A Little Something to Pass Along

Two days ago, I found out that Susan from Toddler Planet awarded my blog with this neat badge:

This is an award that bloggers give to other bloggers for building community online. I am really excited to be receiving this! Thank you, Susan! And everyone should go and congratulate her on her good news. Susan is battling inflammatory breast cancer, and she has been dealing with chemotherapy treatments for a very long time in order to make her tumors “operable” because they weren’t before. And now they are! Which is good news for Susan! I am happy for her and happy that even in the middle of all of this, she thought of me.

Because I won this award, I now get to pass it along to three OTHER bloggers who are building community too! And I had to think hard about who I wanted to give it to. But I have chosen three great people: Roger Carr, Jen Lemen, and Mrs. Lykowski.

Roger Carr’s website, The Everyday Giving Blog, is all about helping others. I know that Mr. Carr has built a HUGE COMMUNITY of charitable people there, because he sends a lot of readers who respect him to my site. I also like what his site is all about. The type of community he is building is something that means a lot to me.

Jen Lemen’s website sends me lots of visitors every single day. I admire Jen because she is an artist and she focuses her art on really positive things. Reading about things like this makes me feel happy inside.

Mrs. Lykowski is a teacher in Michigan. Her students are building community with a group of students from Columbia! They have a Wiki and podcasts that are really interesting to listen to. This is where Columbian students talk about what they think American students and schools are like. Michigan students do the same thing. I love listening to them!

So, thank you Susan for giving me this badge to put on my blog! I hope that the people I have passed it to will do the same. Each of them can also pass the badge along to three other people as well! If you have questions, you can email my mom at twentyfivedays(at)gmail(dot)com.

 

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How I Made a Difference on December 18,2007

Emily has been here encouraging me every day. She is an American mom living in London. I really like Emily! She leaves very nice comments here almost every day. Today I found out that a little girl in Emily’s son’s class is very sick. I don’t read Emily’s blog, but YOU can read about this little girl there. So…

Today I made a difference by making a card for this little girl. Her name is Julie. I also wrote her a very long letter. Emily said she would like to hear from someone who lives so far away who is close to her age. I wrote about how it is for me to be an American student and young girl, my favorites- foods, hobbies and colors, and the sports I enjoy (like Tae Kwon- Do). Today, my mom and I emailed Emily my letter so she could take it to Julie fast. We will mail the card tomorrow!

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Remember if you are tagged for my Making a Difference Meme you may tag others! Also, I am going to start visiting your memes TONIGHT!!!! Thank you so much  for doing this! I can’t wait to see your answers. That was fun!

Classroom Challenge: The Pot Has Been Sweetened

Susan, the “mommy” being supported by Team Why Mommy has offered the most AMAZINGLY COOL donation for the winners of our classroom challenge. Here, I’ll just cut and paste her magical words from the comment, where they are not nearly as visible as they should be:

This is a great idea!  If you need a prize for the winning classroom, I can offer this:  A 4 foot x 3 foot photo printout of the Martian landscape taken by the Mars rovers, a packet of solar system lithographs, and a special video conference call (or audio, if the school doesn’t have a webcam) with two NASA scientists.  We’ll give a talk and answer questions from the winning class.  Sound like fun?

Good luck to everyone!
Susan (WhyMommy from Toddler Planet)

So? Any takers? If your classroom would like to participate in this challenge, please leave us a comment or drop us an email. All information about the classroom challenge will soon be moved to a separate page, with a tab at the top for finding it.

How I Made a Difference on December 5, 2007

The dinner that I made

 Today I made a difference by making dinner for my family.I made noodles, sauce and and sausage. My mom was working late so I made dinner for my dad. My dad usually makes dinner so don’t think that dad is lazy.I loved dinner. Also, I made popcorn for my mom and will play a game with my sister. But before I play a game I will do the dishes.Like I do every night!

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INFORMATION!!

I have a ton of books now! My sister is as tall as the pile when it’s on the footstool in my family room! Nina will tell more about the books later because she is writing tonight too so be shure to leave a message on her post and it’s never too late to start the contests!

