Share about a public outreach project you were involved in that you felt was successful.
August’s topic is, “Share about a public outreach project you were involved in that you felt was successful. If applicable, how did this project allow you to engage with underserved communities?”
As always, you can also write about Al‑Anon’s three Legacies. This month features Step Eight, Tradition Eight, and Concept Eight.
Sharings on the Member Blog may be used in future Al‑Anon publications.
New topics are being added each month!
Two Districts went together and shared a booth at the largest agricultural Fair east of the Mississippi. There were over 10,000 people who attended the Fair during the week. Our booth was the first booth inside the door of the HomeShow building. The literature was spread out on the table for people to see and take, with posters and banners visible from all angles. We had members at the booth occasionally during the week, but mostly the information was available to read or take 24 hours a day for the entire week. It was a very positive experience having over 10,000 people exposed to the Al-Anon name and information about the program.
I started Al-Anon when I was 27 years old. I’m a Black-American male and for the first 3-5 years of Al-Anon, I felt very alone. I would rarely see someone who was Black-American, male, or young, and if I did, they would not stay very long. I always wanted to find some way to help bring more people of my demographic into the meetings, I did attraction rather than promotion, I would tell people, but still no luck. However, one thing I did notice when I was coming into the rooms was that a lot of people were researching Al-Anon through different social media networks. However, my District didn’t have an official page, and the horror stories I would hear from a few newcomers were truly shocking. I knew it didn’t represent Al-Anon, and I was grateful for those few people who pushed past that dysfunction and came into the room anyway. However, I did start to wonder how many more were not coming into the rooms due to their experiences online. One thing I knew, that a lot of the other Al-Anon members were probably not aware of, is that most people in today’s age get most of their information from social media.
When I attended my first District meeting as a GR, I was nominated to be the public outreach coordinator for our District. That’s a position I didn’t feel I had the capacity to help out with. However, when no one else stepped up, our District Representative wisely decided that we could make a public outreach committee, this seemed like something I could do. Having known and understood our public outreach efforts, I felt as though we were missing the mark, and only reaching out to places where we will continue to bring in the same demographic. We would reach out to treatment centers, doctors’ offices, or therapists, and if people could not afford that then we would go to mental health and suicide prevention events. Although I believe these things are helpful, I also knew a lot of people simply would not go, either because they could not afford it, family didn’t believe there’s a problem, people weren’t that far down the rabbit hole yet, or because of the shame, and I didn’t want those people to miss out on this life changing program.
While in one of the public outreach committee meetings (there were three of us), I mentioned my experience of running into members who discovered us via social media. And I mentioned to them that a lot of people who are in these doctors’ offices and schools, and at booths were walking right past our pamphlets looking at their phones on social media. Social media is the great equalizer when it comes to spreading a message that everyone can see. So, I came up with an idea how about to use social media for our outreach efforts, and make it more like a digital pamphlet for people to actually see.
I mentioned the strength of the recovery in our area, which is in Raleigh, NC, and mentioned to our District Rep that we should have members share their own experience, strength, and hope. And limit the shares to members from within our District. I thought this would do two things: 1.) Give potential members a small taste of what an Al-Anon meeting is like, so that walking in the rooms could be a little less daunting; and 2.) let them know that these shares came from people that lived near them, so the wisdom was obtainable.
So we started both a thought force and task force that lasted from August of 2022 until November of 2022. I wanted to create a template for other Districts in case they wanted to create a page for their District and take what they like from what we’ve done and leave the rest. So before bringing the findings from the task force to the District, I put together a large presentation where I showed how we are implementing the Steps, Traditions, and Concepts, and even showed research as to why this seems like a good thing to do. I was nervous bringing it to our older members, however, the groups passed this unanimously, and by March 2023, we launched our page and the new Technological Outreach Committee was born, I decided to call it that so that as technology evolves, so can our outreach efforts.
New service positions were created in the District, so we created processes for everyone. However, we still ran into an issue, where people weren’t sending in shares for the page. So, thanks to the wisdom, curiosity, and open mind of our District Rep, she asked if I’d like to have a workshop for it, and I said “Yes.”. So, we had our first workshop in April of 2024 entitled “I’m not alone: Writing our experience, strength, and hope”. A writing workshop for our outreach efforts-25 people attended, and they loved it. We are going to have our second workshop in September of 2024. We took a Seventh Tradition collection at the end of the workshop with intent on using the money to spread our Instagram page via boosted posts (which essentially serves as a digital billboard), and with that digital billboard, our boosted posts show up on the Instagram pages of everyone who has Instagram in our District, with the intent on bringing them to meetings when they click on the link.
