Sharon UMC & CRC team up to help community move forward from COVID

Sharon United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall

COVID-19 has left many of us stressed and depleted. Coping has been stretched to the limit for the young and those of us not so young. We need to acknowledge our losses and move into life again. But how do we regain our balance?

Sharon United Methodist Church and the Manchester Community Resource Center have teamed with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Washtenaw County (NAMI), and 5 Healthy Towns Foundation to offer a free, four-session interactive workshop that acknowledges what we have been through and focuses on moving forward. Highlighting wellness principles, this series will offer practical information on identifying and using resiliency skills for ourselves, our families, and our communities to bolster our path to recovery.

The workshop begins on May 17 and continues May 24, June 7 and June 14, 7-8 pm at Sharon United Methodist Church, 19980 W. Pleasant Lake Road, Manchester (social distancing and masks required) and will also be available via Zoom.

Register online at https://sharonumchurch.breezechms.com/form/079b15 or leave a phone message with your name and phone number at Sharon UMC, (734) 428-0996.

Topics include:

• Session 1. Taking Stock: Positive and negative effects of COVID on our lives and some basics about getting help.
• Session 2. Strategies for Health and Wellness: Steps families and communities can take to relieve stress. (It’s vital to know when to get help and how to help a person (or yourself) navigate the helping systems.)
• Session 3. Loss and grief: when to seek help. Loss and grief move us through a process of feelings, and we need to keep working on coping and adjusting. (Loss and grief will be the most common feelings of COVID. Not everyone will need help and not everyone is grieving, but loss will affect everyone after COVID and these steps about loss and grief will help us understand the process.)
• Session 4: Resources to build individual and community resilience. True recovery from COVID will require us to replenish our stores of individual resilience and for communities and individuals to plan for the future.

For Questions or more information, please contact Mark at (734) 408-1277.

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.