By Caleb McGever | FāVS News Reporter
Fathers will fill the Riverfront Park Lilac Bowl with their loved ones for a joint Father’s Day celebration from 1-3 p.m. today (June 15), as the Spokane Fatherhood Initiative partners with Gabriel’s Challenge to close out a month-long community engagement effort.
The collaboration brings together SpoFI’s annual Father’s Day event with the closing ceremony for Gabriel’s Challenge, a community initiative founded by Kitara Johnson-Jones to address Spokane’s fentanyl crisis. It’s named after Gabriel Fensler, her son who died March 3 from fentanyl poisoning the day after his 24th birthday. The challenge ran from Mother’s Day to Father’s Day and called on community members to “show up” for those struggling with addiction.
The celebration will include honoring the work of participants in the challenge, as well as honoring SpoFI’s Father of the Year awards.
Gabriel’s Challenge calls for community
The challenge encourages community members to take on “the lens of mothers and fathers,” Johnson-Jones said.
After losing her son, she found herself mourning alongside an entire community of supporters. However, she found herself wondering what would have happened if that same community had been in Fensler’s life while he was living.
“He’d probably still be here,” she said.
In a letter from Fensler to his family posted on the the challenge’s website, he wrote, “I do believe recovery is possible … I didn’t have the right steps or many sober friends, or a support network outside of family … I’m learning that healing can’t happen alone.”
With his letters and her realization, Johnson-Jones made certain Gabriel’s Challenge was built on a lens of care.
“What God showed me is going to take the lens of a mother and a father,” Johnson-Jones said. “So the challenge was to show up as mothers and fathers.”
The challenge’s goal was to invite the heart of family into the heart of the city, she said.
Participants challenged to ‘shut it down and show up’
Johnson-Jones emphasized one of Fensler’s common sayings: “Shut it down and show up.” This principle influences each step of the challenge and is meant to encourage people to “engage in real life,” she said.
The challenge involves shutting down “devices and divisiveness,” Johnson-Jones said. Amongst other things, this involves reducing technology use in favor of face-to-face interaction both inside and outside the home.
Within the home, she explained that reducing cell phone usage helps provide space for connection between parents and their children.
Shutting down technology outside the home not only gives participants the opportunity to enjoy the place they live, but it also disrupts drug markets that might normally occur at parks or downtown, she said.
“When people start walking back downtown and showing up, we take our city back. We show up in our local parks, some of the parks with some gnarly things happening in them, but they won’t be able to do that if we come back outside,” she said.
A similar step of the challenge is to “adopt a block,” which involves walking around a block with a friend or group, saying hello, asking their names and mentioning Gabriel’s Challenge to people who are around, according to the website.
“It’s amazing the things that happen when we show up,” Johnson-Jones said.
Spokane fathers engage in community
SpoFI was engaged with Gabriel’s Challenge from the start. Ron Hauenstein, the founder and president of SpoFI, supported Johnson-Jones when she created the challenge.
“Well, Ron has been a part of a faith group that I went to that praise regularly, and I told them about Gabriel’s Challenge. So Ron had listened to it since the beginning,” she said.
Service Saturdays were SpoFI’s answer to the challenge. These events were opportunities for SpoFI dads to serve the community and to develop and demonstrate character.
“We want to be heavily involved in Gabriel’s challenge. So we chose to find something to do every Saturday leading up to Gabriel’s Challenge,” Hauenstein said.
The importance of good dads
Hauenstein emphasized the important role fathers play in their children’s lives and pointed to the harm caused when that role becomes a negative aspect of childhood.
“I believe fatherlessness is a root cause of nearly all of society’s problems. So when you talk about homelessness and the crime that goes with that, I think you can ultimately trace that back to a father wound or an absent father,” he said.
SpoFI exists to provide resources to counter this problem by providing dad classes and resources for families. They also provide several assistance and law-related services for families.
“The essence of all of this is to teach relationship skills. I’m convicted that the most important thing we can do for the kids of Spokane is teach their moms and dads how to get along and stay together,” Haunstein said.
Father’s Day Celebration is open to all
The Father’s Day event will have guest speakers, a live DJ, face painting, outdoor games and more. The goal is for it to be a celebration and “one big family Father’s Day at the park,” Johnson-Jones said.
SpoFI will be there to join in the fun and games while also presenting their vision for expanding their impact and alumni success stories.
The event received funding from several Spokane businesses and non-profits including the Old European and the Salvation Army.
To learn more about Gabriel’s Challenge or the Spokane Fatherhood Initiative, check their websites. To get more information about future steps for Gabriel’s Challenge, email in**@***************ge.org.
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