Leader Lobby

I apologize for the time between posts.  I’m afraid it might happen again soon.  My eldest daughter is graduating from HS and it’s getting hectic!  But for now, here is an interesting blog to check out: DudeCraft!

DudeCraft is an experiment in permission. The permission to learn and participate in crafts of all kinds. Building things from wood and steel is cool, to be sure, but so is knowing how to sew your own clothes, knit a scarf, and make something beautiful from an A4 sheet of paper. DudeCraft seeks to make it acceptable for men to participate in all crafts, not just the “manly” ones. I have a feeling there are a lot of you out there who would like to try a bit of everything and just can’t get over the “what will people think?” hump. Well, mostly they’ll think of what a cool and talented individual you are when they’re wearing that scarf you gave them, donning that silk screened t-shirt, or looking at that origami turtle you made. Skills are good to have. Facility is cool. Confidence is sexy.

Check it out!

Based in Providence, R.I., What Kids Can Do (WKCD) is a national nonprofit founded in January 2001 by an educator and journalist with more than 40 years’ combined experience supporting adolescent learning in and out of school. Together, they felt an urgent need to promote perceptions of young people as valued resources, not problems, and to advocate for learning that engages students as knowledge creators and not simply test takers. Just as urgent, they believed, was the need to bring youth voices to policy debates about school, society, and world affairs.

Using the Internet, print, and broadcast media, WKCD presses before the broadest audience possible a dual message: the power of what young people can accomplish when given the opportunities and supports they need and what they can contribute when we take their voices and ideas seriously. The youth who concern WKCD most are those marginalized by poverty, race, and language.

On this website, WKCD presents young people’s lives, learning, and work, and their partnerships with adults both in and out of school. Our community of readers stretches from youth organizers in some of this country’s toughest urban areas to policy makers at the national level. We believe that a good story well told crosses geographies, generations, class and race, and position.

Our publishing arm, Next Generation Press, honors the power of youth as social documenters, knowledge creators, and advisors to educators, peers, and parents.

WKCD is a grant maker, too, collaborating with youth on multimedia, curricula, and research that expand current views of what constitutes challenging learning and achievement.

Starting in 2006, WKCD began working with youth worldwide. WKCD has become an international leader in bringing the promise of young people to the attention of the adults whose encouragement can make all the difference.

What Kids Can Do

Project Plan-It! is an easy interactive series of questions and templates that allow you and your friends to plan your service project or program.

At the end, you will be able to print out your own:

• Project Plan
• Funding proposal
• Press Release
• Service-learning reflection plan
• Other helpful resources
• You will also be able to post your project on SERVEnet and soon be able to convert your project/program into your own Web site

Project Plan-It!

A Soccer ball won’t stop a war, and it won’t fill a belly, but it might help heal a soul, and let children be children-at least for a little while.

How did Little Feet Start?

“Please get us some soccer balls to give to the kids in Iraq.”

Steffan Tubbs, a reporter for 850 KOA Denver, received this request from several soldiers while on assignment in Iraq. He forwarded the request to his college friend Trevor Slavick, a pilot for American Airlines, who had a history of giving away balls while on layovers to Central and South America. After comparing stories, the two realized something so simple, a soccer ball, could change a child’s life. Little Feet was started in March of 2006 with one Big Goal in mind; send soccer balls to underprivileged children all over the world!

Why Soccer Balls?

Kristen Tubbs, who named our organization, sums it up best.

“It’s kind of daunting - the campaign to end world poverty or world hunger– but everyone can donate a soccer ball that goes to a kid- everyone can get on board the idea of giving something cheap and simple to make a kid happy- to let them be a kid– a small simple gesture that creates a little goodwill. It is fun to think somewhere out there an unknown child will end up with one of these balls- like manna from heaven- and it will make a difference in his (or her) life. I’m certain that will happen– very very cool.

More: The Little Feet 2009 Pass the Ball Challenge is an attempt to get 2009 teams playing with a Little Feet ball by December 31, 2009.

Little Feet

Genevieve Piturro founded the Pajama Program with her friend Alice Quirk and their friends and relatives. Starting in NYC, but now nationwide, The Pajama Program provides donated new warm pajamas and comforting books to children who desperately need them. The Program works with various agencies to prove the PJ’s to children in need and children waiting to be placed in permanent homes.

The Pajama Program has also extended its aid to needy children in Armenia, Bosnia, Brazil, Columbia, Greece, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, and Ukraine.

“We intend to make a difference - giving back is what it’s all about.” -Genevieve Piturro

10 Things You Can Do To Help

1. Donate online with a credit card at to help them purchase pajamas.
2. Hold a Pajama Program drive or event in your area.
3. Let the next gift you give be a gift card for a donation in their name.
4. Donate by phone at 212-71MYPJS (212-716-9757)
5. Contact a local chapter of Pajama Program to see how they can use your help.
6. Use your website to direct attention (and traffic) to PajamaProgram.org.
7. Digg PajamaProgram.org.
8. Make an online purchase and set shipping address to:
   Pajama Program Headquarters & NYC Reading Center
   34 East 39th Street, Suite B
   New York, NY 10016
9. Contact info@pajamaprogram.org for more information.
10. Tell your friends!

Learn how to make fun & useful herbal pillows at You Grow Girl.  Make lavender dryer bags, cat pillows and much more!

At the same site, check out how to grow your own pineapple…immediate gratification not included

A much easier way to make those personalized stepping stones….and pretty inexpensive too.

Make just one of these “cake-frosting” stepping-stones and you’ll be hooked. Success is guaranteed when you follow these simple (pardon the pun) step-by-step instructions. Best of all, you’ll recapture the mud-pie-making joy of childhood.

The items you can use to make these one-of-a-kind disks are limited only by your imagination—or by whatever you stumble across around your house. There are those leftover tiles, the seashells you collect on your winter vacations, even that can of old keys. So take a creative leap: Make one stepping-stone, and you may have so much fun you’ll fill your yard and garden with them.

Visit Backyard Living for the tutorial.  Found via TipNut.

Check out the fun ideas for using those old VHS tapes at Crafty by Nature!  Make bookends, macrame bracelets and more!

We had an craft free-for-all at our last meeting, lots of glue, glitter, scraps, googly eyes, etc.  How I wish I had read Tipnut first.  Then, I would have thought to pick up some cheap cookie sheets for the girls to work over.  Think how easy clean up would have been!  Next time!

Head over to Crafting a Green World find great ideas and inspiration!  A couple I would like to try with my group:

• Cut and Glue a T-Shirt Corkboard
• Seven Ways to Upcycle Greeting Cards
• Rolling Pin Prints
• Make Natural Non-Toxic Dye
• Handmade For Hummingbirds
• Turn Envelope Into Gift Bags

“Crafting a Green World features do-it-yourself projects that incorporate reused, recycled, and natural materials. Find knitting, sewing, crocheting, and other project ideas for eco-friendly and fashionable clothes, crafts, gifts and more.”