Sustaining Jocelyn: Actor, Changemaker, Friend
Donation protected
Dear friends,
TL;DR
I’m asking for your help. My friend Jocelyn is in dire financial need. My goal with this request is to sustain her fully for the next 6 months while she advances her quest for health and weathers the ongoing financial and mental challenges of the pandemic era.
It’s not easy to ask for help like this. I hope our answer can be: If your community needs you, you do what you can to support. That need is here for Jocelyn. I sincerely appreciate anything you would be willing to give to help a person who is a rare and wonderful influence on my life and on many others.
What is the need
I am asking for your help in carrying the living expenses for Jocelyn and her dog, a Bichon Frisé named Love. This support will be immediately to cover rent, utilities, phone, food (for a healthy Jocelyn and a healthy Love), transportation, and an upcoming series of medical visits.
I was lucky to be there on the day that Jocelyn and Love adopted each other.
This will sustain Jocelyn while she seeks treatment for insidious and ongoing health problems that have plagued her across recent years. While a wandering path through the medical system recently netted an apparent ruling out of Multiple Sclerosis, the causes remain unknown of insomnia, fatigue, memory and concentration issues. Recent consultations point to a glimmering hope that one key factor could be a breathing issue similar to sleep apnea. Poor breathing, low oxygen, bad sleep. And bad sleep makes absolutely everything more challenging. Solving this issue will require rounds of medical visits and likely a surgery of unknown costs. So, supporting Jocelyn through this period could resolve a pernicious barrier to her ability to thrive.
Why you would help
Jocelyn’s fragile financial state has many contributing factors. Her personal history of trauma is deeply intertwined with a victorious story of addictions and recovery to which I can’t do justice.
Jocelyn has committed fiercely to an uncommon path through work, following her creative talents and seeking ways to pursue social justice work as a vocation. The unfortunate reality is that income hasn’t been easy on this path, and her health is a big part of that. The symptoms of the financial distress are what is frightening me to act now.
Help me prevent the desperation which has dragged Jocelyn to depression and all its ensuing darkness.
What Jocelyn adds to my life
If you choose to support Jocelyn, you’ll be helping me, as well: not only because I care about Jocelyn but also because Jocelyn continues to have a powerful impact on my life, in art and beyond.
Jocelyn is the closest artistic partner I’ve ever had. As an improviser she is fiery, full-hearted, and nuanced. We clicked immediately in an improv theater class nearly a decade ago and have explored the art form onstage together ever since. That sort of performance chemistry is a precious thing. Our chemistry creates a playfulness, a vulnerability, and an intimacy which incomparably enrich my life. I would venture to say that our performances enrich the lives of audiences in the same way. These values radiate through performance to help create the culture I want to live in. At our best our work is raw, sensual, woke, challenging, goofy and authentic. I hope to continue this expression through our improvisation and our newer exploration of short written sketch pieces.
In and around our improv partnership, Jocelyn has taught me a lot about nonviolence, trauma, recovery, equity, and feminism. She is my closest beacon of sophistication in language and persistence in rituals that create the opportunity for the deep culture change this society needs: towards equity, towards vulnerability, towards acceptance.
What Jocelyn adds to the lives of others
Jocelyn brings this priceless knowledge to the lives of others, and seeks to do more so. She has taught nonviolence to incarcerated women, used improv training to identify and disrupt damaging social hierarchies, and now Jocelyn is building a consulting practice of anti-racism facilitation for professional and individual clients.
The bottom line
Whether you know Jocelyn or not, know that she means a lot to me. Let this be a test of whether we as a community are as willing to invest in the clear, immediate well-being of our people as we are willing to invest in the broad, overarching causes where so many of us pour out our hearts. Your gift has a direct, tangible impact on Jocelyn’s life today. Please help me show Jocelyn that she belongs, and that we all belong to each other. Let’s practice living that now.
Thank you so much for however you’d like to help.