We collected $120. And we used that money toward boosting the posts. When checking the stats for the month and a half that we boosted posts, we reached over 9000 people, and had over 200 people click on the link to our website which took them directly to a meeting in the area. We are nearing 300 followers. We post meeting information on the page, flyers for speakers, and events coming up as well. And we even found out that for one of our hybrid speaker meetings, a person in the Philippines was able to find Al-Anon because of our page, as she was told the night before that she should try Al-Anon and she looked it up via Instagram, found our page, saw the speaker meeting and the shares, and woke up at 8am her time to attend the hybrid speaker meeting, and the GR for the group was able to get her information for Al-Anon in her country. Which was extremely heart-warming.
Lately, I have seen something I’ve never seen in Al-Anon, which is almost a 60-40 split as far as demographics go. Sometimes 50-50 split. With 50% of the members being under 40, and 50% being over 40, it’s truly remarkable. We have officially created a position in our District called the Technological Outreach Coordinator, which I currently have the honor of serving. We’ve had other Districts reach out in hopes of implementing our outreach efforts in their District, with intention to help curve the demographic in Al-Anon, which they recognize is mainly, as they’ve said, “old white ladies” and we’ve been able to help. Our meetings are slowly beginning to reflect the world, and People of color, people who speak different languages, different cultures, they’re starting to come into our rooms in our District, and Al-Anon in Raleigh has slowly begun to reflect how the world looks, and the love is even stronger. And I’m grateful to have been of service to try and help in some way.
When I came into Al-Anon, I wanted to support my home group in some way. I had read our book When I Got Busy, I Got Better. In this book, it said, under Tradition Eight, “I don’t need special training, just a willingness to carry the message.”
My husband, a sober alcoholic of many years, used to go to treatment centers, and he would ask me to come with him on Family Day to share from the Al-Anon point of view. I was speaking to alcoholics, but it opened their eyes to how their drinking affected others. I would always tease “Call your mother!” yet knowing what it was like to wonder where your loved one was. It was rewarding to share my experience then.
When a service position for public outreach came open at my home group, I was willing to give it a try. Remembering my prior experience of going to treatment centers with my husband, I decided to email local treatment centers and see if they would welcome Al-Anon members to come share. Out of several different places, one responded. They were glad to have Al-Anon participating!
I let my group know, everyone was in favor of having a panel, and so I created a sign-up sheet to go quarterly to talk to the family members of the alcoholics who were in treatment. We brought an informational pamphlet Al-Anon Faces Alcoholism with us to hand out. The treatment professionals were very supportive and they brought other resources and information about Al-Anon as well. It was a great experience because group members who had a variety of time in the program all went together, new people got an easy introduction to service, and family members from all types of backgrounds were served. We each shared briefly, then there was a question-answer time, and we closed with the Serenity Prayer. Candid conversations with those wishing to interact followed, then we went to dinner, and talked about the gifts we received that evening -and talked more on the long drive home. We never knew the outcome of our public outreach efforts, but we never regretted a minute of it!
Many years ago my home group decided to do our first public outreach program. There were about 8-10 members of this group that met on a Saturday morning. Practicing “First Things First” we went to a local diner and ordered breakfast and discussed our mission. We knew we needed to be energized both by fellowship and food to carry out our mission. Our mission was to educate the public about Al-Anon by posting on community bulletin boards of police departments, libraries, retail stores, restaurants etc. Al-Anon flyers and leaving other appropriate Al-Anon pamphlets, and District meeting list. We were prepared with our CAL and a short anonymous verbal introduction of ourselves. Our distribution was within the city limits, where a number of underserved communities would be served. Upon evaluation, it became clear that our membership attendance at meeting was increased. Since we considered this public outreach a success, we would do this again.
For my 1st Public Outreach commitment, I went to an area middle school where I shared my experience in Al-Anon. I was told to keep it short and concentrate on what our program is about, and how I use it every day. I was surprised that so few had heard of Al-Anon while AA was immediately recognized. We instructed the students to write down questions on paper we provided, even if they thought they were silly. Some of the questions were heart-breaking, others quite insightful. I felt that my story reached a few of the students as their questions were directed towards me. I have since spoken at other middle and high schools as well as treatment centers where Al-Anon meetings are held. I am now the Public Outreach Coord for my district and look forward to reaching more members of my community.
