How to be a Good Friend Web Resource Help Each Other Out (HelpEachOtherOut.Com) Uses Indiegogo to Crowdfund Online Gesture Library and Portrait Bombing Campaign

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Apr 18, 2014, 08:00 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, April 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Help Each Other Out launches Indiegogo campaign to build its capacity through a free online Gesture Library and a Portrait Bombing Campaign featuring young women living with breast cancer and the gestures that helped get them through treatment.

Help Each Other Out: Sharing What Works Portrait Bombing Campaign. (PRNewsFoto/Help Each Other Out)

The phone rings and it's your friend. She's calling to say something terrible has happened -- like she's getting a divorce or she's lost a parent -- and she's coming to you for support. What do you say? Frankly, most of us are clueless in these situations, and tend to either minimize what's happened or turn the conversation back to their own experience. Neither of which is what your friend needs in that moment.

Help Each Other Out developed out of this gap. "We created the website and are doing the campaigns because there's is a real need. I see it in my peer group -- as we're aging, we're getting sick, losing parents, divorcing", said founder Kelsey Crowe, 45, who was treated for breast cancer in 2012. "I don't think many of us know what to do in these situations. What the research shows is that often small gestures mean a lot, it doesn't take much. Being there, saying 'I'm sorry,' that can mean a great deal. We want to share what works, and create a kind of movement built on these small gestures."

Website: Helpeachotherout.com

Indiegogo Campaign link: http://igg.me/at/helpeachotherout/x/7093413

Gesture Library: The campaign will fund an online gesture library on helpeachotherout.com. The library will be a free resource for people to share and learn from others what works for others when life gets hard, then worse.

Portrait Campaign: With the funds raised through Indiegogo, Help Each Other Out will launch its first Portrait Bombing Project in partnership with Bay Area Young Survivors of Breast Cancer (BAYS: www.baysnet.org) and iconic tintype photographer Michael Shindler (www.michaelshindler.com). Striking large-format tintype portraits will be will be displayed throughout several San Francisco neighborhoods. The portraits feature women from BAYS and include stories about the gestures that helped get them through treatment.

About Help Each Other Out

Help Each Other Out is a popular online resource for how to help friends, family and colleagues during difficult times, such as illness, loss, and divorce. The website and public education campaigns were created by a team of researchers, writers, artists using first-person interviews, surveys and academic and popular literature to learn how best to help people during difficult times. The team includes Kelsey Crowe, who earned a PhD in social work at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is also a Visiting Scholar, Katie Crouch, a NY Times best-selling novelist and essayist (www.katiecrouch.net), artist Megan Whitmarsh, web designer Joe Hoffman, and many other collaborators. Help Each Other Out is based in San Francisco. For more information, or to participate in the research, please visit http://www.helpeachotherout.com or contact Kelsey Crowe at [email protected].