celticdragonfly

Maggie and I made a "Christmas tree" for her homework. It's cutouts of all of the family's hands in green paper, glued upside down into a triangular tree. 12 hands makes for a good tree. I have been helping her decorate - star stickers and heart stickers from my paper arts treasure box, and a little gold filligree thingy glued on as a tree-stand, and I glued on smarties candies as little ball ornaments.

This is exciting. We've raised $420 for this challenge so far!

I suppose a lot of people might say that's not much, or it's not a big difference. Just makes me think of the parable about the starfish, and "It makes a difference to this one"

So I'm sending selenite off to talk to his company's HR to see if they'll match donations we make on our own after all the SixApart certificates are in.

Ooh, look what came up on my flist: You can request a $30 gift certificate payable to Donors Choose from SixApart by 5 PM Pacific time on Monday, October 1. Donors Choose is a non-profit website where you search through proposed classroom projects and donate to them as you choose.

I think this is a marvelous idea. We get to help a good cause FOR FREE? Just for sending an email? JUMP on this, people!

I've been wandering the Donors Choose site a bit, to see what they have open. Nothing in my school district. Nothing in Brendan's current school district. However, I looked for proposals for autistic kids.

Autistic and other special ed children often have needs that are quite different from other children their age. As a mother of one autistic child and one speech delayed child, I've learned so much about how hard special ed teachers work for these kids. I've created a challenge - a group of proposals I'm asking people to help - with a few unusual projects that will help autistic kids here in Texas - little things that can make a huge difference for them. One in Arlington, three in a special needs classroom down in San Antonio.



I've gotten various people set up on LJ - yes, family, I'm looking at you specifically - and I want you all to go email them for this and donate to my challenge! And I hope a lot of the rest of my flist will, too. Go take a look and read about the 4 proposals on my challenge. And get that email off to SixApart RIGHT AWAY, even if you give it to a different proposal, just do it!

Maggie started her first day of kindergarten today. I *hope* it goes okay. I still feel very uneasy about the whole thing. But hopefully my little social butterfly will enjoy it. Pics behind the cut.
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