ELEVATE Announces Avril Heals as April Community Partner 

SEATTLE—ELEVATE (presented by Streamate) announced Friday that its Community Partner for April is outreach program Avril Heals, co-founded by Minnie Scarlet and Jae Ortiz. After losing a close friend named Avril, Scarlet and Ortiz came together to create Avril Heals as a tribute to honor and uplift trauma survivors. Avril Heals offers creative arts healing spaces centering around BIPOC, queer people, and sex workers who've experienced gender and race-based trauma. The organization's current services include community groups and workshops that explore revolving creative writing and art healing themes. Ortiz, the organization's executive director and a trauma recovery coach and art therapist in training, remarked, "When building creative art spaces through Avril Heals, we focused on what we personally understood so that our approach could resonate with other sex workers, queer people, and BIPOC that were like us." Streamate director of community relations Vanessa Eve lauded the initiative, commenting, "The amount of care and intention that Minnie and Jae have infused into Avril Heals is palpable. It's inspiring to see individuals recognizing needs within their community and being proactive to meet those needs, especially in situations where there may be limited or inaccessible options." Scarlet, who serves as the director of communications for Avril Heals, has a background in sex work, art and digital marketing. "Sometimes, experience in sex work can be regarded as a setback instead of the asset it is," Scarlet noted. "We couldn't be prouder to be partnering with ELEVATE to continue highlighting sex workers and their allies." As part of their ELEVATE community partnership, Avril Heals will host a mini-series of exclusive free virtual pop-up workshops during April: • Body Scan Art Workshop — Wednesday, April 19 at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET • Black-out Poetry Workshop — Thursday, April 20 at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET  • Zine Making Workshop — Tuesday, April 25 at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET   Adult community members are welcome and can register at beyondsexwork.com before each workshop. Details on each workshop can also be found there. Learn more about Avril Heals at avrilheals.org. Learn more about ELEVATE at beyondsexwork.com.