The Beloved Festival is a multi-modal experience designed to foster connections, offer spiritual nourishment, and showcase beloveds' gifts with one another and the wider community. Just as our beloveds create new spaces of sacred belonging, so too do we hope to create such a space for these spiritual leaders through this Festival. Whether you're part of our community already or you seek to be inspired, nurtured, and connected, we welcome you!

Each day, there will be one programming block each in the morning and afternoon, followed by a community dinner and evening program. Our schedule is spacious to allow ample time for connection and digestion.

Our complete schedule is still in formation. In the meantime, we can confirm that there will be amazing workshops including a song circle led by Rena Branson, a SVARA-style text study led by Rabbi Bronwen Mullin, Jewish Studio Project-style art creation led by Shula Pesach, and a series of workshops on fundraising, project management, and more led by our new Director of Fiscal Sponsorship, Lauren Burke.

Register Here

Click here to view the full schedule!

Sunday, July 5-Thursday, July 9

9 - 10am: Avodat Lev

10 - 10:30am: Welcome

10:30am - 12pm: Programming

12 - 2pm: Lunch on your own

2 - 4pm: Programming

4 - 5:30pm: Break

5:30 - 7pm: Dinner together

7 - 9pm: Evening Program

Note: The Festival will begin on Sunday at 5:30 with Community Dinner. On Thursday, the Festival will conclude by 12pm.

The Beloved Festival will primarily take place on Smith College campus, with most of our programming taking place at the Smith College Conference Center. Additionally, there is an opportunity to stay on campus for the duration of the festival through Beloved. We will be housed in one dorm together, and we will not share the dorm with anyone else.

 

  • Program Fee

    $180

  • Community Meals

    $100 (one per day)

Register Here

Programming

  • Lots of time for connecting with this incredible network, delicious food, and amazing workshops including a song circle led by Rena Branson, a SVARA-style text study led by Rabbi Bronwen Mullin, Jewish Studio Project-style art creation led by Shula Pesach, and a series of workshops on fundraising, project management, and more led by our new Director of Fiscal Sponsorship, Lauren Burke. All of that AND you can be in Northampton in the summertime - it's truly our best season, if you ask us.

  • We are inviting beloveds (alum of cohort programming and current fiscal sponsees) to join us beginning Sunday evening. Dinner will be at 5:30, and you’re welcome to arrive anytime after 3. The wider community is welcome to join us beginning Monday evening.

    Programming will conclude on Thursday morning; we’ll be in the living room of the dorm for the last morning and will provide breakfast. It will be casual and folks will be leaving throughout the morning, and we’ll all need to leave the dorm by 12pm.

Housing

  • The dorm we’re staying in is quite spacious, so we expect that everyone will be able to stay in their own room unless they’ve requested to stay with someone else.

  • A small number of rooms have private bathrooms, which will be prioritized for people with specific accessibility needs. Otherwise, most rooms on each floor share a bathroom.

  • Each room comes with linens (flat sheet, top sheet, pillow, pillowcase, blanket, towel, and washcloth). Sadly, the dorms do not come with tiny cute soap bars, so you do need to bring your own toiletries.

  • The house we’ll be in has a full size refrigerator, microwave, and stove. We will have basic cookware, including a pan, pot, and spatula. The kitchen is not set up for extensive cooking projects but you can definitely enjoy basic meals.

Meals

  • Yes, we hope so! Please let us know about your specific dietary restrictions when registering, and we will be in touch if we have any follow-up questions. Dinner each evening will have plentiful vegan and gluten-free options, and all food will be vegetarian. Please note that the restaurants we’re catering from are not hechshered Kosher.

  • If you’re staying in the dorm, it will be stocked with plenty of basics (i.e., oatmeal packets, granola, yogurt, basic vegetarian sandwich fixings). On site at the Conference Center, we’ll have abundant snacks to keep you fueled throughout the day as well as coffee and tea set-ups each morning.

Childcare + Child-Related Questions

  • Absolutely! For any child old enough to be sleeping in a bed on their own, their residence in a room counts toward the total occupancy of a room. So for example, if you are traveling with a friend and a 6 year old, you either will need to be in a triple, or the friend will need to be housed in a separate room. If you have a baby or toddler who is co-sleeping or sleeping in a pack-and-play-type set-up, they do not count toward the total room occupancy.

  • Partially, yes. We’ll have childcare during the morning programming block, taking place in the Conference Center. For the rest of the day, it is your responsibility to have your child with you. The afternoon programming block will have an option each day that is multigenerational-friendly so that you can attend with your child.

Accessibility

  • There are a limited number of rooms on the first floor of the dorm that are accessible, and there is a ramp to enter the building. If you need a dorm room that is accessed without stairs, please let us know. The Conference Center is fully accessible.

  • Masking is optional and not required for the Festival. Smith’s Conference Center has an HVAC system that fully circulates air every 60 minutes, and we also have access to an outdoor deck that folks can eat at if they’d prefer to eat outside. We ask anyone who is not feeling well to please stay home. If someone develops symptoms while at the Festival, we will work with them to ensure that they can get any needed medical attention as well as isolate as needed.