Thank you to all who got engaged Nov 14!

I had a great time at TUTA’s season kick-off at The Spot in Chicago. Between the event and online donations, we helped TUTA Theatre raise more than $800. This was a great success for the first-time casual barnight event. Attendees at the event included Company and Board members, old friends and a bunch of people new to TUTA. You can check out the fun in pics from the event. I’m sure the party seems like a long time ago to the cast and crew members in the upcoming production of  The Wedding as this wedding requires rehearsals nightly — gift certificates make a great holiday gift. Performances will run  January 14-Feb 14.

This Halloween, support people who dress up all year long

Hi there. Halloween is upon is and while you and I may dress up and pretend to be someone else for one night, there are people who do this sort of thing for a living (sort of).  And they do it for our benefit. They are called actors of course. And my sister is one of them.  Recently, I’ve been helping out my sister with marketing her accolade-heaped theatre company TUTA.

Being as I’m the big sister, I will now take the prerogative to digress. I’ve always been amazed that my sister knew at an early age exactly what she wanted to be when she grew up. And even though she chose “actor,” a difficult path by any accounting (unless maybe you are the child of someone famous, which I assure you she is not), I am less surprised that she has managed to achieve success in her chosen field.  This is a girl who refused to be concerned over certain math grades or household chores, regardless of repeated recriminations, but was willing to work 14 hour days mucking stalls because she loved horses.  She was always practical. And always driven about working hard to achieve the goals she set for herself.

So fast-forward today to TUTA. Nine years ago, my sister decided to go beyond acting and actually found a theatre that would help her deliver the type of theatre of loved to do and loved to get audiences involved with. She did it with a group of talented friends, some of whom are Serbian, and it is with great pleasure they are right now in Serbia presenting that country’s premier run of Homebody/Kabul.  So cool.  In a world increasingly dominated by 140-character pop culture, TUTA provides an opportunity to go deeper. It does so in a way that embraces current trends, music and the arts, and then uses those touchstones to remind us of the continuity of the human condition across cultures, time periods and genres. TUTA productions provide bridges for the mind to wander into the unknown and back home again,  kind of a mental fun house.  That is why I call TUTA a treat, and why I support their actors who dress up for us all year long.

Lucky us, I’ve convinced TUTA to perform and videotape a little taste of what they do at their Nov. 15 season kick-off “Get Engaged!” party — if we can scare up 100 online donations by the event!  So, please donate online now — any amount helps — and if all goes well, on Nov 16 I’ll be sharing a video treat with you all!

Sweep while you leaf peep

Now is a great time to get outside and enjoy the fall weather. Here in NYC, after some blustery December-like days, the temperature has relented and popped back into the 60s. While you are outdoors at the park enjoying falling leaves (or at the beach enjoying a crisp walk), why not also hunt down some litter which shouldn’t have made it’s way to the ground? Picking up trash (and recycling) may not sound like a good time to you, but trust me, kids find it an exciting treasure hunt.   We took our young Real-World Super Heroes class out to Central Park for about a half-hour of clean-up time and we could barely corral them to leave when time was up. 

It is worth doing a little prep and following some simple procedures to make sure your outing is safe.  Before heading outside, we reviewed our safety rules: no picking up any glass, anything sharp, anything poop-like (ewww!). We all put on disposable gloves (a must!) and the adults carried bags for trash and recycling. We also asked our Heroes to guess how much trash and recycling they would collect during the clean-up; the consensus was 1 bag or “not much.” 

During this outing, the kids used some cool “trash grabbers” supplied by Central Park’s “Pitch In, Pick Up” program.  Our Heroes quickly became adept at using the grabbers (kind of like learning how to use chopsticks!).   Not surprisingly, we found a lot of trash to pick up, especially around the park benches and especially because it had been so windy for a few days.  We covered a large area inside the park and ended up filling 3 large garbage bags.  The kids were amazed at much fun cleaning up was and at how much trash they were able to find. Now I’m wondering if a getting my son his very own trash-grabber might convince him it is fun to clean up at home too! Worth a try, right?