Drumroll Please…Announcing the Winner of the Badge Contest

Several of you have left email messages or comments suggesting that we design a badge that you can post on your blogs to announce your participation in our contest. Tonight, I want to give a big shout out to Lynne Anne Cutler who graciously donated her sleeping time and crafty talents to provide Laura with this beautiful little badge:

Now, please don’t ask me how to enable this badge with HTML. I have no clue. You can, however, paste it up on your blog…and if you know how to link it back to this site, that would be wonderful! I believe that I could pull this off in WordPress, but I am uncertain how it would work with other blogging tools.

And I’m begging all of my bloggy friends out there……Emily? Coco? Stephanie? Ally? LM? Chani? Anyone? I could really use some help powering this thing, if anyone knows how. Otherwise, I’m perfectly happy letting it simply look real cute on all of your pages. It will have a permanent home on the badge contest page, and when Lynne names her charity, we’ll put that up there as well!

Thank you!! And Happy Chanukah!

Angela

How I Made a Difference on December 4,2007

Uncle Mike and Aunt Joanie

My Uncle Mike and Aunt Joanie aren’t exactly my uncle and aunt. They are really close friends of my family. But, they love me like an uncle and an aunt and I love them too!!! My favorite memory of my Aunt Joanie is when we slept over at her house and we played “war”. Nobody was the “bad guys” though. They were imagined. I was the assisstant captain and Aunt Joanie was the head of command. We used cat toys as bombs and full water bottles as missles. It was a “use your imagination game” that everyone loved!

I got to play this with Aunt Joanie because she survived breast cancer.

My good deed is to ask you to visit the Team Why Mommy site and think about joining! This is the home of a new mom who is fighting inflammatory breast cancer. Joining Team Why Mommy would be an easy way to make a diffrence today! My mom is doing this today, for sure. You can also go here like I am going to. This is a site where you can click to donate free mammagrams for those who can’t afford them. Please help other kids like me build memories with the women they love by keeping them healthy!

Today is the deadline for the badge contest. There is a $25 dollar charity giveaway attached to this. Please please please save my mother’s sanity and take part! Otherwise, you may have to put up a really lame badge because she can’t design these things.

An Update From Laura’s Mom

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”
Helen Keller

Laura began this project in response to the project prompt linked to this year’s New York State Parent Teacher Association’s Reflection’s Contest. Students were asked to generate a creative response to the following statement: “I Can Make a Difference By…”and this left Laura, who was eager to join the competition, at a bit of a loss.

The truth is, children often feel powerless to effect change. They lack resources. They lack support. They lack a certain brand of power that is necessary for real change. Laura understands this well, and she found herself up against the reality of it as she began to think about how she might respond to this prompt.

Laura loves to blog. It is a new hobby of hers, and while I’ve been happy to help her edit her text and manage the volume of email she is receiving, the work here is purely her own. And the intention behind it? Even more so. I’ve learned a lot from my daughter in a very short period of time, and it has had nothing to do with approving comments or wrangling with the messed up code that happens to be attached to this particular template she chose. I’d like to be just like her when I grow up. She humbles me, as children are so apt to do.

Laura will tell you that she has learned a lot as well. She’s learned that sometimes, there is great power in releasing even a tiny bit of good into the world. Today, she told me that she never realized how much of a difference someone could make by simply writing something. As a teacher? I am thrilled to hear this. And as someone who is only beginning to understand the power of Web 2.0 tools and the internet in general? I am stunned. Parents and teachers are trained to fear the internet, and I am hoping that this project will prove to be a solid example of how kids can use the net for good reasons.

Laura wanted to create a ripple effect of service. She wanted to be able to see how far it might travel, not just in terms of distance, but in range of magnitude as well. Many of the people who are visiting and participating and encouraging Laura’s efforts have great appreciation for this phenomenon. And I have to admit that one of the things that I love about this project is the fact that we are able to carve a visible path for Laura’s call. So many people are “paying it forward” this month, and thanks to web 2.0 tools, we can trace that path and see where it begins to divide, expand, and eventually, intersect again…Laura is hopeful that the final destination is simply amazing. And I’m hoping that the destination we reach on Christmas night is a temporary stop. I’m hoping that the path is never-ending now. That somehow, this year’s little project is something we all remember and act in memory of, in much the same way that Laura is memorializing her grandfather. That would be something, don’t you think?

