Planet Ark

Last week we read Mimi’s Village and talked about clean water, vaccinations, and global health care. We supported Shot@Life, a movement to protect children worldwide, by providing life-saving vaccines where they are most needed. We were able to support two children with a full vaccination set against polio, measles, diarrhea, and pneumonia. The kids were able to lift a jerry can partially full of water to get an idea of how heavy it is transport your own water.

We also had a stuffed animal vaccination clinic! Thank you Nurse Mackenzie, Nurse Ellie, Dr. Julie, and Dr. Rebecca for immunizing our favorite lovies!

Our last summer play group is this Tuesday, July 14 at 6:00pm at Kollen Park in Holland!

We will be reading the book Planet Ark.

Bring along $1.00 if you are able for fruit tree seedlings for families in Bangladesh through World Renew. Your purchase of a fruit tree seedling helps a subsistence farm family improve their land and grow fruit to feed their family and to sell for income.

We will have a nature scavenger hunt, leaf creatures craft, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, inflatable world volleyball, and egg and spoon relays.We have had so much fun, we hope to combine forces and continue play groups for the West Michigan area past this summer! Make sure to join our Service Play Group Facebook Page to get all the updates as we make a difference together as a community! I’d love to partner with you, contact me with ideas 🙂 aboutproximity@gmail.com

 

 

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The Red Bike

We had a great time last week at our second play group One Hen! We read the true story of Kojo and how a microloan led to a hen that changed the lives of a family, community, and country. We were able to take a trunkful of high-need supplies to Community Action House. I’m so thankful for all the families that have taken the time to come out to the park this summer. Above you can see a talented group of egg balancers!

So many sweet world changers.

We really hope to see you this coming Tuesday evening, June 30 at 6:00 pm. (Kollen Park, on the east side of the public bathrooms.)

We will be reading The Red Bicycle about the journey of one red bike!

If you are able please bring $1.00 for World Vision USA to purchase bicycles for girls needing safe transportation to school!

Bring along a scooter, bike, skateboard, stroller! Anything with wheels! We’ll be having a bike parade around the upper sidewalk loop of Kollen Park.

After our Make Difference Bike Parade come over for play stations! Bubbles, sidewalk chalk, sack races, world volleyball, hula hoops, and a bicycle craft.

Summer Serve Play Groups

About Proximity is so excited to host Summer Service Play Groups in Holland, Michigan!

Let’s come out to make a difference as a community with our families.

 

Here is our Facebook Event Page. 

 

Printable PDFs to share with others. Included are the service opportunities for each week and all the activities we have planned! 

Summer Serve Play Group Schedule Summer 2015

June16: If the World Were a Village

June 23: One Hen

June 30: The Red Bicycle

July 7: Mimi’s Village

July 14: Planet Ark 

Serve Projects: 

Bringing donations is completely optional! Even if you are unable to participate in the donation part of the service project, still come out to the play group! We’ll learn together and have fun. We want everyone to feel welcome. Click on the printable PDFs to see what we are gathering for each week.

A few ideas:

• When shopping for donations for Holland Rescue Mission and Community Action House involve your kids. It’s a great opportunity to talk to them about needs families might have and what items can be a support and encouragement.
• When bringing $1.00 donation for Shot@Life, World Vision, and World Renew encourage your kids to earn the money by doing a small job around the house, helping will feel even more meaningful to them.

 

Want to learn more about the organizations we are supporting? 

Holland Rescue Mission

Community Action House

Shot@Life

World Vision

World Renew 

All our stories are donated by Citizen Kid Books.  

 

We can’t wait to see you this summer! 

Questions? 

Email: Lisa Van Engen at aboutproximity@gmail.com 

 

 

 

#TalkJustice Health Care

Kids #TalkJustice Access to Health Care

Access to health care is an issue that really affects everyone. Even when families have insurance they may lack funds for co-pays, or still be in need of secondary services like vision, dental, and specialists. Beyond debates, because there is probably no country that has found the one-hundred percent correct answer to access, how can we understand and support access to health care in our communities and globally. Globally the situation is even more desperate as access to the simplest care is out of reach for many.

