After a month of speaker events on death, Grace North Church of Berkeley culminated their ground-breaking (pun intended) program with a Green Funeral Fair.I shared a booth at the fair with the volunteer coordinator, Merry, from Sutter VNA & Hospice where I am a volunteer. She was pushing advanced care directives and telling people about hospice volunteering. I brought a laptop with my film trailers and some DVDs. Didn't manage to sell any DVDs, but met a lot of nice people.
Vendor booths were all upstairs in a large room. On display: eco-caskets, funeral shrouds, home-based funerals, memory markers, high end art object urns, obituary writing help, books on death, caregiving and organizing, and more. I'll be sharing more information on these booth in subsequent blogs. As a tease, I've given you a couple of links. Stay tuned.
In addition to the upstairs room with all the vendors, the church sanctuary below had a full day of events and activities including: mask making, coffin painting, sugar scull decorating, wheat weaving, paper-flower constructing, live music, a sing-a-long with the Threshold Choir and a funeral hat parade and contest which I participated in, but unfortunately didn't win. Too bad. It was a $150 prize. The woman in the black veil won. There was a prize for the men too. With only three male entries, a much easier competition.I had a great time meeting all the vendors. You can see my photos on my facebook site for Secrets of Life and Death (I hope the link works, if not, just search for Secrets of Life and Death in Facebook).
Congratulations to Grace North Church on trying something very different. Hope they do it again next year.
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