Month: April 2025

World Labyrinth Day

 

World Labyrinth Day (WLD) is an annual event sponsored by The Labyrinth Society (TLS). Every year on the first Saturday in May thousands of people around the world participate in this moving meditation for world peace.

They encourage us to join people around the world in this moving meditation for world peace and celebration of the labyrinth experience! We will be offering a local, temporary labyrinth to walk in 2025 in collaboration with the annual Toledo Plant Exchange. (For more information on Toledo Plant Exchange, visit their Facebook page)

Date: World Labyrinth Day, Saturday, May 3rd, 2025

Lucas County Location: Lucas County Fair Grounds, 1406 Key Street, Maumee, Ohio, 43537. (Use the main gate entrance. The plant exchange and informational booths will be inside the green Arts & Crafts Building. Weather permitting, the temporary labyrinth will be outside of the building).

Time: the labyrinth will be in place from 8:30 – 11:00am.  Specific times for the Toledo Plant Exchange (see image below)

  • 8:30 – 10:00am Plant Drop Off
  • 9:00 – 9:50am Informational Booths (One of the informational booths/table will be about WLD)
  • 10:00 – 11:00am Plant Distribution (event may end early if all plants are gone)

The Plant Exchange will be complete that morning so if anyone is interested in walking a labyrinth at 1:00pm as part of the WLD tradition, we recommend a beautiful, permanent labyrinth, just across the Maumee River at the Norma Stark Memory Garden and Labyrinth in Perrysburg, Ohio.

New to labyrinths? Read Life is a Journey. So is a Labyrinth, 2023 blog by Patrice.

Labyrinth Handout with handheld finger labyrinth

The Labyrinth Society (also linked above) is a great resource to learn about labyrinths as well as to use their  World-Wide Labyrinth Locator where you can search over 6,500 labyrinths in 90 different countries around the world!

 

Financial Wellness for EPHAC

Financial education across the lifespan with Ohio State University Extension

This presentation shares some of the OSU Extension, FCS financial education resources from Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) to Extension Public Health AmeriCorps (EPHAC)

icon of woman and man holding fists in air similar to Rosie the Riveter to promote American volunteers and hard work

EPHAC members: please share resources with local partners and please use whatever materials are most useful to you personally. For example, I wrote a blog about the six-lesson Manage Your Money program, titled Why I am Bringing Work Home related to a six-week financial education email program many years ago! The main point is: “The risk …..is that it looks like we’ve got it all together!  We don’t have it all together, but as we work on areas where we need to improve, we will not forget to applaud the past choices and decisions where we got it right. Even for individuals and couples who have extensive experience and success with a household budget, it’s always a good idea to do a regular review, especially when there are changes in who is living in the house or with income or expenses.”

Contact Information: Patrice Powers-Barker, OSU Extension, Lucas County Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS), powers-barker.1@osu.edu

PowerPoint from webinar: EPHAC_financial_2025

“To personalize your financial plan, you need your own data. Invest the time now for a better payoff later” Manage Your Money, OSU Extension

Resources (links) shared in the presentation:

 

 

National and State Partners:

 

References: 

Arah, O., A., (2009). On the relationship between individual and population health. Med Health and Care Philos. 12:235:244. doi: 10.1007/s11019-008-9173-8.

Bartholomae, S., Kiss, D. E., & Pippidis, M. (2024). Documenting Cooperative Extension’s family resource management impacts: Insights and outcomes from a national effort. Journal of Human Sciences and Extension, 12(2), 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.55533/2325-5226.1434

Housing Counseling through Cooperative Extension (2017). The Bridge: The Office of Housing Counseling Newsletter. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. VOLUME 5, ISSUE 9 MARCH 2017  https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/OHC_BRIDGE033017.PDF

Loibl, C., Durhan, J., and Moulton, S. (2018). Rich Opportunities from Collaboration with a State Housing Finance Agency. Journal of Extension. v56-7 iw5. https://open.clemson.edu/joe/vol56/iss7/16/

Rupp, M., J., and Powers-Barker, P. (2024). Homebuyer Education: Individualized financial education during a major life purchase at AFCPE Symposium 2024. go.osu.edu/afcpehomebuyer

Vital Conditions for Health and Well-Being. (2025). The Ripple Foundation. https://rippel.org/vital-conditions/ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindfulness Practices for Group Leaders and Your Group

As a leader, you can discover your own favorite mindfulness routine. You can also teach these to your group. Mindfulness Practices for Individuals and Groups Handout with basic descriptions of seven mindful practices.

Happify Video: Why Mindfulness Is a Superpower: An Animation. Narrated by Dan Harris, Animation by Katy Davis, (less than 3 minutes) December 2015

If you liked the Mindful S.T.O.P. or 5-3-1, you might like some additional Mindful Numbers and Acronyms

If you are new to mindfulness our would like to try some new exercises, visit this blog for links to free, online guided practices that are all 10 minutes or less. A Day of Mini Mindfulness Practices:  go.osu.edu/dailymindfulness

All of the practices shared are collected from other sources. All of the references are listed below if you would like more information.

Patrice Powers-Barker, CFLE, Family and Consumer Sciences  powers-barker.1@osu.edu 

References:

Duncan, L. G., Coatsworth, J. D., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). A model of mindful parenting: implications AR5for parent-child relationships and prevention research. Clinical child and family psychology review, 12(3), 255–270. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-009-0046-3

Fuller, J. L., & Fitter, E. A. (2020). Mindful Parenting: A Behavioral Tool for Parent Well-Being. Behavior analysis in practice, 13(4), 767–771. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-020-00447-6

Kumpfer, K., Brown, J. (2011). Strengthening Families Program, Handouts and Worksheets. https://strengtheningfamiliesprogram.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/All-SFP_ENGLISH_Handouts_2020-10.pdf   (1-8)

Powers-Barker, P. (2025). Cultivating loving-kindness. Live Smart Ohio. Ohio State University Extension. https://livesmartohio.osu.edu/category/family-and-relationships/

Self-Compassion Break, Greater Good in Action, Berkeley, https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/self_compassion_break