Health Care Discussion Starters:

Help your family go deeper:

• The cost of health care is staggering… who can you help with this burden? Do you know families you can support?
• Discuss specific illnesses with children. Help them understand what might go into care, what special equipment you might need, how often you might have to visit the doctor.
• Talk about parts of world where you might have to walk miles and miles to get to a health clinic. If you are bringing a sick family member what challenges might that bring?
• Talk about needing glasses, but having no way to acquire them.
• In disasters how important is health care? What things change in moments of crisis?
• What might be different about doctors offices around the world?
• The disease of malaria can be prevented by a simple bed net, yet many do not have access to that. What other sicknesses might be prevented by something simple (clean water, sanitation, clinics.)
• Do you have a free health clinic in your area? Is there anyway you can support their efforts?
• How can your family take care of its own health?
• How do you think health care where you live compares to other places around the world?
• How can you support efforts to help people have access to health care?
• Do you think this might be an important cause for communities to think about?
• If you know someone going through an illness or has a chronic illness how could you support their family? How could you support a classmate?
• Talk about root causes of heath care disparities: race, local resources, location in the world, poverty, immigrant or refugee, women in parts of the world.

Kids Books about Health Care:

I Lost my Tooth in Africa by: Penda Diakite

Mimi’s Village By: Katie Smith Milway

Nest By: Esther Ehrlich

The Lemonade Club By: Patricia Polacco

The Fault in our Stars By: John Greene

The Heaven Shop By: Deborah Ellis

16 Ways to take Action: 

• My Plate Kids’ Place is a great website to visit. Talk about how you might donate healthy choices to your local food bank.
• Set up a pop can tab collection to support Ronald McDonald House.
• A list of donations commonly needed by Ronald McDonald Houses. (contact your local house to check for specific needs.)
• WIC: Early Entry into Dental Care provides a simple yet powerful solution to the problem of preventing dental disease in low income children. Contact your local WIC office to see how you can be involved.
• Operation Smile Resources (provides free surgeries to repair cleft lips, palates and other facial deformities in children.)
• Learn about Child ViSion groundbreaking adjustable glasses.
• Send a malaria fighting bed net through Nothing but Nets.
• If you are on a sports team consider a Sports for Net Event.
• Browse photos from Nothing but Nets to see their work around the world.
• Provide immunizations for children in the developing world through Shot@Life. 
• Ways to get involved in Alex’s Lemonade Stand (fighting childhood cancer)
• Make a chemo care kit from Pennies of Time.
• Shop St. Jude’s gift shop to support their research work.
• Use UNICEF lesson plans for health.
• Watch a video about Embrace Warmers that save the lives of newborn babies globally.
• At Smile Squared you buy a toothbrush and one is given to a child in need.

A Health Care Twitter list to follow.

Follow our About Proximity #TalkJustice Pinterest Board.

#TalkJustice Summer Serve Play Groups! Come over to our Facebook Event Page to learn more. Invite friends! We will be exploring topics and making a difference in community, using a series of books donated to us from CitizenKid. Hosted by About Proximity (that’s me) and my Mom, a public school family advocate for two decades.

What are your thoughts? 

 

 

Talk Justice: Hunger

Talk Justice: Hunger

Hunger is something most kids will understand. Everyone can relate the feeling of a hungry tummy from time to time. We can broaden our kids understanding of true hunger by helping them learn about the people around the world that feel those tummy rumbles and don’t have access to a snack or meal like most of us do.

Help your family go deeper:

• If you didn’t have dinner would it be hard to sleep that night?
• If you didn’t have breakfast would you have trouble concentrating in school?
• How would you feel if you didn’t have a lunch to bring to school?
• If you had a week where there wasn’t much food at home, would you begin to feel worried about having enough?