Embark on your own Time-Talent-Treasure Hunt

Every semester we begin our grade-school Real-World Super Heroes program with an introduction to philanthropy.  We explain that everyone has three super powers they can use to help others: Time, Talent and Treasure.   We cite examples of kind acts and our new Heroes identify which of the three powers are used in each case. Here, you can give it a try (more than one answer allowed):

• Clean up trash at the beach or park (Time)
• Make a cool art project out of clean recyclables, to give to your grandma (Time, Talent, Treasure)
• Sing in a concert for people in the hospital (Time, Talent)
• Invite someone who looks lonely at the playground to play tag (Time)

It doesn’t take long for the kids to realize that Time and Talent are every bit, or even more, important as Treasure. Or, that giving someone attention or expressing “love is a treasure” as one of our young heroes summarized.

After everyone understands what the three Super Powers are, we set out on a Time-Talent-Treasure Hunt to discover ways to use these powers in our neighborhood.  You can replicate this activity in your own neighborhood.  Here’s how we did it:

Each hero was given a map of the neighborhood and clues to four locations. Upon arriving at each location, we discussed as a group how we could use Time, Talent and/or Treasure to help others given the site. As usual, the children came up with things we hadn’t even thought of. Check out some of their Super ideas:

Location: Post Office. Super Hero Ideas:

• mail a letter to your grandma or grandpa or a get well card to someone who is sick
• buy stamps for someone who is not able to get to the post office
• send thank you cards to people
• bring flowers for the post office workers (can you imagine how happy they’d be??)

Location: Preschool/Daycare. Super Hero Ideas:

• donate books or toys we’ve outgrown
• make a bookshelf to donate
• make toys to give to the kids
• be reading buddies for them or read to them

Location: Garden. Super Hero Ideas:

• plant flowers
• grow vegetables
• give someone flowers (if it is OK to take some)

 Location: Grocery Store.  Super Hero Ideas:

• buy food to donate to charity
• buy ingredients to make lemonade and cookies and have a lemonade stand to raise money to donate
• do shopping for someone who is sick or unable to get to the store

 Our Time-Talent-Treasure Hunt proved there are plenty of opportunities for us to be Super Heroes all around us.  It doesn’t have to be big and complicated. Our young Heroes received a star on their maps for each location visited. Back in our classroom, they turned in their completed maps for a little goody bag. Treasure well deserved!

Back to School AGAIN (as a mentor)

For high school students, back to school is a wild time of year, filled with hope and expectations and anxiety about what the year will bring.  My husband Greg and I are feeling these feelings now. We are halfway through a 4-year committment to mentor a teenage girl (now young woman?!).  So “we” are entering our junior year — such a critical time — hoping the progress made so far sticks, and that our mentee “K” has a breakthrough year.  K shines in personality and intelligence; it is our job to help her focus on developing her academics and knowledge of the career landscape so she graduates on time and faces an exciting future of choices.

Before being introduced to Student-Sponsor Partners (SSP)and “K,” neither of us had mentored outside the workplace. We were wary about over committing ourselves and probably a little scared of teenagers. I mean we are old (at least to a teenager). We don’t work in hip industries. And we knew we likely wouldn’t share our mentee’s cultural background. But our outrage over the poor performance of NY City High School, our strong belief in the importance of education and SSP’s fantastic track record energized us to take the leap.   

Big Brothers Big Sistersmay be the best known national youth mentoring program.  At the same time, there are many mentoring programs targeted to specific aims which may be more appealing to you, especially if you are considering mentoring for the first time.  SSP and iMentor are both focused on helping at-risk students graduate and go onto college and productive careers. It is all about providing a wider sense of the world and the options education can afford.  iMentor heavily utilizes technology such as email to complement face-to-face interaction, to better meet the needs of busy professional mentors.  According to the org: “Of iMentor mentors, 70% have never mentored before, 52% do not participate in any other volunteer opportunity outside of iMentor, and 97% work in professional fields.”   

