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The feature below is brought to you by One by One Ministries an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about One by One Ministries, please visit their website page: here. Bea and Ashley's Story. Can you see her? Have you met her before? Let me introduce you to Bea. She is growing and looking at the world in a new way, maybe with a bit of optimism, maybe with a bit of fear. She wants to see a beautiful life before her. She is longing for someone to remind her of the beauty that she is reaching for…Someone whose positive voice is louder than the negative voices around her and at times, maybe in her own head. Can you see what kind of week she has had? It’s Friday night and she can’t believe she’s already in bed but after being on her feet all day every day this week she doesn’t care. Tomorrow she will head out to meet her mentor at a local coffee shop. She doesn’t know many people in the neighborhood she only thought she would be in for a short time. She misses familiarity. Much has changed in the last few months. It is quiet in the house as she lay in bed. She settles in and begins to feel the life inside her stir. Just a few weeks ago she heard, “You’re having a boy.” A small smile crosses her face but then her mind moves in different directions with questions she doesn’t have the answers to. But tomorrow...she looks forward to tomorrow. Not far from Bea’s neighborhood her mentor, Ashley, is tucking her own two little ones in bed. Well, they are not so little anymore and the tucking in is more like an encouraging word and a slight touch on the shoulder before turning the light out. It has indeed been a long week. She too is looking forward to spending time with another mom. She hasn’t seen Bea since last month when the weather was still nice enough to meet in the park, but they’ve been texting and talking on the phone. Bea and Ashley are getting to know each other and appreciate one another’s journey. Ashley feels honored to walk with Bea in the new road that is before her. She is inspired by Bea’s strength but knows she will need encouragement at times. She thinks back to how much she needed support when she first became a mom. Before she crawls into bed she looks at the material she is going to share with Bea one more time. One by One Ministries meets moms at the beginning of their journey, while they are still pregnant or soon after their baby is born. We see beautiful in all the hard work that Bea is putting into preparing to parent. We see beautiful as she pours herself into the new life she will share with the one she is bringing into the world. At One by One, we see beautiful in the relationship of each new mom and her One by One mentor. Mentors are focused and purposeful with the mission of encouraging and educating moms to parent well. Each month moms like Bea and mentors like Ashley meet face to face at coffee shops, parks, libraries, community centers or even in the mom’s living room. They laugh together and sometimes pray together. There are at times tears and hugs but always encouraging words. Pregnancy milestones and infant development are discussed. Bea will learn about keeping her baby safe and healthy. They will cover topics like what postpartum depression and self-discipline look like. Ashley explains activities that will help Bea’s child develop language, social, cognitive and motor skills. Bea is her child’s first teacher. It is important for her son to be prepared for kindergarten so she is starting now.  As she is purposeful in these daily activities, she bonds with her baby, impacting him for years to come. There is a much to learn but each month Ashley and Bea will see beautiful in their time together. Ashley emphasizes the importance of having a good relationship with her baby’s health care provider. There will be a lot of questions through the years that Bea will need to work through with the help of a doctor and his or her team. This mama is going to feel confident about keeping her son healthy. One by One sees beautiful when we see Bea and her child thriving. One by One sees beautiful in first time moms and moms who are having a second or third little girl, moms who are single and moms who have a partner in parenting, moms who are working toward high-school graduation and moms pursuing a college degree. Moms need encouragement, support and love. One by One has a team backing moms and mentors. We get to know the community and are equipped with resources to share with moms as they see beautiful in the life they created. One by One loves and supports moms and we see beautiful. Written by: Cindy Grucholski
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The feature below is brought to you by The Crescent Cell, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about The Crescent Cell, please visit their website page: here.  Faces of Sickle Cell Strength. The light was dim. The heavily conditioned air of the room contrasted the humid August heat. Although the afternoon was still, through a wooden door, a piercing cry filled the air. In the clinical room beyond the wooden door, the agonizing pain from a ten year old boy met no relief from the healthcare providers' voices of reassurance. As I sat down to take pain medication for myself, I reflected on the young child’s experience. The long days dragging into the night, the pain, the tears, the isolation, were all too familiar. Even with a ten year difference, the treatment options for what we were both going through had made little progress. It is the unfortunate fate that over 100,000 people in the United States, including the ten year boy and myself, are forced to face everyday. We are bonded through blood by a simple genetic mutation called sickle cell disease. All through my life, I did my best to hide the effects of sickle cell. You can’t tell someone has it just by appearance, so it becomes manageable to hide. Just as the condition is deemed “the forgotten disease,” I, like many sickle cell warriors, became invisible. I did my best to avoid what causes the debilitating pain episodes: dress warm, stay hydrated, try to avoid stress and exhaustion. When the pain did happen, I would disappear for days to weeks at a time. I would go from being bedridden to re-entering the world as if nothing happened. I was doing whatever I could to fight sickle cell without people knowing I actually had it. Finally, I committed to what I knew all along: the best way to truly ignite change was to publicly speak out.
