July 2020 Newsletter
Hello, Hello Buffalo Family!
This email comes at such a trying, yet also eye-opening time in our world for so many reasons and I feel like I've been writing versions of this message to you in my head for months, but it's finally time to hit send and move forward in some capacity.
Please forgive me for what will undoubtedly be a long email, but we have a number of things to catch up on!
TRUE EQUALITY: I've spent the last month setting all business aside to focus solely on keeping up to date with the racial inequality issues that we're seeing come to the surface in our communities in the wake of the horrific killing of George Floyd and I've been using all of my energy to email and call our city council members, mayors, police departments, state + national representatives and decision makers overall. As I've been reaching out I've continually been thinking of your amazing families and thinking about how we can use this momentum to get to a place of real progressive change so your children have a better path than the generations before them did and so every single member of our community can feel safe in their every day lives and has equal opportunities that aren't dictated by an unjust system.
I hope it was already clear before, but let me just definitely state that Hello Buffalo exists to celebrate every single family, regardless of what they look like or who they love and will continue to do so for its existence. There's no place for discrimination of any kind in our work, and in our lives, and we're committed to continually progressing, taking a hard look at how we may be failing and addressing those issues whenever they appear. If we've ever failed you, or if you see anything that you're concerned about, please never hesitate to reach out, hold us accountable and push us to be better.
ONGOING DONATIONS: Sometimes when the world feels heavy it's hard to know exactly what to do or say, even though it seems like taking immediate action is the most urgent thing to do. Luckily, though, there are so many organizations fighting every day to make our world a better place and even if we, personally, don't know exactly what to do, we do have the opportunity to support their ongoing work and can lean on them to guide us as the experts.
Here at Hello Buffalo we have a history of coming together to donate to these organizations, from the ACLU to Save the Boundary Waters to Climate Gen and more. We've generally donated to these organizations by setting up very specific sessions for them, and while we're excited to explore more of those opportunities in the future, we're also going to incorporate giving into every single session.
Moving forward we'll be donating 10% of every session fee to organizations that we believe in. We'll pick a few new orgs every month and when you book your session you'll be able to choose where you'd like your donation to go to. We'll pick the orgs based on urgency, upcoming legislation, the work they're doing, their impact on the community, etc., but are also happy to hear your recommendations if there are any that you love and want to support.
We're also joining 1% For The Planet, which holds us accountable to donate at least 1% of our gross sales to environmental organizations. If you know me (Sara) you know how huge my love for the outdoors is and I know that it's a place of solace and inspiration for so many of you, too, so there will always be at least one environmental organization to choose from when booking your session.
The organizations that we're supporting this July are:
Northside Business Support — This is a fund setup by the West Broadway Business and Area Coalition + the Northside Funders group to support North Minneapolis businesses that have been impacted by COVID-19 and the social unrest following the killing of George Floyd.
Migizi — Migizi has been supporting Native American youth through a number of really great programs since 1977. They created a brand new space for this work last year, which unfortunately was severely damaged in the fire that was set to the 3rd precinct in Minneapolis. They're raising money to rebuild and we would love to help them continue to do the work that they're doing and get up and running as quickly as possible.
Climate Generation — We're sending some more support to Climate Gen! This org is grounded in creating equitable solutions to climate change issues and their continued work is protecting our planet for generations to come.
COVID-19: I know we're not alone in that we've been waiting and waiting for some more stability in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the landscape still seems to change every week. I haven't been willing to put any unnecessary risk on your families, so we haven't been open to any portrait sessions at all since March and are still hesitant to move forward too quickly, so we're going to start slow and be mindful of all of the factors involved.
We will have some sessions with Thea available starting next week and to start off we'll be following these precautions:
We’re significantly reducing the number of sessions that we do in a day and are aiming for only one or two per day to start off. This means that unless things drastically change in the coming months we likely won’t be able to offer back-to-back fall mini sessions or 10 in 10 sessions through the rest of the year. Because of this, if you're interested in annual family photos this year I would highly suggest booking early instead of waiting for fall, especially with the uncertainty of a potential second wave of COVID before we've fully recovered from the first wave that we're already in.
We won’t be booking sessions further out than 30 days and will be releasing new availability on a rolling basis so we can adjust quickly to changes.
All sessions will be done outdoors in areas where adequate social distancing is possible. This means that we’re going to aim for having a majority of our sessions held at your home in your backyard/front yard or at locations with less foot traffic as opposed to some of the more high profile locations around the Twin Cities.
We will be wearing masks for the duration of the session and will be practicing recommended social distancing. (Sadly, that means that even though we miss you so dang much we can’t give you a big bear hug. YET.)
We’re also asking that you bring your own PPE for every member of your family so we’re all prepared if we’re changing locations and are briefly entering areas where social distancing isn’t possible.
We’ll be taking our temperatures before each session and will require you to do the same. If anyone has a temperature above 100.3 °F we won’t move forward with the session that day. We will instead reschedule and will create an alternative plan on a case by case basis.
BOOKING: There are a handful of available dates on the booking page of our website and we'll be releasing more on a rolling basis. If none of the dates that are listed work for you, but you know you'd like a session feel free to reach out directly and we'll work some calendar magic to get your session booked before we release the next round of dates.
Once you book your session we'll reach out to finalize the booking process with the portrait contract, where you'll agree to the COVID-19 terms above, and we'll fine tune all of the fun details for your session.
ALL THE LOVE: As overwhelming as this year has been for our country + our world there are so many inspiring moments of hope if you look in the right places and this little Hello Buffalo community that has been growing over the past 15+ years has been a true source of joy lately. You guys are beautiful + inspiring + soulful humans and we're so lucky to know you and to get to tell the story of your families.
Even in the middle of the insanity we've always been fans of celebrating real life, even when it's difficult, and we're seeing so much to celebrate that we can't wait to photograph + document for you!
There are brand new kiddos + hilarious puppies (our very own Thea has the cutest new Newfoundland puppy!) + quarantine art projects + new learned skills + new found passions + home projects galore + new favorite places to get lost in nature, great home haircuts, terrible home haircuts, lost teeth, brand new teeth + So. Much. Baked. Bread.
This is a wild, overwhelming time but the eternal optimist in us recognizes how eye opening this time has been, how much there is to celebrate and how much love we have for all of you.
We're so ready, mask and all.
Sara + Thea
Hello Buffalo