On May 2, students in Professor Carol Spaulding-Kruse’s Community Writing class, a community-engaged learning course offered by Drake in collaboration with HCI Care Services and Visiting Nurse Services of Iowa, will facilitate and host a Death Café.

A Death Cafe is an open, respectful get-together for the purpose of talking about death over food and drink, usually tea and cake. There is no set agenda, objectives, or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session and intended to be a pleasant way to converse with others, often strangers, about a subject we don’t often discuss openly. The goal is to increase awareness of death in order to help people make the most of their (finite) lives.

Thousands of Death Cafes have been held around the world held since their conception in 2011, including previously in Des Moines. The café will be held from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Medbury Honors Lounge.

— Carol Spaulding-Kruse, Professor of English