 Written by: Omonike Oyelola, Director The feature below is brought to you by Blueprint58 an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Blueprint58, please visit their website page: here. Blueprint 58 is a mentoring and community development program in Southwest Atlanta. Deeply rooted in Isaiah 58:12, our organization believes that communities can be restored through building mutually transformative relationships. This approach keeps the individuals that make up the community at the center of what we do. Through spending time, sharing laughs, and engaging culture, we open ourselves up to opportunities to partner and connect with the community we love. Our vision is to empower youth to grow into community leaders, and that they might then transform a neighborhood from the inside out rather than the outside in. We accomplish this through mentoring, sports, and personal development programming in the Pittsburgh and Adair Park communities in Atlanta. In 2018, we purchased a building in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Atlanta for Blueprint 58. With this building, we hope to provide our community with a space where students and neighbors will feel like they have reached a safe and welcoming place that allows them to grow and build lasting relationships. We hope to create a warm and welcoming environment for students to play games, gather for prayer, and study. Our vision for the building is an innovative, beautiful space that remains true to the heart of the Pittsburgh neighborhood and restores the beauty of a building which has been in disrepair for so long. As we begin to build out this space, we want to listen more than we speak. To ask our neighbors what they desire and need, rather than assuming we know. One of our most important hopes for this space is that it will be created and grown through the input and innovation of the people who are already living in this beautiful Pittsburgh neighborhood. Here at Blueprint 58, we believe lasting transformation of a community will come through relationship. That the acknowledgment of existing assets, and building new partnerships will best honor the history and future of a community. We hope that through canvassing, neighborhood meetings, community involvement, and even a block party, we will be able to both share our vision for the space while inviting our new neighbors into it. Mutuality of relationships being played out on neighborhood and systemic levels is the dream of our hearts, and we are honored to play a role in that.
Purchasing a building in the historic Pittsburgh neighborhood has ignited a fire in our hearts for restoration, and has been a sign post for Blueprint 58, reminding us to listen and learn from our neighbors each step of the way. We want to invite friends across the oceans and around the corner, to be a part of our vision - to build something beautiful alongside us. To build community and relationships. To build hope and grace and a deep belief in second chances. And third chances and forth ones. Together, let’s build a movement of neighbors and friends who believe the creation of a place more beautiful and hopeful is not only possible, but something we can all play a role in creating. The feature below is brought to you by Seniors with Skills, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Seniors with Skills, please visit their website page: here. Even though it may be assumed that those who transition from a job into retirement are content with having a work-free lifestyle, this is often not the case. During the later stages of life, many want to continue pursuing their passions, whether it be in the arts, engineering, or various fields they may not have previously encountered or accomplished. Seniors With Skills, established in April of 2018, works towards providing various opportunities in these types of fields to those who wish to remain active in the community. Having dedicated years towards personally assisting seniors with becoming closely acquainted with the rapidly evolving technological field, Jaya Manjunath aimed to reach a large platform through affiliations with various retirement homes, which have now expanded to both the United States and Canada. Currently, the organization hosts two main programs: the Cards and Knitting Program and the Computer Skills Program. Through the Cards and Knitting Program, members of Seniors With Skills make cards and knit clothing with seniors, all of which are donated to local hospitals to give to patients. Through this program, seniors are able to contribute back to their communities, as their work and progress are manifested through the scarves and cards that help those currently in various hospitals. In the Computer Skills program, various computer training programs help seniors become well acquainted with online technology, as it can often be overwhelming to those who have lived most of their lives without such devices. Through this, seniors are able to learn how