31
KaBOOM! Bringing Play Back To Children
This past Friday, I joined a group of other mom bloggers for a special event to help build a new playground for the community of Inglewood, CA. The new playground, which was sponsored by the non-profit group KaBOOM!, Kool-Aid, and the city of Inglewood, is part of the KaBOOM! initiative to promote healthy and safe outdoor play for children and to encourage their parents to bring them to the playground.
The event was incredible and so well-organized. There were over two hundred volunteers from the local community as well as volunteers from surrounding areas and around the country. The event also featured Joseph “Reverend Run” Simmons from Run-DMC and the show Run’s House as well as his entire family. Rev. Run has worked with KaBOOM! to help them build about 26 other playgrounds around the country.
I wasn’t able to join in with the morning volunteer efforts but managed to get there just in time to help paint a bench and see Rev. Run spin some classic Run-DMC. It was inspiring to see so many people work together and hustle to get that playground built in just one day. Best of all, I managed to see a big group of local children see their new playground for the first time. To see their faces and hear their shrieks of excitement made the day complete.
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- Welcome to the new playground!
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- Playground construction
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- Volunteers working hard
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- RevRun at work
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- RevRun & family with mom bloggers
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- Beth, Ana, Yvonne, Me, and Liz
25
Planning For College While Your Kid Is In Diapers
I don’t care what career my child has when he grows up. He can be any kind of lawyer he wants to be.
I’m kidding. Really. I truly don’t care what career my child chooses when he grows up, as long as it brings him joy and fulfillment…and doesn’t harm anyone in the process. What I do care about is that he gets an education. Going to college will be something that I expect my child to do when he grows up, no matter what career he is interested in pursuing. It does not matter if he is Bill Gates, Jr. or some sort of celebrity child-star (not if I can help it), I will be disappointed if my kid does not graduate from a 4-year university.
In anticipation of my future college graduate, I’m planning now because I know first-hand how difficult it can be when there isn’t a college nest egg waiting for you. My parents struggled to put three kids through college and it certainly didn’t help that, at one point, all three of us were in college at the same time. Knowing that I would be responsible for some of my college and living expenses, I worked from my sophomore year of high school and all through college. I graduated high school nearly a year early, which allowed me to work almost full-time while taking classes at my local junior college. Once I transferred to a 4-year college, I continued to work just as hard. By my senior year, I was working 30 hours a week while trying to maintain my GPA and some semblance of a normal college social life. It was a huge challenge, to say the least.
That’s not the end of my story. (continues…)
13
Help Haiti
Please Donate
I was born and raised in earthquake country. I have never lived anywhere that didn’t have an active fault line within 50 miles. I have no idea how many I’ve been through, but they never get any easier. Those mere seconds of shaking and rolling ground can be the scariest seconds of your life. I was never too concerned about earthquakes until I brought my newborn home from the hospital. We were living on the 11th floor of a high-rise building in downtown San Francisco. Exactly one week after his birth, late in the evening, I started to hear and feel something very familiar. The distant rumbling sound tends to warn you immediately before you actually start moving. The floor began to roll beneath us and the hanging lights above started swinging rapidly. I held tightly onto my baby boy, never so scared of anything in my life.
That particular earthquake only measured 5.6 on the Richter scale from the epicenter near San Jose. Many, if not most San Franciscans, probably feared in the first few seconds that this could be The Big One.
The Big One didn’t hit San Francisco that night, but it did hit Haiti two days ago.
As many as 3 million people, or one third of the population, has been affected. There is substantial damage and loss of life. The first 48 hours of a disaster are critical and it is imperative to bring in food, water, clothing, medical supplies, blankets, and shelter for the survivors. The American Red Cross has pledged an initial $200,000 and has sent enough supplies from it’s warehouse in Panama to support 5,000 families. More needs to be done. I am urging my readers to consider a donation to the American Red Cross, no matter how big or small. Ask your employer if they will consider matching your donation. Every dollar counts when it comes to disaster relief.
Please click below to be directed to the American Red Cross donation form:
http://www.american.redcross.org/haiti
08
Blog • Bid • Hope
After only a few short months of blogging, I’ve been introduced to a community of bloggers that supports one another, encourages one another, and helps each other out when needed. It’s an amazing community and I feel fortunate to even know the generosity and kindness that these bloggers give to one another.
Shortly before Thanksgiving, a blogger named Anissa Mayhew landed in the ICU after suffering from a stroke. Anissa is a 35 year old mother of 3 young children. Anissa is now out of ICU but she has a long journey to recovery. This is not the first tragedy for the Mayhew family. In 2005, Anissa suffered her first stroke and, in 2006, her daughter Peyton was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia at the age of two. Thankfully, Peyton has since recovered. Anissa has not yet recovered from her second stroke and is still in the hospital. Her family needs her and they need our help.
Another blogger needs our help, too. His name is Matt Logelin and he is the President of the Liz Logelin Foundation. In March 2008, Matt lost his wife Liz to a pulmonary embolism within hours after she gave birth to their daughter, Madeline. Matt has a profoundly sad and touching story to tell and he is helping others with similar stories. His foundation works to help other families with young children who lost a parent.
If you would like to help Anissa Mayhew and the Liz Logelin Foundation, there is a 3-day auction going on right now to help and support these two good causes. The auction is offering a variety of goods, from toys and gift certificates to accessories and art. Seven bloggers are running the auction through their websites and the items donated have been given by many participants. Ain’t Yo Mama’s Blog has donated several Blue Hat Toy Company, Emerson, and Shift3 toys to be auctioned. Those items can be found on each auction website.
Make sure to visit the blogs below to access the auction and please make a bid to help support families that need our help.
06
Gay Rights: Why Mamas Need To Take A Stand Against Inequality
As a woman, I often think about the time before my birth and what my female ancestors had to endure.
For centuries, women have had to fight to establish equality in a very paternalistic society. Women had to band together to form the Suffrage Movement. Women fought for equality during the Civil Rights Movement and created the Feminist Movement when society still treated them like second-class citizens. In the last 100 years, women have been incredibly successful in overturning anti-discriminatory laws and creating new laws to protect our rights. There is no doubt that the time we live in now is markedly different than the era of our mothers and grandmothers.
As women:
- We lived without voting rights until 1920.
- We lived without FDA-approved birth-control until 1960.
- We lived without discrimination laws and equal opportunity in the workplace until 1964.
- We lived with sex-segregated employment ads until 1968.
- We lived without the Equal Pay Act until 1970.
- We lived without Title IX until 1972.
- We lived without reproductive rights until 1973.
- We lived without the Pregnancy Discrimination Ban until 1978.
- We lived without the Lily Ledbetter Act until 2009.
From our mothers to our great-great-great grandmothers, women have worked hard to ensure a better future for their daughters, and the women of today continue to take a stand against injustice and inequality. As women, we have lived with discrimination and intolerance. We have lived as second-class citizens. We have lived without laws to protect ourselves and our rights. So, I ask my mama-sisters, why aren’t we working harder to ensure a better future for our children and grandchildren? Why aren’t we doing more to stand up to injustice and inequality? (continues…)