Roundtable Death Café feat. Circle of Friends for the Dying – Grand Opening, June 2022 (Read More)

Welcome to the Grand Opening of the latest event series from the Completed Life Initiative, the Roundtable Death Café. The first part of this event, which is what is presented in this video, is an open forum for panelists to deconstruct the stigma surrounding death and dying. Our panelists discussed how death cafés can destigmatize the subject of death through local, small group connections; how these events can advance empathy and compassion towards grief and end-of-life suffering; and how individuals and organizations, on both a local and national scale, can further promote #deathpositivity.

A Death Café is a participant-led discussion of death with no set agenda, objectives, or themes. The model is based on a similar format from Europe that has since been adapted and popularized in the United States. Death Cafés can occur online or in-person and they often have tea and snacks, but their free-flowing nature lends them to be adapted even further, which is what we have done.

If you would like to join the next session of the Roundtable Death Café live, including participating in an actual Death Café, visit the Completed Life Initiative’s events page for registration as it becomes available: completedlife.org/events

Our first session of this new series featured guest panelists from Circle of Friends for the Dying, a Death Café based in Kingston, NY. Their facilitators helped guide the discussion and led us into the Death Café portion of the event.

Visit the website of Circle of Friends for the Dying – CFDHV.org

At the Circle of Friends’ website, you will find virtual and in-person volunteer opportunities in the Hudson Valley, New York Area.

(Originally recorded on June 29th, 2022)