Massage for Community Care: Building the Participant Toolkit & Facilitator Training Guide
Massage for Community Care (MFCC) is an 8-week, community-based learning series designed to equip community members with the presence, communication, and hands-on skills needed to offer massage and nurturing touch as an act of community care.
MFCC expands access to massage beyond professional, clinical, and luxury settings—supporting people to care for one another in ways that reduce isolation, strengthen meaningful connection, and return knowledge about touch to community.
This campaign is raising $10,000 to develop the MFCC Participant Toolkit and Facilitator Training Guide—the core materials needed to make the work clear, accessible, and adaptable across diverse learning styles and community contexts.
More About MFCC
Created by Christie Holtzclaw, licensed massage therapist and health educator, MFCC is rooted in an anti-oppression framework that recognizes how interpersonal and structural power shape experiences of touch, consent, and care. MFCC names these dynamics and intentionally disrupts the gatekeeping of nourishing touch by centering inclusion, accessibility, and skill sharing.
At its heart, MFCC approaches massage and nurturing touch as tools for embodied liberation. Many people—especially those with marginalized identities—have experienced touch as unsafe, withheld, or taken without consent. MFCC offers an alternative: touch grounded in dignity, choice, and respect for all bodies.
As people build their capacity to listen to their bodies, name boundaries, and experience care with consent, nurturing touch becomes a practice of restoration and self-determination. These skills extend beyond the workshop—supporting greater self-trust, self-advocacy, and relational clarity in everyday life.
From Pilot to Shared Resource
An initial pilot series in Fall 2025 demonstrated strong program resonance and impact. Participants described how MFCC increased their sense of ease, safety, connection, and confidence in offering massage and nurturing touch in their relationships and communities.
The pilot confirmed that the model works—and that stronger, more accessible materials will help it be even more impactful moving forward. Early resources were minimal and text-heavy, with participant feedback highlighting the need for:
- Visual support through clarifying illustrations
- Plain-language accessibility
- A modular structure that supports use as a reference manual beyond the workshop
This fundraising phase supports the transition from a successful pilot to a replicable, mutual aid model that can be shared and adapted across communities.
The Tools This Campaign Supports
This campaign funds the phased development of the:
- MFCC Participant Toolkit — an accessible, illustrated handbook with consent practices, communication tools, hands-on techniques, and prompts for reflection and discussion
- MFCC Facilitator Training Guide — a companion resource to support trauma-responsive facilitation and consistent, ethical delivery of course content across facilitators and settings
Our $10,000 fundraising goal supports fair compensation for an interdisciplinary team contributing expertise in trauma-informed group facilitation, illustration, editing, plain language and accessibility, program evaluation, somatic practices, massage therapy, and other hands-on modalities. This is infrastructure work designed for long-term impact.
Looking Ahead
With these materials, MFCC can be shared responsibly across diverse community contexts as a community-held resource—expanding access to massage and nurturing touch while honoring participants' context, lived experience, and collective wisdom.
Timeline & Next Steps
The next draft of the MFCC Participant Toolkit will be rapidly developed and used in a second MFCC cohort beginning in mid-February 2026. This cohort will function as an interative pilot, with participant feedback shaping revisions to the toolkit and directly informing the subsequent development of the MFCC Facilitator Training Guide.
A Shared Effort
MFCC is being developed through community participation, feedback, and collaboration. This next phase—building the Participant Toolkit and Facilitator Training Guide—is a process of collective care and shared stewardship, shaped by the people who have engaged with the work and those who believe in its potential.
By supporting this campaign, you are resourcing the time, labor, and expertise required to build these materials thoughtfully. Your support is an investment in community care that is accessible and liberatory.
Thank you for being part of this effort.