At Feast, we are big believers in giving back to our Bozeman community. That is why every Wednesday and Sunday we give 10% of oyster sales to a deserving organization. For the month of August, we are supporting the incredible education organization, The Compassion Project.
Compassion Project is dedicated to spreading compassion through art and mindfulness. Since our inception in 2017, kindness and compassion have been the roots binding us together and building the foundation of our work. We are based in Bozeman, Montana, which is on stolen land and the traditional home of the Cheyenne, Salish Kootenai, Blackfeet, and Crow peoples. We are committed to acknowledging and interrupting the past and present violence done to our Indigenous friends and neighbors, as well as other disenfranchised groups. Compassion requires a deep and ongoing awareness of our complicity in systems of oppression. We believe this hard work is the most necessary work.
Division and harmful behavior were on the rise in Bozeman schools in 2016 and 2017. Inspired by an art exhibit featuring compassion from several years before in Wisconsin and the work of Dr. Richard Davidson, Dr. Katye Kaminski brought together a team of educators, artists, and community leaders to design a project that would promote peace and deeper understanding. The project was housed under Montana State University’s College of Education, Health & Human Development. Utilizing emerging research on compassion, mindfulness, social-emotional learning, and visual arts education, the team designed a four-part curriculum that explored what compassion is, how to recognize it, how to practice it, and why it is important. By the spring of 2019, they engaged approximately 200 local teachers, 4500 students, and 1300 community members in these lessons and workshops. The culmination of the project empowered each participant to create a painting about what they learned or what compassion was to them. All 6,000 art pieces were organized in a community exhibit, showcasing a gorgeously-complex testimony to compassion.
Learn more at compassionpject.org.
