Driving to Florida for vacation, we listened to three books–Connected, Thrive, and Switch. I learned about all of them when I worked with Healthy Polk 2020 last summer. My task was to gather a group of experts around the priority, “Empower more people to take more responsibility for maintaining their health.” My team thought the wording of the priority judgmental. … Read
Reflect on Service
I love service learning. It’s fun to help kids help people, in preschools, retirement communities, parks and gardens. Service learning is a respected way to get kids involved in their own educations. But it’s not just about doing projects that help communities. For service learning to be valuable to young people as well as to the people they work with, … Read
Talk About Sex
Planned Parenthood once told me a woman is lucky if she has only a few unplanned pregnancies during her fertile years. I started menstruating when I was ten, and didn’t stop until I was 55. That gave me 540 opportunities to get pregnant. I wasn’t sexually active all those years, so that cuts it down a lot. Let’s say by … Read
Ride Like the Wind
Last week I signed up for the MS 150 in eastern Kansas. It’s a two-day bike ride to raise money for combatting Multiple Sclerosis. I rode 110 of the 150 miles in 2008, and I hope can do the whole thing this year. I’m definitely in better shape, but I’m just getting on my bike now. I’ve started riding to … Read
Honor Your Mother
Procrastination? Grandiosity? Too many balls in the air? I had the idea at one point to post on “woman in history” each day last month. Now we are 8 days into April, and I am finishing this post that I started more than 2 weeks ago. Hence, instead of celebrating Women’s History Month (each March), we are preparing to honor … Read
Fight Poverty
The Community Action Poverty Simulation Kit from Missouri Association for Community Action provides a glimpse into the challenges individuals and families in poverty face every day. I purchased a kit in 2011, and am facilitating a simulation in West Des Moines in November. I helped out with poverty simulations in their early years at Iowa State University, and recognized some … Read
Be Inspired
I’m on a news break right now. All the bad news from around the world and around the nation was getting me down. It’s overwhelming when you are just one person, and you don’t see how the little bit you can do will make any difference at all. But then I found Amiya. She is changing the world, one dance … Read
Row Your Boat
I got my water bill today. For a little over $70 a month, I get clean, safe water delivered to my sink, shower, tub, yard and toilet. I also get my garbage picked up, recycled, composted and dumped, and my sewage disposed of safely. How much do I even think of water? Not so much. But I am in a … Read
Create Safe Spaces
During the year I taught school in the early 1970s, some of the kids in my 8th grade homeroom became good friends, and often stayed after school to talk. A couple years later one of them, Sammie, joined the 4-H teen programs we were starting–helping with the newsletter and planning programs. We took the kids on campouts, held workshops on … Read
Celebrate Service
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. Iowa again blazed this trail through extending the right to marry to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. This controversial Iowa Supreme Court decision follows … Read