If the organizations in this post don’t make sense for you, try a simple google search for “Youth mentoring [insert your city or state here]” — you’ll likely find organizations for mentoring youth of different ages, specifically for school or  for career exposure or even for areas such as the arts.

Spending time with K and her friends has shown us just how limited many children’s experiences are, even when they live in a city filled with learning opportunities — and how directly and severely that experience impacts academic performance regardless of IQ.  It has also proven to us that this limited — or in some cases just different — frame of reference does not mean the child’s parents don’t care or aren’t involved. And it has shown us that if we have any hope of connecting with our own 7- and 3-year-olds when they are teenagers, we better keep mentoring; it is just too easy to forget what it’s really like to be one of those amazing and mysterious high schoolers. So, here’s hoping 2009-10 is our best junior year ever!

Sweet Summertime Projects

Hi everyone, I’m happy to say our Real-World Super Heroes class will be offered again this fall. We are currently working on our juicy class line-up, pulling some favorites from last year as well as growing a few new ones. 

In the meantime, how do your kids keep flexing their Real-World Super Hero muscles?

Here are a few sweet summertime ideas:

1. Open for Business: The Lemonade -Cookie-Art Sale Stand - Kids love ths tried and true favorite, with a charity twist. Let your kids figure out what they want to sell depending on what they like to do. For some that’s baking.  But we’ve also known kids who have sold their own paintings, hand-made beaded jewelry or braided braclets. Help your kids identify cause to benefit and how much they will donate; some may want to give 100% of proceeds to philanthropy and some may want to keep some of the fruits of their labor –that’s ok too. If you can, try to find a local organization or office where the kids can hand over their money in person.  We have some young friends who did a Lemonade Stand while on vacation in Cape Cod and delivered their check to the International Fund for Animal Welfare  located just down the street in Yarmouth, MA.

2. Hear Me Roar: Visit Your Local Zoo.  We took a family trip to the Bronx Zoo yesterday and without any foresight, it ended up including a lesson about helping animals. Most zoos share lots of information about conservation efforts, and to be honest ,we usually zip right past this info. But this time we really checked out the Poacher Truck station in the Tiger Mountain exhibit and talked about what actions are being taken to protect these big cats. Then I let my son put some coins into one of those spiraling collection boxes on our way out.  Without prompting, he explained to his younger sibling that the money goes “to the people who are helping protect the animals.”  I could tell he was proud to contribute.

3. The Cupcake Fairies: Generate Instant Smiles. One of our favorite Real-World Super Heroes classes is called “Random Acts of Kindess.”  The best part of random acts of kindness is that because they are unexpected, they often generates wonderful immediate responses.  This immediate feedback loop can become somewhat addictive. The more fun you have with this, the more surprised and pleased your recipients are likely to be. Recently, my kids and I baked some cupcakes and declared ourselves the Cupcake Fairies. I gave my son and his cousin each a light-up wand (similar ones can be found here). We went out after dinner (because doing anything in the dark makes it more fun), knocked on doors of neighboring friends and handed out the brightly decorated treats. It was a big success and perhaps we’ve even started a new tradition in the neighborhood.  I’m personally hoping the Peanut Brittle Pirates or the Brownie Brigade will come knocking sometime soon.

More than ever, I embrace the unstructured time summertime brings. The projects mentioned here provide fun ways for your kids to flex their Super Hero muscles while they play outside, visit with family and stay up late. So enjoy!

Join the Party with “Think Pink” this Friday!

Join us this Friday, June 26 from 7-10pm at the Fulton Exchange Bar and Lounge. $40 gets you an open bar and gets us a healthy portion of the proceeds, courtesy of our good friends at Exchange.

