Some of the students in the first class at Charlotte Community School for Girls.
How’s your breakfast? I’m having blueberries, Greek yogurt, walnuts, pecans and flax seed with a little local honey drizzled on top. And coffee.
Breakfast rocks. Most important meal and all that. I want to talk about breakfast some more, but first I want to tell about someone in Charlotte who is doing something special.
I met Cathy Sheafor about a year ago at Story Slam when she laid out her vision for Charlotte Community School for Girls, an experiential learning center for 5th- through 8th-graders. A select group of girls from low-income families would be invited to attend the year-round school, and they would be “challenged to dream, plan, and transform dreams into realities.” (Click here to read a recent piece in The Charlotte Observer!)
The school opens in mid-August in SouthEnd. You must visit and have Cathy tell you about it – I really can’t do it justice – but I so believe in the school that I joined the Board of Advisors.
During our last meeting, the board learned that because fund-raising wasn’t going as well as expected some things had to be cut back. The school wouldn’t be able to provide the girls with a good breakfast when they arrive at 7:30 a.m.
“Those babies have to have breakfast,” I whispered to a fellow board member. I had just finished watching Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution.”
I put out feelers to some very special people including Chef Geoffrey Blount, who heads up the Baking and Pastry Arts program for Central Piedmont Community College Culinary School.
Chef Blount called back and has rounded up a dream team of chefs, instructors, culinary students, farmers, vendors and more who will work with the school on a long-term plan for breakfast and lunch.
In the short term, though, the girls still need a good breakfast.
I asked Cathy to create The Breakfast Fund to get them through the first year. It’s $40 a day or $800 a month to get students and the staff started with a healthy meal. I personally am covering September.
Now, I want to challenge you to pay for a month. Or a week. Or a day. Think of it as investing in the community’s future. Can’t afford it by yourself? Share the cost with a group of girlfriends, your book club, your church group, your sorority sisters, your running buddies.
And if you can’t give money right now, please visit the school or click here for other volunteer and donation opportunities.
Tags: breakfast, Charlotte Community School for Girls, Charlotte NC, food, Food Revolution
Good vs. evil: You decide
11 Jan
A friend bemoans her birthdays. Another ignores them. I read recently about a celebrity who had lied so often about her age that she couldn’t remember when she was born. (I muttered “Bullshit” after reading that.)
I am 45.
45 1/2, to be exact.
I love getting older. As the saying goes: “Growing old is better than the alternative.”
Facing birthdays got much easier when I finally realized quality of life is about the choices you make.
You can be strong, smart and powerful. Make a series of wrong choices or even one big one, and boom… you walk away thinking you’re weak, stupid and powerless.
Which brings me to one of my favorite Anne Taintor Vintage Revisited pieces:
Anne Taintor rocks! (Note to my nieces: Despite how cool this woman looks, smoking will kill you. All it takes is one cigarette.)
The biggest lesson I’ve learned as the birthdays have breezed by: Life is best when you use your power for good.
It’s true. Try it.
The choice really is up to you.
Tags: aging, Anne Taintor, choices, evil, good, smoking, wisdom