to create resumes, find job opportunities online, to learning how to use social media in order to connect with others, whether it be from sending emails to sending messages through online platforms. Seniors have been able to reunite with old friends and family, which have been invaluable and rewarding as often as people grow older it becomes more difficult for people with declining health to be able to travel to reunite with those they care about. Through these programs, seniors are able to focus their skills towards mentally stimulating activities through positive contributions to other communities and their own social groups. The organization has expanded to 70 volunteers in both Canada and the United States who work in local retirement residents, and is continuing to expand in both locations and people through the online matching form on the Seniors with Skills website. Seniors with Skills have been able interact with hundreds of seniors through these programs, with both the volunteers and the elders contributing together towards a main purpose, whether it be in donating to hospitals to connecting with loved ones. With current efforts, a great number of cards and knitted items were donated to various hospitals, and computer lessons have facilitated seniors’ access to various parts of the internet, whether it be listening to favorite songs and video from the past on Youtube to hopes of reconnecting with others in the future. By presenting seniors with opportunities to help others, many who may feel a lack of purpose or motivation after leaving their jobs to retire are able to explore different interests and passions. Even though physical beauty may decline over time with age, people’s inner beauty will always shine through, and the organization works to allow anyone, of any age, to express their own beauty shown through their work towards their communities. Seniors with Skills is an organization that serves as an arbiter between seniors and opportunities they may have never known about, which is now planning expansion in both fields and communities. In the future, Seniors with Skills hopes to grow its volunteer base through its online matching service within the website so volunteers from diverse areas can employ programs in different retirement homes nationwide. Just as its members have had great success with various retirement moments both on the East Coast and in Canada, the organization hopes to connect to other areas in order to help other seniors reach out to friends, family, and their own community. Even though Seniors with Skills is already affiliated with numerous retirement homes and regions across the United States and the Canada, in the continuing years there are developing plans of gaining a larger audience in hopes of ultimately giving back to a group of people who often can feel left behind from a rapidly evolving society and technological advancements. Written by: Nam Tran Nguyen The feature below is brought to you by Community Bucket, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Community Bucket, please visit their website page: here. Filling the bucket. A more beautiful community. We believe in the power of action. Better yet, we believe in the power of collective action. This vision of the world - that volunteering can be a great catalyst for building strong communities - is what led us to start Community Bucket on a hot, humid August day in 2012. Atlanta, a city of transplants, has never been a stranger to social consciousness and activism. There is no shortage of organizations and individuals who are working toward strengthening the city for everyone. Despite this reality, we noticed a gap: few opportunities for young adults to give back. Like ourselves, young adults in their 20s and 30s have too few opportunities for giving back locally and designed for their lifestyles. We have the free time on our hands, we have the desire in our hearts, and we have the skills to add value, so why is it so hard to find great opportunities to volunteer? Community Bucket is built on the promise of Service Made Social. Volunteers are asked to give up a few hours on a weekend to serve with local nonprofits. In turn, we promise to deliver a quality and rewarding experience that allows them to make great friends and make an impact. This emphasis on the “social” was traditionally missing from many volunteer opportunities. It has proven to be the glue that has kept our community growing. The results continue to inspire us even today! Everyday young professionals turn volunteering into a hobby. Grassroots nonprofits flourish thanks to a steady stream of quality volunteers to speed up their work. People, especially those new to their city, find community and feel connected to the place they call home. Friendships and relationships naturally blossom. The beauty truly lies in the countless volunteers (more than 3,000 just in Atlanta today) who have joined our community. We might provide the platform to make it easy and accessible, but it requires selflessly showing up to make any real impact. Picture a scene like this one: It’s a damp and chilly Saturday morning in February. Our team is anxiously preparing and tying up loose ends so we can start the park cleanup on schedule – 9:00 am. At 8:25, the first few volunteers trickle in, and before we know it, 105 people have checked in. They stand around the main table, chatting or enjoying coffee as music is playing overhead. Whatever it takes to get people pumped up this early, we are on it. The energy is infectious. People are ready to get their hands dirty and their boots muddy. They didn’t come to sit around, after all! An event like the one mentioned collectively logs 250 hours of volunteer time for our nonprofit partner. That’s