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Statement on Service
Statement on Service
Service is highly integrated into my teaching and research practice. My work with the Inclusive Recovery Cities includes hosting safe, sober spaces and providing training and distribution of Narcan at outdoor music venues. We use the Free Narcan Bike to advocate for expanded harm reduction services with Virginia's legislators and the last three governors. Being a VDH harm reduction site allowed free access to naloxone. In my recent service to the Provost’s Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs, I partnered with Rams in Recovery and the Department of Public Safety to co-locate more than 200 Opioid Emergency Kits next to every AED machine on the VCU campus.
While the performance, adoption and studio recording of my “One Foot in Front of the Other” song falls squarely in my research. My establishment of the Recovery Ally Choir and membership in the RVA Street Singers involved active service to the community. In 2022 I completed Peer Recovery Support Specialist (PRS) training. Later that fall we hosted the Recovery Ally Choir at CARITAS and included participants from their residential treatment facilities. I have used my PRS training to help support students and community members find and sustain recovery and have served on the advisory committee for VCU’s collegiate recovery program Rams In Recovery for 11 years.
In March of 2020, in the first days of the Covid19 pandemic, I formed the FotoFika Project with Anne Massoni and Betsy Schneider. We partnered with the Society for Photographic Education, VCU Online, the International Center for Photography and the Center for Creative Photography to host weekly zoom workshops for photography educators.We created exhibition opportunities for 2020 graduates and produced a unique publication called the FotoFika 2020 Allstars. The publication featured the work of nearly 400 students and reviews by more than 100 curators, photographers and professionals in the field. In 2025, Capital One Arts hosted an exhibition entitled FotoFika @ Five at their headquarters in Richmond. They produced a new publication of work by 40 students and 20 prints for exhibition in their gallery. As a result of my work with FotoFika, in 2020 I was appointed to serve on the board of the Society for Photographic Education during a crucial moment in the organization's history. I served on their emergency strategic planning committee and helped implement a restructuring process that helped us avoid collapse as an organization.
2020
FotoFika 2020 All Stars - FotoFika 2020 All Stars Trading Card Project includes images from 380 photography students from the Class of 2020 across the globe.
Created as a loose interpretation of Mike Mandel’s iconic Baseball Cards, the FotoFika 2020 All Stars celebrates the photography students in the Class of 2020 and serves as a way to introduce their work to reviewers, critics, curators and institutions that will be a part of their future as practicing artists.
2018 - 2019
The Recovery Ally Choir provides a safe, joyful, and encouraging environment for members to celebrate recovery through music, singing and community.
Founded by John Freyer in 2018 and is currently directed by Robin Rio. While membership is primarily composed of persons in long term recovery, most of whom are affiliated with twelve step programs, the choir open to multiple pathways to recovery and welcome recovery allies, friends and family to sing with them.
The Recovery Ally Choir seeks to help build a recovery-ready community in Richmond and beyond.
In 2016, I participated in the VCU Artfulness Project, where I introduced the "Forming Connections" section of the website and produced a mindfulness activity using photography. The site has been used both on and off campus as a way to introduce mindfulness and meditation practices, using a series of creative prompts.
In 2016 - I served as the "Live Auctioneer" at Studio Two Three's annual art auction. I will serve again in 2017.
In May 2017 - I helped the Visual Arts Center of Richmond make the world's largest cyanotype photographic print for the Guinness Book of World's Records.
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