The 2018 Before I Die New Mexico Festival is being recognized with a prestigious national funeral industry award. A Good Goodbye from Albuquerque, New Mexico, has won First Place in the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association's 2018 Keeping It Personal (KIP) Awards. The KIP Award recognizes the best in personalization in the cemetery, funeral service and cremation profession.
Created by the ICCFA Personalization Committee, the KIP program honors recipients in four categories. A Good Goodbye received First Place in the Event category. Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death®, owns the company and served as festival event coordinator.
The ICCFA's 2018 KIP Awards contest attracted 40 entries from El Salvador, Canada and the United States. Communications and marketing professionals from outside the cemetery and funeral service profession performed the judging.
The Before I Die New Mexico Festival offered the opportunity to foster reflection about how we as individuals and society address death and dying. The Festival's objective is to get people to think about, talk about, and hopefully, do something about our 100% mortality rate by participating in outside-of-the-box activities.
These activities included Death Café conversations; field trips to funeral homes, cemeteries, casket manufacturers, and the Office of the Medical Investigator; movies; panel discussions, and more. In its' second year, this event was held from October 30 to November 4, 2018.
The six-day festival included a celebration of the rituals and meaning of Día de Los Muertos/Day of the Dead. The schedule included 32 events, most free or low cost, at multiple locations in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Belen, New Mexico. Up to 685 participants attended.
Gail Rubin worked with a team of students in a program at the University of New Mexico Anderson School of Management to research and create a marketing strategy that focused on Millennials.
All KIP Awards recipients will be recognized at the ICCFA 2019 Annual Convention & Exposition, April 2-6 at the Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, and featured in ICCFA Magazine.
The Before I Die NM Festival was made possible by these sponsors:
Festival Partners were La Puerta Natural Burial Ground, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of New Mexico, Guild Cinema, Berardinelli Family Funeral Service, Children's Grief Center of New Mexico, Compassion & Choices NM Action Team, Daniels Family Funeral Services, and LifeIZShort.com.
A portion of sponsor fees were donated to the festival's charitable partner Fathers Building Futures. This nonprofit social enterprise provides jobs and skills to previously incarcerated parents, reducing recidivism. They build pine caskets that are kosher for Jewish burial and fine wood cremation urns in their woodworking shop.
Founded in 1887, the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association (ICCFA) is the only international trade association representing all segments of the cemetery, cremation, funeral and memorialization industry. Its membership is composed of more than 9,100 rooftop locations and 18,000 professionals in the cemetery, funeral home and crematory industries, as well as memorial designers and related businesses worldwide. To learn more, please visit www.iccfa.com or connect with ICCFA on Facebook and Twitter.
Learn more about the Before I Die New Mexico Festival by calling event coordinator Gail Rubin at 505-265-7215 or visiting the website, www.BeforeIDieNM.com.
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Gail Rubin, CT, is author and host of the award-winning book and television series, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, Hail and Farewell: Cremation Ceremonies, Templates and Tips, and KICKING THE BUCKET LIST: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die.
Rubin is a Certified Thanatologist (that's a death educator) and a popular speaker who uses humor and films to get the end-of-life and funeral planning conversation started. She "knocked 'em dead" with her TEDx talk, A Good Goodbye. She provides continuing education credit classes for attorneys, doctors, nurses, social workers, hospice workers, financial planners, funeral directors and other professionals. She's a Certified Funeral Celebrant and funeral planning consultant who has been interviewed in national and local print, broadcast and online media.
Known as The Doyenne of Death®, she is the event coordinator of the Before I Die NM Festival. She also hosts A Good Goodbye Internet radio show and produces Mortality Minute radio and online video spots. Her YouTube Channel features more than 450 videos!
Rubin is a member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling, the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, Toastmasters International and the National Speakers Association New Mexico Chapter. Her speaking profile is available at eSpeakers.com.
Gail Rubin has been interviewed about funeral planning issues in national and local broadcast, print and online media. Outlets include The Huffington Post, Money Magazine, Kiplinger, CBS Radio News, WGN-TV, and local affiliates for NPR, PBS, FOX, ABC-TV, CBS-TV and NBC-TV. Albuquerque Business First named her as one of their 2019 Women of Influence.
Sign up for a free planning form and occasional informative newsletter at her website, AGoodGoodbye.com.