equivalent to six weeks of a full-time employee, accomplished in a single morning. And that doesn’t even measure the meaningful connections and bonds formed between volunteers in the course of the morning. So, why do we share this with you, and what keeps us going? For us, it’s our belief in the beauty of the Service Made Social promise. As we see it, beauty is more than something you enjoy; it’s something that inspires you on a deeper level than what meets the eye. Beauty is someone avoiding the snooze button to wake up on a sleepy Saturday and go serve in the community, by choice! Beauty is the sight of hundreds of volunteers standing together and looking on excitedly as they wait to get to work. Beauty is the passion streaming through the volunteer coordinator’s voice as she captures the purpose for her nonprofit’s work and the important benefits of each volunteer’s effort. Beauty is in knowing that more people who crave real community can actually find it. Beauty is in watching the transformative effect of people putting more good deeds into the world, day after day. This is the vision that guides our growth. As we deepen our impact in the Atlanta community, we are also taking this promise “on the road” by expanding into three more cities in 2019: Denver, New York City, and Austin. We believe that young professionals everywhere can benefit from the promise of Service Made Social. We believe that volunteering is a catalyst for connecting communities. With the efforts of many, we can all continue building a more beautiful community. And we invite you to join in on the fun! If you share our vision of beauty, we would love to hear from you. You can learn more at www.communitybucket.com or email us at [email protected]. Written by: Jacey Lucus, President of the Community Bucket Board The feature below is brought to you by West York Borough Community Garden, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about WYBCG, please visit their Facebook page: here. Be the roots. West York Pennsylvania is a small borough next to a small city in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Our borough is just one-half square mile in size. Six percent of our population lives in poverty. 14% receive SNAP benefits. We have the second highest crime rate in the County. Our neighbor, York City has the highest. Streets that used to be tree-lined are now bare. Blight abounds. 25% of our population is under the age of 18 and 14% of our population are seniors. Our only grocery store closed more than a year ago. We’re a small town with big problems. What we do have is an abandoned park, the size of a city block, and a new community garden to fill-up with fruits, vegetables, flowering plants, art and environmental education. Founded in 2017, our mission is to provide growing space for families who want to garden but have no yard, families who want fresh fruit and vegetables but have limited access or funds, and to bring beauty to our aging spaces. We want to help share the joy of helping others to those who want to volunteer. We are rich in hope and imagination. To quote our Mayor, we will “be the roots” of this community. The West York Borough Community Garden (a 501c3 organization) began with an orchard - Gala, Honeycrisp and Pink Lady apples. We added Asian pear and fig trees last year. Orchard harvests will be split between direct community donation and a partnership with a local brewery to produce a seasonal cider for fundraising. We built our first raised beds and hope to build ten more this season along with additional beds designed for special needs gardeners. Because we’re located over an old quarry dump, we bring in organic garden soil for all our planting – it’s one of our biggest expenses. We started our composting initiative and we’ve restored benches that were literally falling apart. We’ve done this with less than $2,000 in funding. This year, we’re expanding our partnerships. We’ll be working with our local Girl Scout troupe on a rain barrel project for water conservation. We’ll be working with local seniors on our tire garden to grow vegetables for the senior center lunch program. Our plan is to engage with local artists to bring bright colors and sculpture to the space. A gazebo is planned to use for concerts, outdoor movies, and with some modification, use in the Spring as a greenhouse. In 2020, we hope to begin building our outdoor classroom where local students and teachers can engage with nature and the garden in a hands-on way. Future projects include repaving the basketball court, building a roof and installing solar panels. Adding a roof over the court will expand the use of the space to allow for shaded play in the summer and opportunity to play during inclement weather. The space will also be used for free classes on topics such as gardening technique and canning/preserving what’s grown. To finish that project, we’ll install a rain collection system to capture rain runoff. A garden shouldn’t be just food for the body – it should be food for the soul too. WYBCG applied for a See Beautiful grant so we can paint the raised beds and tires for the tire garden, plant flowering perennials, shrubs and street-side flower beds. We want to plant 100 daffodils around every tree in the orchard to bring pollinators to where we need them in early Spring. A grant from See Beautiful would help us make our project more visible and increase community awareness and ownership of the project. You can learn more about us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WYBCommunityGarden/ Or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wyb_community_garden/ Written by: Lisa Gross, Founder The feature below is brought to you by Carolina Dance Collaborative, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Carolina Dance Collaborative, please visit their website: here.  