February Events and Updates

Sweet and Pun-ny Family Cardmaking Night
Monday, February 7
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Socially distancing at McCall Donnelly High School Commons
With Andrea Schafer-Ramelli

Craft 16 mini-Valentine's Day cards suitable for classmates, teachers, friends, family, and random acts of kindness. Samples and all materials will be provided. Participants are encouraged to bring favorite stickers, adhesives, and coloring tools to customize your cards. Parental supervision and assistance required– inky fingers WILL happen.

A Cabin Fever favorite, Andrea has advised paper-crafting clubs and continues to teach because cards spread joy. The craft is accessible to people of all ages, abilities, and aptitudes.

Let's Talk About it~ The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui
Wednesday, February 9th
7:00 - 8:30 pm
New Location: McCall Donnelly High School Library
With Dr. Paula Coomer

The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui is a critically acclaimed example of the graphic novel form, which has risen in popularity in the 21st century, perhaps reminding us of the surreal nature of contemporary life. Using beautifully minimalist lines to depict her scenes, Bui tells a very personal story that explores the anguish of immigration and its lasting effects. She casts a bright light on our present refugee crisis by humanizing people who are regularly generalized by mainstream media. Bui documents her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves.

Family history coincides with Vietnam’s history as she learns of the trauma her parents experienced as children and young adults in the years before and during the war. She comes to understand the impacts of her father having witnessed the executions of political prisoners on his behavior and uncovers significant events stretching from the turn of the last century through Vietnam’s bloody attempts at liberation from France, Japan, and the United States. Bui presents these in the order she learned about them, rather than the order in which they originally occurred, reminding us that all historical memory is situated in individual personal chronology. These tragedies are revealed as Bui adjusts to life as a first-time mother and learns what it means to be a parent, while also coming to understand the strength of family, her drive for individual identity, and the meaning of home.

Move With Grace Pilates Class
Thursday, February 10th
5:00 - 7:00 pm
At McCall Pilates Studio
With Lisa Marie

This 2 hour workshop will get you moving and finding Grace in your body. Finding your center will help you become more balanced and stronger. In this workshop with Lisa Marie you will learn movements to help you feel suppleness and strength in your "own house"~ your body! Learn some Pilates fundamentals and get moving with the Pilates equipment to find your true strength.

Lisa Marie has been teaching Pilates and Personal Training for over 16 years. She started practicing Pilates due to numerous injuries from years of training, and a major ski accident in 1998.

She realized years of training without proper movement and her past injury led to her chronic lower back and neck pain. Her first Pilates session with Steve O’Neil at the Pilates Studio in Salida, Colorado taught her that she was not breathing correctly but holding tension in her neck due to past injuries and chronic allergies.

After just a few private sessions, she knew that Pilates was her way to find relief and to move in an efficient and graceful way. That day she realized she needed to learn and share the Pilates method to all.