Connectivity & Friendship

Butterfly Boxes (appropriate for all ages) help you or someone you love find inspiration and strength during their personal journey with cancer. Each Butterfly Box contains art or writing materials and self-guided instructions that encourage self expression through creativity, mindfulness and play.

Available May 1 – June 10
Creativity | Calming Collage: Which colors do you find soothing? Combine scrap materials to create a tranquil, meditative collage to help you relax.

Mindfulness | Dreamcatcher: Trouble sleeping? Restless during the day? Create this age-old tool for catching your dreams with a few simple tools.

Play | Natural Materials: Reclaim your inner child by working with natural materials such as pebbles, driftwood, pressed flowers, and clay to bring the outdoors in.

Available June 11 – July 21
Creativity | Leave Your Prints: Your fingerprints are as unique as you are. Use washable ink and felt tip pens to illustrate the lines that define your identity.

Mindfulness | Gratitude Tree: What are you grateful for? Write your thoughts on leaves to construct a network of branches filled with gratitude.

Play | Paint a Window: What do you want to hide (or show) the world? Windows provide a view from the outside to a life on the inside. Make your thoughts transparent by drawing on glass.

Available July 22 – August 31
Creativity | Anchor Art: Paint with washes of watercolor to create imagery reminiscent of stability and strength and reflect on the anchors in your life.

Mindfulness | Box of Values: Symbolize the values which represent your uniqueness by experimenting with collage techniques and text.

Play | Play and Walk Away: Sometimes we have a hard time letting go, but the beauty of creating something using ephemeral materials like sand, chalk, paper, or water is that there can be many reinvented
forms of originality.

Build comradery with other guys who are also navigating the cancer journey while working together on projects which inspire conversation and healing. The featured gadget for this makerspace workshop is derived from Tiny Circuits, Akron-based producer of tiny, open-source electronics. All are welcome.

Novice writers are welcome to freely share their life stories or cancer journey through the expressive form of prose and poetry, while embracing the friendship and conversation of fellow participants. Led by Akronite Jason Blakely, owner of Poetry Is Life Publishing.