Welcome to our October 2007 Newsletter. A lot has happened since we wrote last spring…so here goes!.

F-to-F Adds A New Receiving Community
Thoreau, New Mexico…
Family-to-Family continues to grow. In September, we started food shipments to a 14th receiving community – a community of Navajo families (our 2nd Navajo community) in the eastern part of the Navajo nation (located in the “four corners” region near where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet). Our contact there is Kathy Spitz of the Eastern Navajo Child Drive, an organization that has provided Christmas food baskets to needy children and their families for the past 14 years. So far we are sending to 12 families there, each with at least one special needs child. Over the summer we also sent Kathy Spitz 14 boxes of school supplies, backpacks, clothing, and personal care items for the children there. Kathy has told us that school supplies are especially appreciated because they’re difficult for many impoverished Navajo children to obtain.

Other Community Updates
Pembroke, Illinois
We’ve also expanded within our original receiving community of Pembroke, and now have a second community contact through the Pembroke school district, which has helped us add an additional ten receiving families. Our new contact is Linda Terrell, who is not only coordinating our food box program, but is also helping with the start-up of the Family Book Club literacy project we told you about in the spring (see June ’07 newsletter).

Maine Seacoast Mission
Our community contact in Cherryfield, Maine, Pastor Neil Wilson is leaving the Maine Seacoast Mission (our contact organization there) on October 21st to serve a church in Charlevoix, Michigan. We’re sorry he’s leaving but look forward to a new relationship with Gena Norgaard, the Seacoast Mission’s Food Pantry Manager, who will be taking over Neil’s F-to-F duties.

Chapter News
F-to-F is happy to welcome three new Chapter Chairs – Jean Bjork, of Lindenhurst, NY, Samantha Deignan of Havertown, PA. and Naomi Gurt Lind of Newton, MA. Naomi and Samantha's chapters will send to Belmont, NY, and Jean’s chapter supports Red Bird Mission, Cairo and Lemmon. (Jean takes over what has up to now been F-to-F’s Massapequa, NY chapter, formerly chaired by AnnMarie Ludwig. AnnMarie has stepped down as Chapter Chair, but remains active coordinating F-to-F's “Books for Life” program.)

We also have a few more new chapters expected to start in the next couple of months; they’ll be supporting the new Pembroke and Thoreau, NM Navajo families.

A Visit to Pembroke
Keep your eyes peeled for a television report about Family-to-Family on the Direct TV series “Hometown Heroes” scheduled to air (we don’t have an exact date yet) in late November. We’ll let you know the date/time when we hear. For the filming of the piece, Chapter Chair Mary Kay Woodruff of Edgewood, Kentucky visited and met her linked Pembroke, Illinois family for the first time. Here is her amazing and moving description of her trip:

“Well, I haven't got a chance to catch my breath yet since returning from my trip. If I wait for that, you will never hear from me…Thank you sooo much for the opportunity to visit Pembroke. It will be something I will carry with me forever. It was so many things that it's hard for me to put into words.

First off, the production crew was amazing. We really got close to them just over the 2 days we were together. My kids loved Linda and Jason. They were warm, friendly and calm and made everything just so easy, especially while we were doing something so exciting, new and a LOT scary. We had two different sound crews and P.A. but they were both lovely groups of people. It just made the whole experience for me and my family one we will never forget. It's hard to say what the kids will take from this, but I can only imagine and hope that they gained more from the two-day trip than the three days in school they missed. I know they did!

