From Hungry-Healthy, changing lives and changing the conversation.

"From emergency and community-based meal programs, to early childhood and school nutrition initiatives, to improved access to farm-to-table and local food resources, we're committed to providing people of all ages, cultures, and walks of life with sustainable, reliable access to nutritious food."

www.projectbread.org

"Generations Incorporated strives to improve the literacy skills of young children through Grade 3. We also provide meaningful opportunities to older adults who serve as literacy volunteers in our partner schools and after school programs in low-income communities." (Taken from their website)

This is the program that my daughter went to when she was in kindergarten and I give this program credit for teaching my daughter how to read!!!

http://www.generationsinc.org/

This week I wanted to highlight The Boston Parents Paper. I love this monthly magazine that you can get throughout the Boston area for free or read on line. There is a plethora of resources in this magazine: happenings in and around Boston, family life, teen life, medical, healthy recipes, etc. Throughout the magazine there are little articles that talk about amazing things that are occurring in your local city. I love this magazine.

http://boston.parenthood.com/

http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/docs/dta/c-dta-fuelassist.pdf

Winter is coming and here is some information on obtaining fuel assistance. If not you, pass it on to someone that may need it.

The Institute for Family Centered Services (IFCS) is dedicated to keeping families together and to helping individuals become more independent in the communities they call home. They provide in-home and community based services that are personalized to help people with a range of needs.

IFCS is a part of the MENTOR Network, a national network of local health and human services providers services located across the country.

http://www.ifcsinc.com/welcome.aspx

This week I wanted to bring awareness about U-ACCESS: The Office of Urban and Off-campus Support Services. They help students with various non academic challenges that they may face on a regular basis, which may include: homelessness, emancipation from foster care, chronic or persistent poverty, domestic violence, financial hardship. They also offer information and resources referral, case management, and they have a food pantry program.

The food pantry is a bonus because students once registered can access it once a week. U-ACCESS is also affiliated with many community partners. Check them out when you have a chance.

http://www.umb.edu/life_on_campus/uaccess

This week's resource is about the Center for Social Policy. They are located here at UMass on the 10th floor of the Healey Library. They have lots of great resources. This is my second year here and never heard of them, so I wanted to bring awareness. Maybe you can get involved like I did and discover things about yourself that you didn''t know.

The Center for Social Policy is a creative think tank providing research, technical assistance, and strategic evaluations targeting root causes and highlighting effective interventions that address economic hardship and social exclusion.
They focus on: Education, Employment, Family Social and Economic Security, Health, Housing Security, NonProfits and Social Change, Poverty, Social and Economic Inequality........ (These are all topics that we will encounter as Human Service majors).

www.csp.umb.edu
Publications ( www.scholarworks.umb.edu/csp/\

This week's resource contribution comes from the lobbying research that we had to do for this week's session (Session 6). As I was looking into bills regarding foster care, I came upon a website that talks about volunteering as a CASA ( Court Appointed Special Advocate). A quick description on what a CASA does;

Volunteers get to know the child by talking with everyone in that child's life: parents and relatives, foster parents, teachers, medical professionals, attorneys, social workers and others. They use the information they gather to inform judges and others of what the child needs and what will be the best permanent home for them.

This is something that I am going to look into further because I always wanted to work with foster children because I feel that they have more hurdles to jump than most. If interested in this great volunteer opportunity, this is the website: http://www.casaforchildren.org

This week's resource comes from a story that I saw on the weather channel. It was later featured on the Boston Globe. It's called Cool Globes. Globes that show green strategies that contend with environmental issues. There are 48 in all and they were showcased at the Commons, Copley Square, Esplanade, and Logan Airport. A number of globes are lined up along the Tremont Street side of the Boston Common as part of the "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet" exhibit.


I decided to feature this because this week's reading in the Better together talked about art and how through art they the shipyard people's lives could be told and a better understanding could be had from the towns people. I felt this was relatable because through art, knowledge can be gained about environmental issues and a better understanding can be the result through this type of expression.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2013/08/15/cool-globes-presents-some-real-world-ideas/3NInpdkFzebUYBGOFpfWgN/story.html

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2684132564001/team-rubicon-helps-in-flood-ravaged-colorado/

I was wathcing the weather channel as I do every morning and they had a special on the Colorado flooding and the families that lost everything. They showed volunteer efforts by Team Rubicon, which are retired military personel that come together to help families that have suffered after a natural disaster. Stuff like this always gets me teary eyed because you see the families and their pain and to have strangers come in and start helping you, when FEMA is too busy and insurance companies are giving you a hard time, is touching. So I thought I would share this as a type of service.

http://www.ywcaboston.org/blog/bid/31580/Boston-Public-School-Creates-Racial-Ripple-Effect

This is a link that was posted three years ago but it began the start of the Race Dialogue that is a current event at my daughter's school, Franklin D. Roosevelt. This year the dialogue continues and I am excited because I think that the topic of race is not discussed enough. We are a very diverse country and if we can teach our children from an early age about race and how to feel comfortable with it, then it will only strengthen us as a community. It is important to express the different degrees of racism so as a community we are more understanding of one another, and the more we can come together as one.

I am apart of Project Hope's Speaker's Bureau and it is a group of women that travel throughout the Boston area spreading awareness about homelessness, shelters, domestic violence, subtance abuse, and child neglect. We give speeches at different engagements promoting Project Hope;s journey to end these epidemics that citizens of Boston are facing. I have a video of a speech that I gave on Friday the 13th 2013 to the Mayor of Boston letting him know how many of the organizations that he helped support are doing their part to end family homelessness. I wish I could upload it on this sight. But for any information on Project Hope.... their website is prohope.org.