Celebrate Service
Posted on Saturday, June 26th, 2010
I grew up in southern California, and have often been asked what I’m doing in Iowa. But I’m proud to live in a state with such a strong history of civil rights, fairness and equality. [...]
continue readingHelp Evaluate Chrysalis After-School
Posted on Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
As it always does, the school year has somehow disappeared, with May catching me unprepared! It’s time to collect information about your work with the Chrysalis Foundation’s after-school girls’ groups so that we can report [...]
continue readingJoin the Movement
Posted on Sunday, March 7th, 2010
Go outside! It’s spring, and Iowa is joining a broad based movement to renew a close, personal relationship with the out of doors.
April 10-11–As part of Iowa’s “Reconnecting Children with Nature” effort, the Department of [...]
continue readingCross a Chocolate River
Posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010
This is a great team building activity I’ve used for many years. Once at a 4-H Camp, we used 4-H Box Lids as the “marshmallows.” When I facilitated a program based on the Wizard of [...]
continue readingMake HerStory
Posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010
Here’s the story that KCCI ran on the Chrysalis HerStory event May 27. Shawn Johnson, Olympic gymnast from West Des Moines, was the featured speaker.
Each year the Chrysalis Foundation sponsors a spring event for the [...]
Learn through Service
Posted on Saturday, February 6th, 2010
Service learning is more than picking up litter and cutting down trees. Kids and adults can have fun and learn a lot from doing such activities together. But to have a bigger impact, service learning [...]
continue readingTear Down the Walls
Posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009
My brother and I agree that our trip to central Europe last May made the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall more meaningful than I remember it being even when it happened. One Prague memory I [...]
continue readingFind Refuge
Posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009
I just applied to make my yard a certified wildlife habitat. I figured I might as well, since the deer have plucked my rosebuds one by one this summer and fall. Really, it’s a small [...]
continue readingTie a Knot
Posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Yesterday I visited the Junior Bridges Chrysalis After-School Group at Southeast Polk Junior High School. It was really fun to see the girls surfing my Web site and then using some of the ideas they [...]
continue readingSleep Out for Reggie
Posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
As the weather gets colder, I feel more and more sympathy for the homeless people I see on the street. A few years ago, a young homeless man named Reggie died in Des Moines, bringing [...]
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