Love,
Bennett
TL;DR
I’m asking for your help. My friend Jocelyn is in dire financial need. My goal with this request is to sustain her fully for the next 6 months while she advances her quest for health and weathers the ongoing financial and mental challenges of the pandemic era.
It’s not easy to ask for help like this. I hope our answer can be: If your community needs you, you do what you can to support. That need is here for Jocelyn. I sincerely appreciate anything you would be willing to give to help a person who is a rare and wonderful influence on my life and on many others.
What is the need
I am asking for your help in carrying the living expenses for Jocelyn and her dog, a Bichon Frisé named Love. This support will be immediately to cover rent, utilities, phone, food (for a healthy Jocelyn and a healthy Love), transportation, and an upcoming series of medical visits.
I was lucky to be there on the day that Jocelyn and Love adopted each other. This will sustain Jocelyn while she seeks treatment for insidious and ongoing health problems that have plagued her across recent years. While a wandering path through the medical system recently netted an apparent ruling out of Multiple Sclerosis, the causes remain unknown of insomnia, fatigue, memory and concentration issues. Recent consultations point to a glimmering hope that one key factor could be a breathing issue similar to sleep apnea. Poor breathing, low oxygen, bad sleep. And bad sleep makes absolutely everything more challenging. Solving this issue will require rounds of medical visits and likely a surgery of unknown costs. So, supporting Jocelyn through this period could resolve a pernicious barrier to her ability to thrive.
Why you would help
Jocelyn’s fragile financial state has many contributing factors. Her personal history of trauma is deeply intertwined with a victorious story of addictions and recovery to which I can’t do justice.
Jocelyn has committed fiercely to an uncommon path through work, following her creative talents and seeking ways to pursue social justice work as a vocation. The unfortunate reality is that income hasn’t been easy on this path, and her health is a big part of that. The symptoms of the financial distress are what is frightening me to act now.
Help me prevent the desperation which has dragged Jocelyn to depression and all its ensuing darkness.
What Jocelyn adds to my life
If you choose to support Jocelyn, you’ll be helping me, as well: not only because I care about Jocelyn but also because Jocelyn continues to have a powerful impact on my life, in art and beyond.
Jocelyn is the closest artistic partner I’ve ever had. As an improviser she is fiery, full-hearted, and nuanced. We clicked immediately in an improv theater class nearly a decade ago and have explored the art form onstage together ever since. That sort of performance chemistry is a precious thing. Our chemistry creates a playfulness, a vulnerability, and an intimacy which incomparably enrich my life. I would venture to say that our performances enrich the lives of audiences in the same way. These values radiate through performance to help create the culture I want to live in. At our best our work is raw, sensual, woke, challenging, goofy and authentic. I hope to continue this expression through our improvisation and our newer exploration of short written sketch pieces.
In and around our improv partnership, Jocelyn has taught me a lot about nonviolence, trauma, recovery, equity, and feminism. She is my closest beacon of sophistication in language and persistence in rituals that create the opportunity for the deep culture change this society needs: towards equity, towards vulnerability, towards acceptance.
What Jocelyn adds to the lives of others
Jocelyn brings this priceless knowledge to the lives of others, and seeks to do more so. She has taught nonviolence to incarcerated women, used improv training to identify and disrupt damaging social hierarchies, and now Jocelyn is building a consulting practice of anti-racism facilitation for professional and individual clients.
The bottom line
Whether you know Jocelyn or not, know that she means a lot to me. Let this be a test of whether we as a community are as willing to invest in the clear, immediate well-being of our people as we are willing to invest in the broad, overarching causes where so many of us pour out our hearts. Your gift has a direct, tangible impact on Jocelyn’s life today. Please help me show Jocelyn that she belongs, and that we all belong to each other. Let’s practice living that now.
Thank you so much for however you’d like to help.
Love,
Bennett
Organizer and beneficiary
Bennett Chabot
Organizer
San Francisco, CA
Jocelyn Alive
Beneficiary