Update on Pleasure (your) Chest Community Care Fund
After wrapping up the 5th cohort through the “Pleasure (Your) Chest” workshop series we wanted to give an update to the folks in our community who have been helping us keep this going. As you probably know, we offer this to folks on a sliding scale. We know that there are significant, compounding axis of financial barriers impacting folks who are in need of this sort of programming.
In short: the people who need this the most can’t afford to pay even the lowest rung of the scale. We need more money from our community to make this model sustainable.
We always knew that this would be the case, and began the community care fund from early on to help us not just cover costs, but we also dreamed of being able to provide body work vouchers to access in person care in their home community if desired. We are dreamers and believe that there are folks out there who want to contribute to the wellness of transfolks in this simple way.
We want to share it with you in numbers too:
Budget | Funds (US Dollars) |
Income | |
Community Care Fund Balance (10/24) | $465 |
Participant Fees (Fall Series) | $600 (ranging individual contributions from 0$-$250 x 5) |
Total: | $1065 |
Costs | |
ASL Interpretation (2 interpreters x 4 x 2 hour sessions) | $800 |
Admin hours (promotion, registration, emails, preparing resources, communication with students, referring partners, fundraising etc) | 16 hour total/series (Jess does about 10/16ths, Kori does the rest. We would love to hire someone to do more of this for us.) |
Teaching hours | 8 hours each/series |
Total Soft Beloveds Labour: | 32 hours total/series |
Jess & Kori’s standard base hourly: | $100/each |
Remaining money to pay Jess & Kori: | $200 |
Pay at billable rate covers x hours | 1/16/each |
Adjusted pay/hr to Jess & Kori | $6.25/hr |
We know that the resources exist to support a project like this, and we know that we haven’t got them lined up quite yet. We love teaching this class and want to keep doing it, and keep being able to offer full scholarships, ASL interpreters when requested and a sliding scale that meets trans folks in the months & years following surgery where they are at.
Some words from our past participants:
I loved this workshop so much and deeply benefited from it. I feel it was absolutely worth the cost as well and feel grateful I got a discount to attend because I think it’s worth well more than I paid to be honest. -WY
It was great to share with others who have had top surgery and were willing to be vulnerable in their sharing, especially around things that didn’t go so well. I enjoyed the workshop and still use some of the techniques and principles. I like how my scars are continuing to fade and heal. –RG
This workshop offered me an incredibly meaningful space to connect with others who’ve experienced top surgery… the sense of care, resourcing, and gently held space was profound. -Participant
Both Jess and Kori love doing this class for reasons far beyond it being “a job”; being able to share really truly magical, transformative tools, practices and experiences with the folks who have come to co-create the container of Pleasure (your) Chest is the work of a calling. We plan to keep this offering in our course calendar 3x year for as many as 12 people in each series. We dream of having a combination of grant funding and private contributions that make it possible to offer this course at no needed charge to participants in such a way that it doesn’t require all of our time to be as volunteers. In our juiciest dreams there is also a robust network of referral ready providers across the world, ready to meet course participants for in person body work to dovetail with course content, services paid for through the support of community.
We need more contributions to replenish the community care fund to help keep doing what we have been doing, and to help us grow this program to what we dream of.
We need leads on grant funding and non-profit partners that can apply in funding streams that we can’t access as small business owners.
We hope that you can take this opportunity to support trans folks in a very simple yet significant way.
10 people giving $25 is one fully paid registration for a participant
8 people giving $50 is one fully funded interpreter
6 people giving $500 is fully paid registration for all 12 spots
4 people giving $100 is the second fully funded interpreter
2 people giving $1500 is fully paid registration for all 12 spots