The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Community Living (ACL) launched the What is Brain Health? campaign in 2015 to introduce the concept of brain health as a key component of overall health and to normalize it as a topic for discussion.
Laugh Lines: Storytelling Event & Workshop
To bring this national campaign to life on the local level, HHS ACL is bringing Laugh Lines: A Storytelling Event about the Experience of Getting Older to Chicago on June 25th from 1 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. It will bring together the Windy City’s active population of older adults to entertain them in an afternoon of humorous and authentic stories about growing older and inform them about actions they can take to help maintain their brain health and age well.
The Laugh Lines event will be held at the Hoover-Leppen Theatre at the Center on Halsted (3656 N. Halsted Street, Chicago, IL), hosted by a local celebrity emcee, and kicked off by award-winning professional storyteller Olga Loya. The main portion of the event will be a friendly competition among six older adult storytellers (ideally age 60+) who will share their personal narratives with an audience of their peers (approximately 150-175 people). A panel of judges, comprised of local leaders in the brain health and aging space, will determine the winner.
HHS ACL will also host Laugh Lines: A Storytelling Workshop for Older Adults on June 11th at 12:00 p.m. This four- hour workshop—led by Olga Loya and held at the Hoover-Leppen Theatre at the Center on Halsted—will introduce older adults (approximately 20 people) to the idea of storytelling and help them cultivate their own stories. As the primary means for HHS ACL to identify the six storytellers for the main Laugh Lines event, the workshop is an important part of our event series.
How You Can Be a Laugh Lines Event Partner
The Laugh Lines event offers a truly unique opportunity to engage and educate older adults in Chicago, and provides organizations the opportunity to make these adults aware of the great work in the area.
Event Partners will:
-   Promote the free storytelling workshop via organization channels, social media, or local newsletters to encourage interested members to participate (if selected at the workshop—they are eligible to represent the event partner organization as a storytelling contestant in the main event);
- ď‚· Â Promote the main event among members and via organization channels, event calendars, social media or local newsletters; and
-   Connect HHS ACL event organizers with your local media contacts to promote the event. In exchange, event partners will be provided the following:
-   An opportunity to include collateral materials in take-home bags for each audience  member;
- ď‚· Â Admission to the partner organization meet-and-greet prior to the event;
-   Placement of the organization’s logo in the event program; and
- ď‚· Â Emcee acknowledgement of the organization during the event.
For more information go to BrainHealth.gov or follow us on Facebook at ACLBrainHealth and Twitter @ACLbrainhealth
Last Updated on June 18, 2016
