Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s Religious School and the Beauty Bus. Thanks to our collaboration with 211, we were able to deliver these goodie bags and kits with workshop materials directly to participants ahead of time.
We kicked off the morning with some online Zumba on Zoom, an exercise class led by Ana Guzman. Dancing while incorporating fitness moves, Zumba boosts your mood with endorphins and great music – an upbeat start to the day. If you missed it, the Karsh Center hosts Zoom Zumba every Monday morning at 10 am. You can register here.
After Zumba, we transitioned into an art workshop hosted by Dawn Mendelson, of Piece by Piece. Clients were provided with glue, pieces of ceramic, and a wodden heart template to make a beautiful, and unique mosaic. Dawn explained that broken plates or lamps could be recycled and turned into beautiful mosaic pieces, creating sustainable art for anyone to enjoy. This activity was largely independent, and accompanied by soft music, making it a very relaxing space.
“I’ve always wanted my own mosaic,” one client shared. “I love this, it makes me feel relaxed,” chatted another workshop participant. Kids joined their moms and caregivers to help out, and were excited to create their own mosaic as well. We were honored to create the opportunity for the caregivers in our community to sit down with their loved ones and create art and memories together.
Finally, to finish off our morning of self-care, Dana DiCioccio from Beauty Bus hosted a facial workshop. Dana taught participants how to create a skin care routine, the application order of each product on the skin, and spoke about the purpose of each. Our clients were engaged asking questions about exfoliation, retinols, clean products and more. We also did face yoga, which involves making some very silly faces to stretch and protect our face muscles and skin. Clients thanked Dana for her excellent product recommendations, which targeted affordable clean products, for easy skincare routines.
These workshops all aimed to help each member of our community have additional tools to be able to take a moment for themselves, prioritize their needs, and create spaces for fun, celebration and healing, while juggling the responsibilities and stresses that caregiving brings. Thanks to our volunteers, presenters, staff, donors, and of course, clients, who made this year’s Mother’s Day event possible!
Volunteers also prepared bags of delicious chocolate truffles that were distributed at our food pantries on Sunday and Tuesday. Over 450 households celebrated Mother’s Day with the Karsh Center by enjoying a sweet treat!
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