Meeting Jessie Mae and Rev Dyson was exciting and fun! We met at the church and we were fortunate enough to sit in at the church and listen to Jessie Mae's interview, and she is just a lovely, amazing person who loves her community, church and all the people in it. I can't believe how hard she must work day after day with trying to help these families that sometimes can't even admit they need the help. Listening to her really gave me an understanding - so much more than I could imagine before - of the wonderful people that live here and try to make a life here - how proud - how thankful they are and how hard their struggles are. It made me feel almost ashamed of the times I would go to Jessie Mae and ask about letters or any communication from the families. It made me feel like we were asking so much of these families that they didn't need on top of all the other things they must deal with on a daily basis. We shouldn't need the thanks or that little bit of how are you. I mean, I know my families don't want the thank-you’s - that they are just looking for any information they can so they can help them the best way possible, but it just gave me a deeper insight into this community of families that I didn't have before… (Jessie Mae) was warm, passionate, loving, informative, funny, well spoken and just plain dedicated. She knows her church families and community inside and out…

Meeting Iris was just as wonderful! She is everything I thought she was from her letters and we talked like we had known each other all our lives. Her grandkids were adorable and two of them were even wearing some clothes my daughter had sent months ago. I am really glad my kids were along to meet them. Her home was down a long dirt road, it was a small white house, well taken care of with beautiful flowers that were all over the yard and garage. She loves gardening. She struggles with walking and you can see just how much the girls help her with getting around and assisting with getting things for her. I just wish we had been able to sit and visit a little longer, but the crew had some more interviews to get and the day was wearing on. We said our goodbyes and hoped we would see each other again some day.

We were then able to go back to the church and meet some of the Edgewood families that were there to pick up boxes. It was great! I felt a little invasive at this point with the cameras and all and didn't want them to feel like we were intruding, but they were very nice and polite and smiles all around.

We ended our day with a little tour of Pembroke with Jessie Mae. There were three cars and we went down the dirt roads where you thought no one could possibly live. It was like the middle of the woods. Dirt was flying around and before you knew it, you could see glimpses of what appeared to be a home, but you weren't sure because of the boarded up windows or burned out roofs, or plastic covering the windows. You didn't think anyone could live back here until you saw a child walking up the road or small groups of dogs running together or men standing around which appeared to be families living on the same property and burning their garbage because they can't afford to have it picked up. We saw a boarded up school. This is where my heart sank and my kids were totally quiet. This is the time where the reality of what we do really hit. I wanted to turn around and go back because I didn't want - more than anything - to make these people feel we were there to LOOK at them and their situations. I felt like we were invading their privacy and their lives. Jason and the still cameraman got out at one point to go get a picture of a burned out trailer, and the men on the other side of the street just looked as if to say, what are they doing here and why with cameras? What could they possibly need to get a picture of? I felt so bad at that point and so did my kids. After going back 2 or 3 of those old dirt roads, I don't think we were saying a thing in our car. How could that exist just two exits away from places like Target, Wal-Mart, restaurants, just normal civilization that you and I know? And all the beautiful landscape that we passed on the way to Pembroke. The lovely farms and corn fields, horse and cow pastures, beautiful, beautiful landscape of Illinois. How could a church exist there that can't pay its electric bill and have to use a generator for light? Seems too unbelievable. Putting faces to these names and landscape and pictures to these situations that we only heard of was just an experience that I don't know that I will ever forget in my life. I woke up crying in the hotel that night. I didn't know why at first, but then I think it was just an escalation of everything we had done over the two days, and the fact that I was so glad we were able to come and meet some of the people and families of Family to Family, and to get to know this town that I only read about.”

- Mary Kay Woodruff

Birthday “Giving” Parties
We’ve added a new birthday project (described in detail on our website) that gives kids a way to be involved in helping others on their own birthdays… It’s a plan for a birthday “giving” party -- a party at which one of the activities is making boxes filled with birthday party goodies for individual needy children. This idea evolved from our concern over how materialistic and wasteful birthdays for many of our kids have become (with a seemingly endless stream of presents and goody bags) – and how GETTING seems to be the main event. So with a mind to helping teach our kids both an understanding of empathy for others and a tradition of generosity, we thought having them GIVE to children with “less” on a day when they receive so much would benefit everyone.

