It's Monday, YEAH!

I have been helping out at the daycare on Mondays for awhile now. It makes feel so loved when I walk in and they all scream my name.I don't need much to be happy but a few leg hugs go a long way if you know what I mean.My own three year old gets to go along with me occasionally and the first time we sat at the table and did activities he was so surprised,"Mom, you are the teacher!".I spent most of the first 4 years of my daughter's life at the daycare with my daughter and I had forgotten that my son didn't know that side of me.He was too young when I left or at least too preoccupied to remember mommy being the teacher. Maybe now I will get more credit when I ask him where he learned something.His normal response is "my friends at daycare taught me". I don't get any credit whatsoever.Anyway, I really enjoy getting up on Mondays and helping out.

I have a busy week planned. Chemo on Wednesday and then on Thursday I get to go to a training for the Horizons project. Have you heard about it? You can check out the website at www.nwaf.org.
This program is aimed at reducing poverty in small rural communities. Horizons explores perceptions about and sources of poverty; it isn't always just about lack of money. Horizons builds stronger community leadership; leadership is as important as good roads, great schools and clean water. Horizons embraces the entire community; everyone is needed and everyone has something to give. For communities to thrive everyone must thrive.
Here are some testimonials...

"A year and half ago, if you had asked me or others in town about poverty, we would have said, 'There isn't much, it's not a big issue.' Some people would have said it's just those people who are too lazy to get a job. When you start looking at it though, you realize that bad things do happen to people, that you can't always get a job that will support your family."

"What mattered most with Horizons is that someone believed that things could be better--they had more faith in us than we had in ourselves."

"We have new leaders in the community because of what we are doing here. People are volunteering for things that they had never even been invited to before"

Our community may be able to recieve a grant for up to $10,000 to sustain the strategies that we come up with for poverty reduction and leadership.

I am motivated and up for the challenge. Are you? Watch the paper for the next meeting time and I'll see you there...