Community healing work of Jamil Stamschror-Lott featured in USA Today and Rolling Stone

Jamil Stamschror-Lott, who serves as a mentor for the Ciresi Walburn Scholars, and his wife, Sara, were recently featured in USA Today and Rolling Stone for their work helping the Minneapolis community to heal following the murder of George Floyd and the related protests.

The Stamschror-Lotts are co-owners of Creative Kuponya, which seeks to “provide therapy to people using a new approach derived from art, body movement and the celebration of culture in the therapy room.”

“We do individual therapy, group therapy, a communal piece," Stamschror-Lott said. "We have exercises and practices to cope with traumatic experiences like this for under-represented populations, especially black folks. Part of the strategy was to say, 'Everyone else that is not black or brown, just listen. We've been invalidating folks and humanity, and part of it is just to listen and validate.'“

As Jamil shared in his Rolling Stone interview, “Part of healing is being validated, listened to and heard. And that’s… a struggle when you’re in predominantly white spaces, [where] you get invalidated quite often.”

The Ciresi Walburn Foundation for Children is proud to partner with Jamil, Abdul Omari, and Carolyn Jones from the Minnesota Private College Fund to support the Ciresi Walburn Scholars. Our scholars program includes mentoring and career experiences and has grown to include more than three dozen college juniors and seniors.

We applaud Sara and Jamil’s commitment to equity, justice and healing.