Project combats social ills with education, mentoring

Leigh Schickendantz and the other women in the Healing Arts Project share a vision.

"It's about raising awareness and promoting healing of serious social issues through education, theater and mentoring," Schickendantz said.

Recently incorporated as a nonprofit, the organization uses revenue raised from workshops and theater productions for youth arts-experience scholarships as well as for grants to local groups addressing social ills.

Project board members Schickendantz, Julianne Hinchey, Paula Buckley, Libby Moothart and Lori Madden know too well the impact of drug addiction, crime and other problems on their clients.

Schickendantz counsels youths while the others work in the courts, probation, youth sheltering and mentoring. They came together by a shared enthusiasm for taking their desire for social change beyond slogans and public service announcements.

According to Schickendantz, a concept pioneered by her friend, colleague and mentor Richard Strozzi-Heckler, best describes the concept.

"It's taking what we care about and putting it into action," she said. "It's just making the world a better place by walking that talk and making a difference."

That's what Schickendantz did when she and her husband co-founded Two Rivers Center for Holistic Counseling and Healing and started the Pay It Forward Scholarship Fund for young women in 2005.

"It came about through a series of workshops for providers for at-risk youth," she said.

The movie "Pay It Forward" inspired Schickendantz's decision to put half the revenues from the workshops into a scholarship to pay for arts exposure as a healing tonic for young women.

"I really feel people need beauty in their lives," Schickendantz said. "That's where the healing arts show up."

Two Rivers subsequently collaborated with other service providers such as Youth Service Network, Youth Court Services and Sinopah House to present more workshops, which also contributed money for the scholarship.

Fast forwarding to 2007, Schickendantz said her friend Leah Lindsay proposed putting on a theater event addressing serious social issues to raise scholarship funds as well as money for local organizations benefiting the community.

They chose "I Stand Before You Naked" by Carol Joyce Oates as a first production.

"It's a series of monologues almost on the edge of madness," Schickendantz said. "Out of that we raised funds for Flathead Attention [Youth] Home."

At that point, Schickendantz said she had the idea of bringing the women spearheading these efforts together into a new nonprofit organization. The founding board included Lindsay, as the theater director, and Joan Schmidt, who is now in charge of the project's mentoring activities.

From the cocoon of the scholarship fund, the Healing Arts Project emerged and took flight.

"It's all geared to raising awareness - getting people talking about what's going on in our community and what's going on in our lives," Schickendantz said.

Their second "theater with a purpose" production last spring of "Rita and Inez, The True Queens of Femininity" did exactly that. Described as two brassy broads, the characters of Rita and Inez use satirical skits to lampoon everything from the diet industry to commercialized feminine hygiene.

"It's very, very funny," Schickendantz said. "Now we're bringing it back by popular demand."

Scheduled for Oct. 24 and 25, the play takes place at 8 p.m. in the KM Theater. Tickets, available at Books West and at the door, cost $15 for adults and $10 for seniors.

Lindsay and Nancy Moser once again play the true queens of femininity. The production comes with the warnings "definitely not for the squeamish" and "adult-style performance for the adult audience."

Schickendantz expects the event to once again deliver a body blow to shake out issues like "the doormat syndrome" that keep women from finding their full potential. She said the intimacy of the unique KM Theater in Kalispell maximizes the impact of this sort of play.

"It's such an incentive for people to interact on issues that they wouldn't otherwise," she said. "That dialogue creates empathy by hearing other people's perspectives."

The Healing Arts Project also offers a day-long Friday workshop in conjunction with the performance called "Dignified Client Care," at a cost of $65 or $75 with the play included. Anyone interested needs to register by Oct. 20 by calling Carlin Hale at 751-8378.

Proceeds from the workshop and play benefit the Healing Arts Project and its youth scholarship. Schickendantz holds a cherished dream of an even bigger payoff from their efforts.

"If we raise enough awareness, we'll no longer have to raise funds," she said.

Until that day comes, the women of the Healing Arts Project have their tax-exempt status in one hand and a full slate of events and ideas in the other. Following "Rita and Inez" this month, they plan to present original poetry readings in November.

"Teenagers are so creative," Schickendantz said. "It will be their own work."

She said their organization welcomes topics from the community such as the suggestions they received to schedule events in the areas of mental health and young people injured or killed by semiautomatic weapons.

The weapons topic was requested by a parent.

"People have just astonishing stories," Schickendantz said. "If folks have something that would benefit the community, we'll see what we can do to support it."

To contact the Healing Arts Project, call 756-0887.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com