The Honey Pot Company, in partnership with Target, hosted a health and wellness symposium on Wednesday, Feb. 21, at the top floor of the Armour J. Blackburn University Center at Howard University.
Six Black-owned wellness brands and businesses were featured, each representing one dimension of The Honey Pot’s ‘Wellness Wheel’: mindfulness, balance, vessel, community, nature and ritual.
The ‘Journeying through Self and Communal Care’ event introduced students to new, attainable ways to engage in self-care in their everyday routines. Attendees were also gifted ‘swag bags’ featuring self-care products from event sponsors.
The event also featured a panel discussion hosted by The Honey Pot Company’s CEO and Co-Founder, Beatrice Dixon.
Panelists included the owner of Zola Counseling Solutions, Asia Rodriquez, founder and CEO of Ìpàdé, Elizabeth Dawes Gay, Founder of Tea Time with T, Tara A. Nichols and Stephon Bradberry, founder of LifeWell Enterprises LLC.
The events coordinator, Bailey Woodruff, spoke on the origins and motivations behind the event.
“We chose Howard because, one, it’s an HBCU. There are a lot of, I think, black, young women we were hoping to be inspired by Beatrice’s story and the overall idea of wellness and the importance of just taking care of yourself from multiple verticals and tenants,” Woodruff said.
Tara Purnell, a sound healer who represented the ritual dimension of the wellness wheel hosted a ‘sound bath’ during the event, believes that breath and sound set our foundational rhythm and inform how we move throughout life.
“I think that breath and sound is kind of like our first access point to feeling better more often, whether it’s the sound of your own breathing or the sound of a loved one’s breath or voice,” Purnell said.
Other wellness outlets featured at the event included a mindfulness library promoting books on self-care and wellness practices, We BE Walkin’, a DC-based organization that encourages BIPOC to explore the DC area and engage with nature and DC-based yoga instructor and breathwork leader Shakeelah Sutton.
Representing the vessel piece of the wellness wheel were Jamila Wright and her husband an official Tea Sommelier, Alfonso Wright, owners of Brooklyn Tea in New York City.
“Tea is really important to wellness for multiple reasons. One, the ritual of making tea is very relaxing. You have to get time, temperature and measurement correct, but also tea has many health benefits. There are antioxidants; there are amino acids; there’s a just a plethora of science about how teas and herbs can just make your life better,” Wright said.
The Brooklyn-based tea lovers also advocate for spreading awareness throughout the black community about the holistic benefits of tea.
“It’s an alternative to sugary beverages. A lot of the beverages that are available for especially our community are full of sugar or high fructose corn syrup and tea is a way to get a flavorful beverage without all the sweetened sugar that’s very natural that you can make yourself,” Wright concluded.
Throughout the event, students were encouraged to participate in each dimension of the wellness wheel and the proprietors of each dimension hosted brief sessions to educate attendees about various aspects of wellness.
Brianna Pickett, a senior advertising major and business minor from Chicago, IL, says she was pleasantly surprised by the resources and information provided at the event.
“I didn’t expect to learn as much as I actually did. I’m very glad I came; just talking about wellness and all of the different facets was really amazing… it’s a very immersive experience, and I’m enjoying it,” Pickett said.
Copy edited by D’ara Campbell
