The Light to Unite Luminary Walk is a combination between a festival and a walk. We will be at West Side Park in Hartford, WI. The event's theme is prevention of interpersonal violence.

The festival part of the day will include 12 partner agencies sharing their expertise in prevention of interpersonal violence through mindfulness skill practices. Each guest will receive a passport to "tour" the park. When they visit an agency table AND interact with the skill practice, they will receive a stamp on their passport. When they fill their passport, they will be entered into a drawing for a family fun day for 4.

Teaching methods of mindfulness helps to reduce stress, anxiety, or any other emotion(s) that can lead to reactive behaviors that potentially can lead to inflicting violence on ourselves or others. The idea is to get all families to engage with simple practical self care mindful skills that do not cost anything to do. We want them to try all of the methods to see what method(s) they are drawn to. This creates the power of choice. We want to empower our communities to make good choices for themselves and others around them.

There will be music, art, dance, breathwork, EFT tapping, animals, a scavenger hunt and more for families to interact with. We will have the following partner agencies; Big Brothers Big Sisters, Elevate, Riveredge Nature Center, Cedar Springs Ranch, The Volunteer Center of Washington County, Friend's Inc, 4C Family Center and more.

At the end of the "tour" we will have a short presentation. We will be presenting our first male speaker to come forward with his own personal story of growing up in a violent home. We will then pay tribute to Jessie.(The reason our project began.) It is important that we showcase how close to home interpersonal violence can be. Our first male speaker is a big deal. Most people only associate interpersonal violence with women. We want to break through the old programmed ways of thinking and introduce new perspectives to challenge the way we have been taught to think about responsibility, accountability and actions we take on a daily basis.

The walk is a luminary. Guests will be able to purchase luminary bags prior to the event. The walk will be lit with luminaries. We will walk for victim survivors of interpersonal violence. The route we will take will be the same route that we took for Jessie's vigil back in 2013.