Talk about root causes of hunger:

• wars
• disasters
• climate change
• famine and floods
• joblessness
• rising food costs
• poverty
• inequality

Help older children understand common misconceptions about hunger:

• WIC in the United States helps with supplementing woman, infants and children, school lunch programs, school breakfast programs, and summer lunch programs.
• SNAP Myths and general information.

Whenever we talk to our kids about justice issues we can be positive, because there are so many ways we can help! Even though the topics can be heavy, we can make a difference, and that’s something to be excited about!

Kids Books About Hunger 

The Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by: Peter Menzel

Beatrice’s Goat by: Paige McBriar with Heifer International

One Hen by: Katie Smith Milway

The Good Garden by: Katie Smith Milway

 

21 Ways to Take Action!

• Host a No Kid Hungry Bake Sale
• Map the Meal Gap lets you look at hunger statistics for your county.
• Know where your town’s Food Pantry is located.
• Find a Feeding America Location near you and serve as a family (many distribute food monthly from church parking lots)
• Watch Lily, her Mom and No Kid Hungry 
• 10 Faces of Food Assistance with the World Food Programme Slideshow
• Bring Heifer International’s Read to Feed to your kids school.
• Read the World Ark Magazine together on-line or via app
• Watch the documentary film A Place at the Table
• Rice 2.0 quizzed on vocabulary and other subjects 10 grains of rice is donated for every correct answer.
• Watch the true story that inspired the Good Garden Maria’s Journey
• Watch the Story of Hungry. 
• A great list of Most Needed Food Pantry items; shop and donate together
• Cook a meal together for someone who is ill, a single mom, the elderly, a new parent or anyone in need.
• Deliver or mail a surprise grocery gift card to someone in a tough place.
• Participate in the Stone Soup Activity with Canadian Foodgrains Bank.
• Download the Cooking Matters Kids Handouts
• Download these activity and coloring sheets from Canadian Foodgrains Bank: staple foods, rain, livestock, Harold and the goat, Haleema’s Chapattis, food assistance, disasters, deserts, Tanisha and changing weather, hunger facts, and even more educational resources here.
• Try the World Renew Feed Your Fish App to help world hunger.
• Use the great resources from Food for Thought from Sesame Street for younger kids.
• Download a world hunger map from the World Food Programme here.

We have a new Pinterest board called Kids #TalkJustice where I will be pinning many of the resources featured in this series.

Do you twitter? Here is a Hunger List to follow.

I really hope to hear from you all week long! Tell us about your conversations! What resources did you try? What did your kids teach you? 

Next Week… Clean Water and Summer Justice Play Groups.

Halloween with a Cause

Halloween with a cause! I like the sound of that!

UNICEF has raised over $167 million dollars for children in 190 countries. They apply these funds for health-care, immunizations, clean water, sanitation, nutrition, education, and emergency relief.

Follow UNICEF on pinterest. (Another great excuse to pin away!)

You can order your trick-or-treat box from the UNICEF website.

I would like to provide some ideas for those of you that do not go door-to-door for trick-or-treating.

• Order a trick or treat box and keep it a prominent place in your house (dining room table) for the month of October. Collect all your loose change in the box. When the month of October is done, send your donation in to UNICEF. The spooky holiday of Halloween just gained new meaning for your family.
• Order a box and collect coins for the month of October with any group your child belongs to.
• Having a UNICEF trick-or-treat box set up at church or your church’s trunk-or-treat is a great idea too.
• Bring UNICEF trick-or-treat to your school.
• Host a UNICEF trick-or-treat party! Here is a great toolkit to get you started.

Here is the UNICEF trick-or-treat resource page.

Here is a UNICEF trick-or-treat October calendar with tons of great ideas!

Have fun family time; dressing up, sharing treats, and making a difference!