the kinder have begun to create their own art gallery in the space where they play.
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-romero britto
Feb16
Author Archives: beth
Feb15
cake4kids.
Meet Cake4Kids: The Nonprofit That Bakes Birthday Cakes for Foster and At-Risk Children
Inspired by an article profiling a young girl in the foster care system who burst into tears upon receiving her first birthday cake, Cake4Kids founder Libby Gruender recognized that such a simple gesture could have a profound impact on the lives of underprivileged children. IIn 2010, Cake4Kids launched as a grassroots effort in Sunnyvale, California, with a handful of volunteers baking 13 cakes for a few agencies that support youth. Today, the organization encompasses hundreds of volunteers, serves over 400 social services agencies, and provides over 3,000 custom, homemade cakes or sweets for at-risk kids (ages 1-24) on an annual basis — with more than 40,000 treats delivered in the past 13 years
While a birthday cake may seem like a simple gesture to many, each baked good serves as a sweet reminder to the children and youth in the U.S. foster care system that they are seen, cherished, and not forgotten.
Per the organization’s website, children served by this mission include “youth in foster care, group homes, homeless shelters, transitional and low income housing, domestic violence or human trafficking shelters, substance abuse programs, and refugees.” Agencies partnering with Cake4Kids must serve at-risk or underserved youth, be categorized as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization or government agency, and have offices in an area served by Cake4Kids.
Three years after Cake4Kids began, Gruender sadly passed away, but her mission continues to live on: The organization has since expanded across the country, with chapters all across the United States.
For more information, visit the Cake4Kids website to learn how you can volunteer, start a chapter in your area, and donate.
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“how far that little candle throws his beams! so shines a good deed in a weary world.”
-william shakespeare, the merchant of venice
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-source credit: julia diddy
Feb14
humble hearts.
“love is the humblest yet the most powerful force that the human being has.”
-mahatma gandhi
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happy valentine’s day to all
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art credit: george shaw, painted love
Feb13
salad snack.
something about a dehydrated salad in a bag doesn’t really scream either snack or salad to me.
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“one of the benefits of eating salad is that you can eat tons of it and never be satisfied.
-jim gaffigan
Feb12
*yoopers.
I
It took a month to make some of the incredible snow sculptures that were part of the annual Michigan Technological University Winter Carnival. Phi Kappa Tau extended its winning streak to five years with a huge rendition of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. (Photo: Daniel Staelgraeve | Michigan Technological University)
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what you do in the winter (and sometimes in may),
when you go to college in the upper peninsula of michigan
* yooper – a native or inhabitant of the upper peninsula of michigan
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“i wrote, and sometimes, when i was stuck, i hit the road.
i ate pasties in the upper peninsula and hush puppies in cairo.
i did my best not to write about any place i had not been.”
– neil gaiman
Feb11
this says…
“this says – i love my whole family.”
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“writing isn’t letters on paper. it’s communication. it’s memory.”
-isaac marion
Feb10
atmosphere.
Reminiscent of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” this stunning photo of Jupiter’s swirly atmosphere, was captured by the Juno spacecraft, which is dedicated to studying Jupiter’s composition. It recently appeared on NASA’s Instagram page just in time for the news that astronomers have discovered 12 new moons belonging to the planet. That brings Jupiter’s total moon count to 92, more than any other planet in our solar system.
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“it’s better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are…
than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think you are in paradise.”
-henry david thoreau
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Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstadt/Sean Do
Feb9
small kindnesses.
I’ve been thinking about the way,
when you walk down a crowded aisle,
people pull in their legs to let you by.
Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes,
a leftover from the Bubonic plague.
“Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes,
when you spill lemons from your grocery bag,
someone else will help you pick them up.
Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it.
To smile at them and for them to smile back.
For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now.
So far from tribe and fire.
Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy,
these fleeting temples we make together when we say,
“Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”
by Danusha Lameris, Small Kindnesses
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Danusha Laméris is a poet, teacher, and essayist. She is the author of The Moons of August (Autumn House, 2014), which was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. Some of her poems have been published in: The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The SUN Magazine, Tin House, The Gettysburg Review, and Ploughshares.
Feb8
choose.
a choice that is never wrong.
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“there is only love. everything else is our resistance to it.”
-terces englehart
Feb7
footprints.
some of these prints were not made by children….
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“it is the smallest ego that leaves the biggest footprints.”
― c
― c
I didn't have my glasses on.... 