Newsletter: November 19, 2009

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

 - Meister Eckhart

Greetings, everyone!

This newsletter will be filled with multiple opportunities to get involved in the Creek Kids' holiday efforts. Please get out your calendars, take a deep breath, and see what makes the most sense for your family. We'd love to have you participate. Setting aside time to devote to others during the holiday season, as you know, will only deepen your children's gratitude and joy and will ground their holiday season in something outside themselves. Regardless of whether or not you choose Creek Kids as your family's vehicle for service, we would encourage you to find tangible ways for your children to give this holiday season.  

Upcoming Events:

Appetizers for Fresh Start Thanksgiving

TUESDAY, November 24th

Parkmead Craft Faire

a Creek Kids sale event

Saturday, December 5th

10-3

Goods 4 Good

an incredible fundraiser and

a Creek Kids sale event

Sunday, December 6th

11-4

LLHS CKC Clothing Drive for Fresh Start

Dec 5-6

Details TBA

Creek Kids Angel Project

an opportunity to sponsor a Fresh Start client

for the holidays

coming up beginning of December

First things first!

THE BENEFIT BOUTIQUE

It was fabulous!! The 2009 Benefit Boutique (our fourth annual) was a wonderful success, thanks to so many Creek Kids families (new and old) who contributed their time, talent, service, supplies and baked goods. We brought in $3963.00!! For the fourth year in a row, a family (who wishes to remain anonymous) has generously offered to match those funds. This is incredible news!! So, we are happily entering 2010 with close to $8,000. We are thrilled with the financial success and even happier that so many Creek Kids were able to get a "big picture" experience with Creek Kids Care.

never too old to face paint

Highlights

• the Creek Kids who spoke to a very receptive audience about what Creek Kids does and why. Speakers included: Sarah Miles, Jordan Zupan, Corinne Hindes, Madeleine Levy, Sara Chen, Katie Mallon and Kristen Lore. They were all so poised. Lovely job, ladies!
• Another highlight was having the Oak Grove Band play for the afternoon. We love that family -- so talented. Their music is just so good!! 6 year old Tessa, now a few months into fiddle lessons, was amazing (keep reading for more information about their upcoming performances).
• Another highlight was the slide show that Cat and Steven Freemire created. That, more than anything we could have said, illustrated the power of kids working together. It was beautiful and we're very excited to have it for future use as well.

all ready for the CKC slideshow debut

Many Thanks...

Just to give you a sense of how many kids and families were working to put on this event, we're going to go ahead and list everyone who contributed

• the formidable LLHS and WCI Creek Kids groups that worked hard to stock the tables and for the two collages for our auction
• Kerima Swain - for contributing her gorgeous Yin/Yang collage
• Julia McLeod - for contributing the tesselation collage
• May Newton -- for contributing the "hope" collage
• Halle - for making totally cool duct tape wallets, gorgeous gift tags and crocheted necklaces
• May Newton -- for contributing three tables worth of knitted items
• Barbara Albaugh and Britta Zohdi for knitted items
• Fran Sherwood, Julie's mom, for taking inventory (and pictures)
• Adrienne B -- for contributing beautiful re-usable lunch bags in packs of three to sell.
• Eva - for making beautiful gift tags and imaginotes
• Lindy, Ann and Colleen - for the beautiful flowers that graced every table
• Set up crew: the Freemire, Miles, and Krueger husbands and kids, May Newton, Kate Stephens, Fran and Sam Sherwood, the Rosen Family, Laurie and Corinne Hindes, Susan Weiner Light, Juliana McCormick, Genevieve Tambornino, Courtney Fitterer
• Bakers: the unstoppable Berryman-Maciel clan, Chris Roa, Shauna McGlynn, Laurie Hindes, Eileen Stephens, Allison Ridenhour, Teresa Wenzel, Ali Wolff, Kate Marinchak, Erin Weckel, Meg Stephens, Clarissa Jacknow, Cat Freemire and Susan Weiner Light
• Workers at the event: Kate Stephens, May Newton, Maggie Ridenhour, Meg and Teresa Wenzel, Sarah Miles, Corinne Hindes, Laurie Hindes, Abby and Emma Freemire, Katie and Kelly Mallon, Susan Weiner Light, Zoe, Maile and Shauna McGlynn, Alison Trules, Nina Mostowfi, Simon and Eva Krueger, Kristen Lore, Sophia Weiner Light, Kai and Anja Lindblad, Gwen and Terry Miles, Candace and Halle, Dr. Robbins
• Clean up crew: Anja and Kai Lindblad, the Freemire Family, the Miles Family, the Halpin-Krueger family, Ann Bevan, Caramia Tambornino, May Newton, Kate Stephens
• the LLHS Creek Kids (and Cat) for selling left over baked goods at Las Lomas the following Monday (an additional $95!)
• hopefully no one else????? You know we appreciate your effort even if we can't remember right now...

decorating the boxes of tents and sleeping bags before delivering to Fresh Start

Thank you very very much to all of you for just showing up to shop, watch, and be a part of it all.

Finally, to Cat Freemire, who is the quintessential queen of all event planners. These annual events happen every time because of her vision and drive and creativity.

Moving Right along...

Thanksgiving at Fresh Start

This year, Thanksgiving at Fresh Start will be celebrated on Tuesday, November 24th. Busses do not run on Thanksgiving, making transportation for Fresh Start clients too difficult to celebrate on Thursday.