The beautiful experience of dance. To dance is to see, feel, and be beautiful. Within the Carolina Dance Collaborative we see beautiful in each individual we serve; in their love and joy of dance and their heart displayed through movement. CDC seeks nothing less than to make dance accessible to all people; for the young and old, for those with and without disabilities, for the rich and poor, and for all body types, genders, and races. Inclusion at its core is beautiful and CDC sees that in reaching all people with the opportunity to learn, grow, and explore their self confidence through movement. Beauty is found in the simplistic, non flashy, creative ideas that express who a person is, whether they are 5 or 95. The confidence that arises through collaboration as well as exploration of movement and ideas is growing beautiful people in our community. Each individual that we serve has a beauty inside of them that needs to be found, cherished, and shown through the power of the arts. To dance is to see, feel, and be beautiful. Written by: Kelsey Crum, Co-founder of CDC The feature below is brought to you by Helpings of Hope, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Helpings of Hope, please visit their website: here. Helpings of Hope and See Beautiful Partnership. Hello to everyone in the See Beautiful Community! Thank you so much for the invitation to be a guest blogger on your website! We are thrilled to share the mission and vision of Helpings of Hope and for us to be given an opportunity to be considered for the See Beautiful grant. Let’s sit down together at our community table in our community cafe. I will pour you a cup of tea as we share a meal together and we can chat about what Helpings of Hope is all about. Shall we? In our time together, we will get to know each other…. our hopes and dreams, the names of our children, where they go to school, we can listen to each other’s life stories, what we want for our children and grandchildren and perhaps share a recipe or two on how to make the best peanut butter pie. It doesn’t matter where you come from. You can be an attorney, a single mom, a refugee or immigrant, a six-year-old child coloring in a coloring book, or a homeless man coming in from the cold wanting a warm cup of coffee. It doesn’t matter…because you are treated with respect and dignity here at Helpings Café. Helpings of Hope “sees beautiful” in every human being regardless of where they are in their lives. The mere fact that you are born a human being places you in the higher echelon of our world and for that reason alone we celebrate you! As you may have gathered from us chatting, we are all about community. We are passionate about our Indianapolis community and believe that every human being has the right to good nutritious food. In reality, we have a food gap going on in our city and state. One in seven people in the state of Indiana are food insecure meaning, they do not know where their next meal is coming from. It is a little higher for our children with one in four Hoosier children being food insecure. Indianapolis is located in Marion County which has the highest overall food insecurity rate in the state. According to the Immigrant Law Center, our immigrant and refugee neighbors suffer more from food in-security. Children in immigrant households suffer more from economic hardship and food insecurity than other children. A disproportionately low number of immigrants receive food stamps. While non-citizens represent 8.8 percent of the U.S. population, only 4 percent of all food stamp recipients are non-citizens. Indianapolis rank’s number one in food deserts meaning it has low income areas where large parts of the population live more than a half mile or a mile from a grocery store. Helpings of Hope is dedicated to eliminating hunger and food waste. We also create food security through community-driven projects that provide affordable, nutritious food for people in areas that would be considered food deserts. We have three vision areas that address our mission: community gardens, food and nutrition education and our goal to open a community café. In an Indianapolis area called Nora, there is a large immigrant and refugee population. Over one hundred different languages are spoken in this area. Many of the immigrants have come from developing countries and are trying to make a new life for themselves and their families. Many have seen the atrocities of violence, poverty, government corruption in their own countries and have fled. Many have lived for years in refugee camps. By an absolute miracle, they have been awarded visas to come to the U.S. Can you imagine a person who has lived in a developing country plopped right down in the middle of this urban city? They never been to an American grocery store and do not know how navigate the bus system, let alone function in this new-found life. Plus they are dealing with the trauma from which they have just escaped. These beautiful people are strong, determined and brave. We are honored to help with their transition to our city. With funding secured from See Beautiful, Helpings of Hope plans to help our immigrant and refugee neighbors transition into American culture by providing Cooking Matters classes which promote healthy affordable eating. We plan to become an implementation partner with Share Our Strength, part of the No Kid Hungry Campaign to provide these cooking classes. Our goal is to invite graduates from the Cooking Matters classes to garden with us at our community garden thus providing them an opportunity to be even more self-sufficient.   