This place is already getting so much more attention than Laura or I or anyone ever imagined it would. And we have people to thank and exciting things to mention!

First of all, our weekend was a pretty eventful one, thanks to the interest and free assistance provided by a number of people who stepped forward to help us, including Dr. Mani, Jen Lemen, Willie Crawford, and especially, Ria Ludy.

When I came home from work today? I had a nice phone conversation with Lauren Danza, the Associate Producer of the CBS News Early Show. Hello Lauren!!! You made our day!!! The best part? When you mentioned the fact that you were planning to do something small to make a difference today yourself. For real. That’s what mattered to Laura most. You wear some pretty big shoes, and when Laura learned that you were taking her challenge seriously? Well, that meant a lot to her. So, thank you.

In addition, many, many others have written lovely pieces about this project’s purpose in the last several days. Please do visit these sites and let them know we sent you. And thank you, so much, everyone. Everyone keeps telling me that John and I must be incredibly proud of Laura. And we are. But we’re just as amazed by the efforts of every single person who took the time to pay attention to our kid’s little project. It’s all of you who have made it BIG. And together, you are all making a difference.

How I Made a Difference on December 3, 2007

Today, I decided that my good deed would be donating gently used books to Roswell Park Cancer Institute. This is the hospital where my grandpa was treated when he was sick, and I know that there are children there who have cancer too. I think that maybe they will like my books.
I also plan on asking my classmates to contribute gently used books as well. My little sister Nina is seven, and she worked hard going through her shelves tonight to donate too! If you are interested in donating books yourself, please visit BookEnds.
My favorite book is How Many Kisses Goodnight? by Jean Monrad Thomas. It makes me feel cozy, because my mom and dad used to read it to me when I was little. I gave it to my sister, and she loves it too.
The reason why I decided to donate books today is because two AWESOME teachers from Starpoint Central School matched my funds today. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Fisher!!! I thought this would be a good deed to do to show my thanks.
My mom spent some time updating our blogroll. If you are participating and you have a blog, you should find your link there! If you are participating, but you don’t have a blog, you will still be listed on the Participants page at the top of the site. Please email us if we accidentally missed you. We can be contacted at twentyfivedays(at)gmail(dot)com. Thank you!
And also! My mom really needs help making a badge and I really would like to be able to help people have one for their sites. Please think about taking part in our badge contest! I would really appreciate it.

Getting on the Blogroll

If you are one of the readers who has decided to take me up on my challenge, please email me at twentyfivedays(at)gmail(dot)com to let me know who you are! I want to create a blogroll for those that will be blogging along, and I will also create a separate page of participants, so we can see how many people are participating in ANY WAY. Please know that we will not be listing your full name on this page–just your first name (and you can make this up) and your state or country! AND DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE BADGE CONTEST!!!!

Contest News and Matching Funds

Today, I received an email message from Mr. Roger Carr, who has offered to “match” my funds for the Christmas charity donation give away! THANK YOU MR. CARR! Also, his blog is very neat, and I think you should go see it right now. And, Laura (great name), Gabrielle, and Laurie, the founders of Sk*rt have also offered to make a similar match! Finally, two AWESOME TEACHERS FROM STARPOINT CENTRAL SCHOOL have added another $25.00 to our total. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Fisher!!! So, as of today, our Christmas day charity give away will be for $100.00 instead of just $25.00. Wow!!!!

Also! My mom and I decided that it might be fun to host a badge contest for the Twenty Five Days to Make a Difference challenge, since a few of you have suggested we create blog badges. You can find information about the contest here! My parents have matched my funds as well, so a twenty five dollar charity donation prize is attached to this as well. I hope we get some good ideas (mostly because my mom has no idea how to do this)!