Thanks to the amazing support of the family and friends of the 10 members of Team Think Pink, we are now on the board as 4th highest fundraising team for the upcoming Boston 3-Day Walk event!  Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far! 

Considering this is our team’s first-ever event and we have the minimum number of members, we are amazed at what we’ve collectively accomplished so far.  We still have a long way to go before the big event July 24-26, so we are doing our best to maintain the momentum — which naturally means it’s time to PARTY!

Join us this Friday, June 26 from 7-10pm at the Fulton Exchange Bar and Lounge at 90 Fulton Street. $40 gets you an open bar and gets us a healthy portion of the proceeds, courtesy of our good friends at Exchange.  We are doing our part to raise funds to fight breast cancer.  The least you can do is raise a glass to help bring on the cash.

See you there! Cheers, Aimee

The power of lemon-aid — and a sugar cookie

Lemon-aid for NYC Fire Department

It’s Lemon-Aid Part II.  As you may recall, a couple of weeks back when it was still cold and rainy, our Super Heroes prepared all the fixings for a Lemon-Aid Stand. They made sugar cookies to sell, signs to advertise our even, and treasure boxes to collect the profits.  They were inspired hearing about other kids who raised money for causes they care about.

On Thursday, June 4, our Heroes headed outside to set up and run two stands: one in Central Park and one in front of Columbia Grammar School.  While the day was overcast, our group was sunny. In the Park, our Heroes serviced a slow but pretty steady stream of customers, and we had visits – and donations — from some friendly faces.  The stand in front of the school, as expected, was slower during the hour but just crammed during pick-up. 

Big check for our firefighters

In all, our Real-World Super Heroes raised more than $200. Last week, our Heroes had the opportunity to present the treasure they raised for the NY Firefighters Burn Center in the Bronx  to the members of the firehouse on W. 100^th Street. 

Of course, your kids can use the time-tested lemonade stand tactic to raise money for any charity they feel strongly about. It is also a nice way to get kids involved in a charity effort you are involved in, such as a walkathon. Let them raise money to pledge against your targets. Sometimes all it takes are sugar cookies to turn an individual effort into a family affair.

The Making of a Lemon-aid Stand

In last Thursday’s “Real-World Super Heroes” class, we reinforced the idea that kids absolutely have the power to make a big difference. We shared some amazing real-life examples. Such as: Ryan Hreljac was in the first grade when he learned in class that people were dying because they didn’t have clean water to drink. He decided to do chores to raise $70 and build a well for a Ugandan village. Today, 10 years later, Ryan’s Well Foundation has contributed more than 480 wells in 16 countries serving more than 600,000 people.  Similarly, Janine Licare was 9 when she and her friend starting selling art to raise money for the rain forest, eventually creating Kids Saving the Rainforest. 

The key message: you don’t have to think big from the start, you just have to get started. This week our young Heroes got started on part 1 of a 2-part session on running a Lemonade Stand. Our group decided our Stand will sell lemonade and cookies, as well as tattoos. We discussed how to advertise our event – signs!  And how to help customers pass on the word – stickers! We also talked about prices, which we are 90% agreed on, but left ourselves a little wiggle room. Our heroes then got to work making cookies, signs and stickers.

The Real-World Super Heroes Lemonade Stand will be raising money for another group of neighborhood heroes: our firefighters. Our young Heroes will have the opportunity to present the money they raise to the brave members of the Firehouse at 145 W. 100^th Street. The firefighters will provide the money to the Burn Center, which helps injured firefighters and civilians, and will thank us with a firehouse tour.

On May 28, with the weather suitably warm, we will take the cookies out of the freezer, mix up our lemonade and open for business. One day only. $1 for a drink and a cookie.  One more way to be a Super Hero.

3-Day Walk for Breast Cancer for my 40

I’m celebrating my 40th birthday this year by participating in the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk in Boston July 24-26. Proceeds go to Susan G. Komen.