It takes all of us creating community together to make beautiful things happen. Like we said, it takes all of us creating community together to make beautiful things happen. Which brings me to our last vision area which is our goal of starting the first community café in Indianapolis Helpings Café. Actually, it’s where you’re sitting right now. But first let me offer you desert. Do you want some whipped cream on that peanut butter pie? Helpings Café is not a soup kitchen, but a not-for-profit restaurant that utilizes fresh organic, locally grown produce (provided by Nora Community Garden) using a pay-what-you-can menu. As you look around, there are no name tags that say, “I’m food insecure.” Instead, you see people eating great food and having a good time. I’m so happy you were able to stop by and share a meal and get to know us better. We need to all work together and that’s why we have reached out to the See Beautiful Community to be an active partner (co-creators if you will) in this endeavor. We believe in giving people a “hand-up instead of a hand-out,” where all are welcomed regardless of where they are at in life, economic condition or ability to pay for a meal. Written by: Kitty Seelig, Visionary/Founder/Executive Director The feature below is brought to you by Hope Shines, Inc, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Hope Shines, please visit their website: here. Hope Shines in the Children of Rwanda. Hope Shines is all about providing hope to the most vulnerable children and letting them shine daily as they reach their greatest potential. Our founder saw beauty in Rwanda and in some of the most high-risk and vulnerable children walking the streets, and now we are here loving and supporting a beautiful country with beautiful souls. Our organization is organic and we operate lean with a holistic approach to youth development. Our programs serve to build up the child mentally, support their most basic needs for their education and personal health, and to offer wrap-around support to the families who care for the children. Operating with measurable success since 2007, Hope Shines is intentional and efficient in taking a deserving child into our platform and organically equipping them with the skills and tools, mental and physical, to be a success in life, whatever that means for them. The love and mentorship umbrella strengthens the child and gives them the confidence needed to achieve more than they ever thought possible given their circumstances in life. In all we do, we stay the course as it relates to our mission of enhancing and improving the lives of orphans and vulnerable children in Rwanda. We are consistent in our approach and foundationally strong as we always stay centered on our values of Integrity, Sustainability, Commitment to Children, Healthy Living, and Impact. To see beautiful is subjective to most, even in a world where our unique cultures can heavily influence what is “beautiful” and what is not. Beauty can be something we visually see as in “that is beautiful to look at” or it can be something experienced within such as “she has a beautiful, pure heart and it makes me happy.” In some cases, one could say “that car runs beautifully” meaning it operates at optimal performance. But regardless of how you look at it, seeing beautiful is about something good and being able to see beautiful in the challenging type of work Hope Shines does allows us to remain passionate and hopeful for improving lives one at a time. ...seeing beautiful is about something good... At Hope Shines, to do what we do, we must see beautiful. To us, beauty is in each of us no matter what outside influences in the world say about us. In Rwanda, those children who struggle to find hope have found ways to see beauty whether they know it or not. This is done to survive and make it to the next day. Without trying to see the good, hope is lost for many. Hope Shines provides a platform that not only helps the hopeless survive but it also allows them to thrive. Surviving isn’t enough when we see each child as a thing of beauty…a beautiful soul that had no say in what social class they were born into or what country or to what parents. We asked, why can one person be born and raised with love and opportunity and yet another be born within toxic environments that lack care and love, which is at the root of a strong upbringing? Unfortunately, this is a reality of this world and because of this, Hope Shines works to pull out that inner beauty and nourish it in ways that give a boy or girl hope that one day they will break from the cycle of poverty and start a new chapter of love for their children. We never give up on a child and this is due to the constant reminder that we are all beautiful in amazing ways. Seeing beauty is something to strive for in our opinion. Hope Shines as an organization is managed by people who are grounded in passion and also see beautiful in each and every one of the children that we support and the families who care for them. When we see a child become less shy and come out of their shell, we know it’s confidence and love that we see; it’s a thing of beauty when that happens. That confidence comes from consistent mentorship and love offered in all our programs and it becomes the backbone for a child to reach their potential. When we see beautiful and we have a structure and platform in place to cultivate that beauty in the children we serve, there is no doubt that our efforts will be supported and our reach will become greater. We see beauty in our design and our abilities to strategically implement projects and programs that are currently literally transforming the lives of those who sometimes wake up doubting there is hope in the world for them. Our challenges influence our programmatic elements