Read. Think. Act.

Catherine Read

Archives for June 2017

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Collect for Kids – School Supply Drive in Northern Virginia

(June 27 2017) Catherine Read talks with several members of the Collect for Kids initiative, which is a collaborative effort of 15+ organizations that collect and distribute school supplies to students eligible for free and reduced lunches. In Fairfax County, over 50,000 students meet those eligibility requirements. The Collect for Kids organizations include some for-profit companies like Walmart and Apple Federal Credit Union, non-profits such as FACETS and NVFS, and agencies such as Fairfax County’s Office of Public-Private Partnerships (OP3) working together in a decentralized effort to collect and distribute these supplies efficiently.

Susan Ungerer Kids R FirstIn the first segment Susan Ungerer, a retired teacher, talks about how she started the all volunteer non-profit Kids R First which is now part of this larger Collect for Kids collaboration. It began in her garage and quickly outgrew the space. Sherry Noud, a school social worker with the Fairfax County Public Schools Office of Business and Community Partnerships, talks about the system of referrals that identifies the students who need school supplies. The Office of Social Work Services is instrumental in identifying students who need these supports. She also points out that school supplies are needed throughout the year and it’s not a need that is fully met in the first few weeks of the school year. Sherry also talks about the organizations that collect the backpacks for those school supplies and they include Cornerstones, Western Fairfax Christian Ministries and Britepaths.

Jay Garant FCPSIn the second segment, Jay Garant, Program Director for the Fairfax County Public Schools Office of Business and Community Partnerships, talks about the growth of the program from 2011 when they served 16,000 FCPS students to 2016 when they distributed supplies to over 37,000 students. Joanne Walton, Seasonal Programs Manager for Britepaths outlines the efforts they make to maximize buying power through bulk purchases of school supplies. One dollar donated through www.CollectforKids.org or one of their partner organizations results in $3 worth of school supplies because of quantity purchasing. Jay Garant estimates that $6 to $10 donated will outfit a student with a backpack of necessary school supplies to start the school year.

The Collect for Kids School Supply Drive kicks off July 1st. In August, the supplies will be sorted and distributed prior to the first day of school on August 28th. The supply drive will continue after the start of the school year outside retailers such as Walmart as the program continues to acquire the school supplies that will be needed by these students later in the school year. If your business, faith community or service organization would like to set up a school supplies drive, visit www.CollectforKids.org for more information on how to get involved.

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Hope in the Dark – Rebecca Solnit

Hope in the Dark (June 2017) This book is a great reminder of how life is not a perfect arc. The greatest takeaway for me is that we must embrace paradox. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The opening line of A Tale of Two Cities was written by Charles Dickens in 1859. It could describe many years in many cities from then until 2017.

We tend to fall into the trap of seeing the world in terms of “either/or” – it’s all great or it’s all terrible. Realistically, it’s never all one thing or the other. We lose sight of that reality because we are not wired to embrace the paradoxical nature of many situations that ask us to see both the darkness and the light simultaneously.

This book was originally published in 2004 with additional updated chapters added in this 2017 audio edition. It’s a reminder of what life was like after 9/11, the global nature of the Iraqi War Protests, and how people reached out to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. There was great tragedy followed by moments where “citizens” found a way to come together as an empowered force for good.

Author Rebecca Solnit points out that we are overly focused on “regime change” as the answer to social and economic justice issues. She goes global in her examples of how CULTURE change is the most lasting of change and is not dependent on who is in power in any particular government. Often, people driven change is a reaction to an oppressive regime – it galvanizes disparate groups to come together in a way that makes their unified efforts a force to be reckoned with.

She gives concrete examples of how environmental activists in the western part of the United States found common ground with ranchers who despised them. It turned out they had overlapping interests on which they could work together. It took sitting down face-to-face, person-to-person, to overcome stereotypes and objectification of “otherness” to see how their alliance could serve each group’s agenda for protecting the environment.

This book is the needed antidote to the despair many feel as they wake up each day in a dramatically altered America. We cannot embrace despair. Doing so assures that we give up our personal power to affect change. As Alice Walker pointed out years ago, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” That is the battle we must fight each day.

I highly recommend this book. It shifted my paradigm in a positive way and reminded me we have seen great challenges before and we have experienced great victories. The minute “change” becomes our “new normal” we lose all memory of how we got there. Solnit wisely points out that if we are going to build monuments, they should be built to constantly remind us of what people can accomplish and HOW they accomplished it. We should not forget the journey in celebrating the outcomes. Life *is* the journey.