Hello everyone!

Paul here.

This has been an AMAZING and BUSY last few months for Dear Hope, and I think a few announcements are in place!

Conference Invitation

First off, I’m super excited to announce that  Dear Hope has been invited by Mental Health America to speak at their conference “Media, Messaging, and Mental Health” this June in Virginia!

The panel I am involved in will be a discussion on using story telling and non traditional mediums for advocacy.

But I won’t be going alone! Dear Hope writer Danny Kochanowski and the photographer from the Consumed project, Zachary Johnson, will be attending the event with me to showcase and discuss all the amazing work that has come from this amazing community.

A thanks is in place, because without all of our community members this would have never happened. Mental Health America discovered Dear Hope after being shown the latest photos from the Consumed project that somebody had forwarded to them, which would of never happened without the countless shares that started with our community.

P.S these photos were seen by over 12,000 people!

So again, from the bottom of out hearts, thank you!

A Consumed Music Video

The Consumed: Mental Health Through Photography series is continuing and now transcending photos and entering the realm of videography! MTV’s Real World star Sabrina Kennedy  is an up and coming artist who’s lead single “If Only” will have a music video inspired by our photo series, produced by myself, Zach Johnson and Tyler Hadley. Consumed artist Alyssa Rogalski will also be doing all the body art as she did on all the photos so far. Be on the look out for the video in mid April and catch her on the Real World on MTV every Thursday at 10pm! (Find her single “If Only” here: Itunes/Spotify)

The Community is Growing

In the month of February we had a total of 30,000 hits on the blog. That means that in that month alone we had more hits than the entirety of 2015 from when the blog started.

We also have over 1500 dedicated followers and almost 70,000 total hits since February 2015 with new submissions coming in from across the world. Greetings to all of our new readers, and thank you for joining our community!

If you’re a new reader (or original!) and thinking of submitting or want to inquire about a post, find our submission guidelines here. We’d love to feature you!

Future Plans

All these things are so exciting for us and we can’t wait to share everything with you. We’re also in the process of beginning Dear Hope merchandise and doing another expansion of the site. It’s top secret at the moment, but I’ll share some early concept art for some of the merchandise below, drawn by my good friend Josh Paciga.

 

There will also be a bigger focus on music and art in the future, as I believe that the creations that come out of our community are so important. So stay tuned for that.

But to finish off, let me again say thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has been on this journey so far. It’s incredible how far we’ve come in just a year, and I can’t wait to see where the next one takes us.

Always remember you are not alone.

You are loved.

PF