RPSA Blog: Grantee Spotlight

RPSA Blog: Grantee Spotlight

This month for the RPSA blog we are going to do a grantee spotlight on The Well Experience, located in Urbana, IL. Established in 2019, The Well Experience is a community organization that provides services that heal, engage, restore, and empower marginalized communities. They provide a variety of therapeutic supports like art therapy, family sessions, play therapy, group therapy, and more! The Well Experience also uses a wraparound approach when delivering services to the community. This initiative helps The Well Experience develop individualized services for the young people and families they serve.

For the month of February, the Well Experience offered a variety of events and activities to their families and youth. Stephanie Cockrell the Executive director and Co-Founder of The Well Experience was gracious enough to share pictures from their fourth annual Black History Extravaganza! The extravaganza was an engaging event for families to learn about all the amazing black people the youth had learned about in the afterschool program.

They also held their first Black Love Day. Black Love: Love for Women, was dedicated to the women and young girls of the community, which hosted over 100 participants. The Well Experience offered sessions in mental and physical health, Love for self, Love for race, Love for the community, and Love for God. Everyone enjoyed yoga, great music, line dancing, nails and lashes, massages and the chance to network with other phenomenal women in the community.

More recently, Stephanie shared pictures with us from their trip to Krannert Performing Arts. Their middle and high school youth were able to experience Memphis ‘Jookin’ and meet some of the cast in person!

This intentionality to the services and supports offered to the community comes second nature to this organization. The staff is very intentional when developing activities and partnerships, giving youth access to relevant and quality programming. ACT Now has had the pleasure of providing Training and Technical Assistance to The Well Experience since the start of the RPSA grant. We always love to see their newsletter in our inbox, because they are a great example of responsive programming. Tailoring events, activities, and supports to the community.

We look forward to continuing our support for The Well Experience and the chance to collaborate and learn more about all the amazing programming being done at The Well Experience