A Look Back at 2023
With the New Year fast approaching, Always Wellness has been using this time to reflect on our past year of business. We thought we would take a moment to celebrate our wins, be vulnerable about our losses, and fill you in on the behind the scenes work. So grab your cup of whatever beverage meets your current vibe and let’s kick this thing off.
January through March, we focused solely on building a client base. At the time, Amy was the only Always Wellness team member. While Amy was aware that it takes time to build a business, she didn’t want to waste any time that could otherwise be spent helping people. Amy dedicated the first few months of 2023 to taking on as many clients as possible across the state of Oregon. She developed a niche in working with LGBTQIA+ folx, which planted the seeds of creating more access to mental health care and creating safe and inclusive spaces.
In April, we celebrated our first year of business! We have learned that though starting your own business is incredibly difficult, to say the very least, we thoroughly believe that it is worth it. We are so proud and happy to have our first year under our belt and we are beyond excited for what is to come.
June brought on what we like to call “Blue Sky” dreams. These are ideas that we dream up where “the sky's the limit, folx.” No idea is too big, small, or insignificant to be included. We then take these ideas and as a team decide what we think we can make happen and how we want to see it take shape.
By July and August, the Blue Sky dreams were starting to become fully formed, actionable ideas. We brought on Jess Pederson as our first volunteer! We could not be more grateful to Jess. Currently, Jess is a teacher in Texas, and they volunteer their time to Always Wellness in a multitude of ways. Primarily, you can find Jess contributing to content development, editing the webpage, and helping our Founder turn Blue Sky dreams into reality. With Jess on board, we picked another organization that we thought could be a dream fit to work with Always Wellness to further our impact on the world. We blasted off some emails and crossed our fingers, hoping for the best.
Things got real in September. We wish we had nothing but good news for you, but that’s not the way life works and we don’t want to pretend that it is. The Always Wellness team lost a member of our personal community to suicide. He was an important piece of the puzzle, a building block of Always Wellness. He is and always will be missed by all of us. We took some time to grieve in our own ways and be reminded of the importance of mental health care and destigmatization. During this time, Amy began thinking about how to turn grief into purpose.
Come October, Always Wellness decided to use our grief to drive our desire to have a larger impact on communities far and wide. We officially released our Suicide Awareness T-Shirt. 100% of proceeds from this shirt are donated to the 988 Suicide & Crisis. These shirts are still on sale if you feel inspired to support the cause and promote suicide prevention.
Before we knew it, November was here! We started gearing up for the holiday season and making our descent into the end of 2023. After a few months of no forward movement in our Blue Sky idea, we were starting to feel a little discouraged. The first week of November greeted us with a new sense of determination and we hunkered down to fine tune our plans even further. We sent some more messages and formed a new plan to get this organization to notice us. We also decided to launch a full-time Always Wellness store. We will continue to sell mental health themed merchandise and accessories to raise awareness, donating a portion of our profits to charitable donations, such as to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, The Trevor Project, and other local and global organizations.