This June D4 PO team gathered 43 names of mental healthcare professionals in D4. Then we all met at Open Door Tea in Stratford and mailed out Professional Packets from LDC along with some other Alateen and Al-Anon literature. I wrote a generic letter explaining we wanted to get literature out to them should any of their clients could use the information. It was great to have several people helping with collecting the names and then mailing out the literature.
Last year, I collected the names of middle and high schools in D4 and mailed out Alateen literature with another generic letter explaining why I was sending them literature should any students need it. I did this by myself and also mailed out all the envelopes to the guidance counselors or to the assistant principals in D4.
I am the Outreach Coordinator for our District. We decided to purchase an editable QR code and attach it to our Google Docs drive linked to our meeting list, since we don’t have a District website. We’ve had almost 300 scans on it in less than two years, and people from all over the U.S. and as far away as Finland and Mexico City have scanned our District meeting list! We’ve put it on homemade bookmarks, we’ve put it on the free outreach bookmarks from the WSO, and we’ve put it on business cards with the serenity prayer on them and handed it out at health fairs. We can print the QR code on labels and stick them to anything. I would call this a pretty successful outreach project!
I did a lot of Public Outreach over the years and each experience brought me some recovery and a better understanding of Step Twelve that brings up the importance of carrying the message of hope to those who are still suffering from the consequences of this insidious disease.
The experience of Public Outreach that brought me great satisfaction was bringing the message of hope in a Rehabilitation Center for Alcoholics and drug addicts. For over 6 years I went every month to talk to the residents (men and women) about the family disease of alcoholism and its effects it has on each one of us. The purpose of my visit was to make the residents aware of the effects that their disease had on their families: mate, children, parents, sibblings, etc. as well as other people around them. I shared my story and the experience of my recovery through our wonderful program. I also addressed the benefits of having the whole family in recovery. There was a period of questions afterward and sometimes, after the meeting, a resident or two stayed to discuss personal matters. The Center had Al-Anon books that they lent to the residents while they were staying there and they had some pamphlets that they handed to residents asking for them.
Whether it was successful or not I will never know. I know that my visits and my sharings were a success as they asked me to go year after year until I moved out of the area. The residents were from various areas so after they left the Residence we couldn’t know whether they encourage members of their families to attend Al-Anon. However, the very fact that the residents knew about the existence of Al-Anon and about the effects their disease had on others was, in my eyes, a success in itself. Whatever they got from those visits has surely helped them to better understand their disease and the effects it had on others.
A seed was planted and I trust that our Higher Power has seen to it that the seeds grew in some families, and that the message of hope was passed on to their loved ones. Doing Public Outreach in various ways was for me a great opportunity to give back to Al-Anon what I have received and still receive in such abundance.
I was recently involved with a Public Outreach project of placing two How Al-anon Works books in each public library in our Area. One English & one Spanish. We contacted the libraries within our District and asked approval to get these into their circulation. Some libraries already had one and some libraries refused. In contacting libraries, I had several librarians who knew what Al-Anon was and were quite happy for us to send them. In delivering books, my favorites were the small town library. The service member that was with me took a picture of me going into these libraries and shared with our service group. I had one woman who was at the front desk, who after I told her what Al-Anon was, said “I probably should read that book!” My response was that she could be the 1st to check it out!
I do feel like this Public Outreach project will help a great number of people. I do believe this is ongoing, however we finished with our District.
Ensuring our Area had a website for anyone to find accurate meeting information was important, especially through the chaos of the pandemic and lots of changes. I am grateful to the members who asked for help; those that helped to make that possible and ensure this important public information tool was updated, ensuring we were being welcoming to newcomers was important, and linking to updated Al-Anon public information resources was wonderful. Thank you to all who make that possible and the ability to electronically within hours update group meeting information.
My home group learned more about our Group responsibility and communication with those in service.
Ensuring our Area had a Public Outreach section on that website was FUN and allowed ANYONE to find public information resources from WSO in all three languages! Merci!
Although our Area did not have Alateen groups, we were able to LINK anyone to ALATEEN information on the WSO webpage to help them find literature and encourage those on social media to share Alateen posts–the Forum articles were really helpful to members!
Many in our Area benefitted from this collaborative approach and learned about the Al-Anon Headquarters Inc resources (i.e. YouTube channel) and we were able to share the “Benefits” of this program anytime! Embracing new ways of communicating our message of hope electronically was important to reach new generations of the family disease and allowed me to learn more!
Merci all who made that possible and shared experience, strength, and hope!