The idea is that at a “giving” party, kids still have their party theme…i.e. Batman, Princess, Harry Potter etc… and can include any other activities they’d like, but instead of just taking things home, they’ll also give to someone else. It works like this:

Kids invited to the party are asked to bring…

• a gently used book for a child about the same age as the birthday child
• a box of cake mix, a can of frosting and a pack of birthday candles
• a gently used party outfit for any size child (if they have it)

The party host supplies craft boxes, art supplies, paper, empty goody bags & goody bag items, wrapping paper and ribbon, and at the party, each child is given a craft box to fill with birthday surprises for one needy child. Instead of getting a fully loaded goody bag at the end of the party, the kids at the party each make a goody bag for the child they are giving to, and pack it in their box, along with the book they brought, a card they make and the cake/frosting/candles they brought. They wrap it all up and the birthday child’s parents ship all the boxes to one of our receiving communities.

Of course, all kids need to leave with something…so we suggest the party guests take home small bags of candy, brownies or cookies…something edible and wonderful…and hopefully, a sense of having done something fun and meaningful. We hope that with our help, children with “more” will “get” that they are actually, in a hands-on way, helping a child just like themselves celebrate… possibly for the first time…their special day!

(We’re going to have the first batch of “giving” party boxes sent to our new receiving community of Thoreau, New Mexico. Our plan is to rotate the communities that receive them, so any community coordinators who would like the boxes sent to your community please let us know. Any gently used party clothes brought to the party get sent separately to Natalie Barry, our “Best Dressed Babes” coordinator to distribute to children in all our receiving communities.)

The Traveling Journal
As part of our continuing mission to link communities with “more” to communities with “less”, Family-to-Family is re-starting "The Traveling Journal" project – a project that links classrooms of kids living comfortable suburban lives with classrooms of kids who lack even the basic necessities. This is a project we originally started after Hurricane Katrina to help with the emotional healing process. It's basically an "out of the box" pen-pal experience, but instead of individual kids writing privately to other individual kids, it’s more of a group experience. We supply art supplies and one oversized blank unlined art book in a beautiful case to a classroom, and the book spends one month there, in a place where the kids can write notes, letters, thoughts, feelings, doodle, and draw on its LEFT side pages. After a month, the journal is mailed (along with a refreshed set of art supplies) to a "partner" classroom in a community of children living without many basic life necessities. Kids in that classroom keep the journal for a month and write, draw, etc. on the RIGHT hand side pages, sometimes responding directly to what the kids from the first school wrote and drew and sometimes just putting down their own unrelated thoughts. The journal travels back and forth each month throughout the school year. It's free for both schools, with Family-to-Family paying for the books, art supplies and shipping costs.

Snuggle Blankies Update
Remember the snuggle blankies? We mailed over 40 beautiful hand-crocheted “blankies”, donated by women across the U.S. to Jerome Kasekende in Kampala, Uganda, who runs a food box program there based on the F-to-F model. The shipment is scheduled to arrive on October 25th, although we sent one in an earlier shipment, which already arrived…take a look!
The blankies will be given out to orphaned, HIV-positive children in and around Kampala.

Backpacks for Uganda
After it became clear that the cost of shipping backpacks filled with school supplies to Uganda was prohibitively high, we sent a donation to our “satellite” program there instead, so they could purchase the backpacks and school supplies themselves to give out to the orphaned children. Jerome (and his mother who works for an organization that helps these children) purchased 12 backpacks and supplies and gave them to children who didn’t have any bags or supplies.

He wrote back that the kids were “…surprised, amazed, happy – actually some did not believe it.”

The Ripple Effect…
Knowing the computer needs of many of our receiving communities, one of our sending families in Hastings on Hudson, N.Y. generously donated three completely refurbished computers reloaded with Windows and Office software to three of our communities. The computers were sent in September, and have recently arrived in Myra, Kentucky, Hope and Montrose, Arkansas.