Creek Kids Care is going to supply appetizers to the Fresh Start Thanksgiving celebration. Fresh Start expects to serve around 40 people.

We would love it if your family would like to contribute an appetizer. If so, please contact the lovely Linda Bohnert who has agreed to coordinate the effort: H:295-1207/ cell: 212-3627/ office 979-9552. She will give you her address,  instructions when to deliver the food, and how to help in the delivery if your family wants to be involved in that part.

Give Linda a call, then get out your favorite appetizer recipe. Make one for your family, one for Fresh Start. Easy. Remember -- it's for Tuesday, not Thursday of Thanksgiving week. Thank you so much, Linda!

Parkmead Craft Faire - Saturday, December 5th, 10a.m. - 3 p.m.

This year, Parkmead Elementary School is holding a school fundraiser in the form of a community craft faire. Creek Kids has been graciously offered a table there to sell our wares. We will be able to keep all our profits to benefit Fresh Start and JF Kapnek.

The lovely Victoria Johnson has agreed to be in charge of this sale event. It's an excellent opportunity for Creek Kids to "play store" and get experience in verbalizing the purpose of Creek Kids. It's really fun for the kids and a source of pride for them to be the front people for Creek Kids. We'd highly recommend having your children come and work a shift.  We are hoping to have at least two children per shift and can accomodate up to three children per shift.

Shifts will be

• 10-11:30 a.m.
• 11:30-1 p.m.
• 1 - 3

We also need a parent to work each shift to help supervise (and coach) the children. Our roots are in the Parkmead neighborhood, and as the original Creek Kids "age out" of Parkmead, it's become more pressing to re-dig our roots in this school community that has offered us nothing but support since our inception. If you'd like to take a shift, please contact Victoria Johnson at victoriamjohnson@mac.com . Also, come down and check out the entire faire just for fun! When emailing Victoria, please indicate first and second choices for shifts. Thank you to Victoria.

Goods 4 Good - Sunday, December 6th, 11-4 p.m.

Suzanne Rogge, a Creek Kid parent, is the creator of this (now second annual) event. She's collected local artisans (including children -- and ours if they're interested) to sell their wares to benefit two local charities. There are a couple different ways you and your children can participate. First, Creek Kids has been invited to participate and set up a table at this event. Again, we get to keep the profits to then use to benefit Fresh Start and JF Kapnek. Secondly, your children (and you!) can make goods to sell at this event. It's getting late (my fault - the information has been in my hands for a long time, but our focus was on the boutique...), so please respond to Suzanne if you or your children would like to bring things to sell. Finally, it's a beautiful event, and it would be fabulous if you just came, especially considering there will be beautiful items for sale which benefit Fresh Start and Contra Costa Food Bank.

Mark your calendar for the second annual Goods for Good art sale with a portion of the proceeds going to two local non-profit organizations assisting those in need within our community.  Come and shop a variety of handmade items and know that you are supporting Fresh Start (www1.freshstartwc.org) and the Contra Costa Food Bank (www.foodbankccs.org).  Last year we raised $1000 for charity, so come help us make this year's art sale a success, too!

 DATE:      SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6

TIME:       11AM TO 4PM

PLACE:    1116 BACON WAY, LAFAYETTE, 94549

A subsidiary of the event, Good Kids for Good, will feature work from local young artists as well.

We welcome you to bring canned and non-perishable goods to place in our Food Drive Barrel in time to help families in need enjoy their holidays. 

*Please forward this information to family and friends to help spread the word about this exciting event!  Thank you for being careful to whom you forward this email since the event will be in a private home. Questions?  Please contact Suzanne Rogge at roggjenk@comcast.net.

If you and your children would like to work a shift at this event, please email Laura at creekkidscare@sbcglobal.net . Choose a shift that works:

• 11-12:30
• 12:30-2
• 2-4 p.m.

If you or your chidren would like to bring items to sell , read on:

With the economy challenging so many to stay afloat and charities severely handicapped from reduced financial donations, it's a perfect time to give kids the opportunity to help those in greater need then themselves.  To that end I would also like to invite all of your children (and you!) to make handmade item(s) to sell from which 15% of total sales will be donated to Fresh Start (www.freshstartwc.org) and the Contra Costa Food Bank (www.foodbankccs.org).  While I know the need is as extreme as ever abroad, there are many who also need assistance here in our community. 

The Oak Grove Bluegrass Band

Permission

Finally, we wanted to chat with you about the slide show created by Cat and Steven Freemire. It's made up of video footage and pictures we've all taken over the years...even contains a clip from Channel 7 news when CKC was featured in 2006. We would like to reproduce this video for families and kids to purchase, and also to use to present CKC when the need arises. Toward that end, we need to hear from you if you do NOT want your child's photo to be used in this slide show for future public use (including posting on our website). The kids appearing are too many to name. Just assume that if your child has attended a CKC event, there's a possibility of being in the slide show. No one is named. Again, please email Laura at creekkidscare@sbcglobal.net if you DON'T want your child in the slide show. 

Las Lomas CKC in action

Word just out: the LLHS CKC chapter will be conducting a clothing drive to benefit the members of Fresh Start the weekend of December 5 & 6. We'll get word out to you as details roll in. Be ready to clean out closets!

That's it for now. Thank you for your patience, good will and support. Make sure to get your RSVPs in so we can get these events rollin'.

Deep breath,

Julie, Cat and Laura

© Creek Kids Care, 2006