Canvas Health

                                                  

This Give to the Max Day, we invite you to reflect on the wisdom of the bench - a quiet symbol of rest, presence, and connection.

This year, we lost Karen King, one of our dedicated and caring clinicians. In gratitude for the care she provided to so many, we dedicated a bench to her at our Oakdale clinic.

As we said our good-byes and dedicated a bench to her, we reflected on “The Wisdom of the Bench”, as it is an important and relevant metaphor both for how we live our lives as well as how we engage in therapy.

• At Canvas Health, we believe care is both personal and communal. A bench offers solitude when needed and companionship when it matters most. It makes room for one or two, creating space to simply be. At Canvas Health, it’s our goal to make sure that people are not alone with the pain of mental illness or addiction. 
• Seated on a bench, we notice what we might otherwise miss: the courage of a person to seek help, the weariness in a friend or colleague’s eyes, a subtle shift in a conversation’s tone or a loved one’s behavior. Noticing is both a clinical skill and a human art. Canvas Health’s clinicians are trained noticers, finely attuned to what is needed to accompany people on their healing journeys.
• A bench, like our clinicians, hold us without judgment, on heavy days and hopeful ones. They remind us that healing begins with presence, and that recovery follows a rhythm: pause, tend, walk on.

With your help, we will continue to act with the wisdom of a bench, just as we have done for more than 56 years: holding space and providing healing for the most vulnerable in our community.

Thank you for considering a gift to support hope, healing, and recovery in your community.