Also…hearing from Jerome Kasekende in Uganda about a young girl there who is HIV positive and who wants to become a nurse but can’t afford it, Pam has decided to sponsor the child herself. The cost is just $90 per term. The girl’s name is Margaret Babirye, and here is her story, as first reported to us by Jerome:

“There was one girl who dropped out of school. Both her parents died and she lived with her aunt for some time. The aunt mistreated her so badly, beating her and denying her meals and other forms of punishments.
She moved to her grandmother’s home where she found different people who mistreated her also -- the reason being that she was (HIV) positive. She left school when she was in senior three first term because the relatives who were paying her fees denied her the chance to study because she was infected. She lives and walks in misery, so sad the way she looks and very unhappy. She has a goal of becoming a nurse -- the reason being that she wants to help other people like she is being helped. The reason why I sighted her out was that she really wanted school so much... When I talked to her I told her that we…shall find a way of helping you. That was when she smiled.”

And more recently Jerome writes:

“Margaret has joined school… and surprisingly the headmaster was sooooooo!!!!! happy to see that Margaret Babirye has come back to school. He wrote a letter of thanks… thanking us like the child was his own. The class teacher told me that Margaret was one of the best students she had. Her dropping out of school was bad for them.”

On another note, Jerome has also sent us a few pictures of his food distribution (based on the F-to-F model) to families in Uganda…so we thought we’d share a few with you.
(Click on a picture to see a larger image.)

Community Profile–Crownpoint, New Mexico
Interview with Allison Begay of the Navajo Agency on Aging
by MJ Territo

Of the 92 senior centers serving elders of the Navajo Nation, Allison Begay’s office in Crownpoint oversees 22 of them, helping well over 2700 seniors. The Navajo Agency on Aging provides comprehensive services for its elders, including a foster grandparent program, a group home for elders, medical services, nutrition advice, diabetes counseling, and even tax preparation. Help getting social services is also a key part of the agency’s mission. Mr. Begay estimates that 70% of Navajo seniors have no birth certificate, making it difficult for them to meet the registration requirements for Social Security payments and to obtain other services they need. The centers also sponsor selling groups for the elders’ handiwork – quilts, baby blankets, aprons, and other handmade items.

The 22 centers are spread out over a large area. To give an idea of the distances involved, the center furthest from Mr. Begay’s office is a four-hour drive. Food is distributed largely through the centers, but often families cannot get to them, so deliveries of food and medicine are made by the agency’s drivers. The drivers are often those families’ only contact with people outside their own home. So the drivers not only make their deliveries, but also spend time with the elders, chatting, sharing news, and even perhaps reading a letter from a sponsoring family. Occasionally the drivers may take a senior on a day trip to a center for socializing or medical services.

Many Navajo seniors live without running water or electricity, some because they prefer to live traditionally, others because services are simply not available. In many areas, private lands are interspersed with tribal lands, and it is not possible to extend services into these remote places. Travel is difficult too because roads are in large part unpaved or at best paved only intermittently.

Because younger people must travel far from home to seek work, Navajo seniors often become primary caregivers of their grandchildren. Many of these elders are also suffering from multiple medical conditions, which make it difficult for them to care for their homes and livestock. Navajo elders typically keep sheep and some goats, but may also have horses, chickens, a pig or two, as well as dogs and cats.

This past May, the agency sponsored its annual ElderFest. Six hundred elders and another two hundred members of the community gathered at the Wingate High School for a day of exciting events. The morning began with a softball throw and continued with prayers and welcome addresses from tribal dignitaries. Former New Mexico State Senator Leonard Tsosie was one of the speakers, and Lawrence Morgan, Speaker of the House for the Navajo Nation, donated a shawl and blanket for door prizes. There was country dancing, and traditional dancing and song. And elders had a chance to connect with the various service providers, all in one place.

Because letter-writing is so difficult for so many of the receiving families in Crownpoint, Mr. Begay hopes that he will soon be able to send photographs back to sponsoring families. Communication through photos may be the best way to strengthen ties between the Navajo elders and their sponsoring families.

That's all for this month

Best,
Pam and the Family-to-Family team
– written & edited by Nancy Hennessee

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For more information, contact Pam Koner, Family-to-Family
Tel: 914-478-0756