but our ability to see beautiful will always sustain our dreams of helping our brothers and sisters in this life! Through beauty, hope is shining in Rwanda. Written by: Dan Gladden, Executive Director of Hope Shines The feature below is brought to you by Whole World Improv - The X Group, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Whole World Improv- The X Group, please visit their website: here. A Beautiful Legacy Celebrating Differences. As I sit here thinking of the best way to articulate all of the wonderful ways in which our program sees and creates beauty, I cannot feel but slightly overwhelmed yet abundantly grateful. Before diving into telling you all about The X Group, I first need to give you a little backstory. A couple of years ago, I met a fantastic human being who went by the name of Andy Jones. Andy, an actor as well as a special needs advocate and educator, was the founder of The Exceptional Student Group. He specialized in mentorship and advocacy for those in the differences community, using theatre as one of his many tools. Based on my skill set and personal experiences, Andy wanted me to work with him in teaching improv to kids and teens with autism, ADHD, and other differences to help teach social skills and emotional expression. After a little while, it became apparent that I was the Spock to his Captain Kirk, and we truly enjoyed working with each other. I had also become his cat advisor after he adopted his first kitten in which he had named June Carter Cats. Unfortunately, Andy passed away unexpectedly. I became the new parent to Andy's cat, and his family asked me to continue his legacy. It can be a scary thing to fill someone else's shoes while simultaneously processing the grief you feel from losing that same person. When Andy and I taught improv together, we kept hearing from the parents that this was the first thing that their child or teen had been excited about aside from video games. When parents heard the news of Andy's death, the first questions that came to mind were, "But was about improv? What about the students?" It became abundantly clear that this program needed to continue in some sort of capacity. I was unable to take over all of Andy's weekday residencies, but I had the ability to keep his weekend program running. Fortunately, Whole World Improv, the location in which Andy and I taught together, saved the day in many ways. This organization offered for me to continue teaching classes on Saturdays while also providing marketing and additional improv instructors for support. These instructors would go through additional training to have the proper tools to serve the differences population. After a couple of months of shutting down, on April 14th of 2018, we were back in business under a name that paid homage to Andy while also establishing a new identity, The X Group. Originally, we had 5 kids and teens combined in one class. Now we have two separate class programs for both he kids and teens with 12 students and counting. One of the major aspects of working with those in the differences community is that in order to help ensure success for them, it takes a village full of passionate individuals to help nurture, challenge, and support. This village can be comprised of parents, educators, activists, friends, therapists, doctors, nurses, coaches, mentors, artists, and animals. The X Group is one facet of this village. We get to provide hands-on experience in creating a safe space where kids and teens get to succeed and fail when it comes to navigating different situations both on and off the stage. We get to provide a place where they can build upon their creative and innovative gifts for comedic expression. We get to provide a training ground as well as playground. Kinetic learning can be a beautiful thing when it comes to reinforcing concepts that are being learned in school, home, or therapy. While we want to encourage our students to become accomplished improvisers, we ultimately want to create beauty through the building of strong and thriving relationships. A few weeks ago, we had our first showcase for the parents. (As a side note, the parents play an instrumental part in keeping this program going. This program has had its ups and downs, and they have been nothing but accepting and patient throughout this entire process.) We planned on having a pizza party afterward the showcase to celebrate the Holidays. While everyone did an amazing job in the showcase, what ultimately meant the world to me and the other instructors was the fact that during the party, the students just enjoyed each other while the talked of pizza and Pokémon. That is what makes this program so incredibly special. Seeing the growth of an ensemble of individuals with unique differences making lasting connections.  I must add that another aspect of our group that is truly beautiful is that it is full of parents and students from all walks of life that have grown to become family connected by neurodiversity. While the instructors and myself teach classes, the parents gather in the lobby area of the theatre to exchange information and offer support whenever needed. I am constantly blown away by how our parents demonstrate inclusivity in such a welcoming and thoughtful way. On an even deeper level, our students are constantly being challenged in learning these lessons by the addition of new students whose minds work vastly different from their own. Learning how to be open to everyone's perspectives also plays a vital part as to why everyone involved is passionate about the X Group. On a final note, I want to strongly emphasize that this would not have been possible had our own village not come together to rebuild after suffering such a loss. It has been an honor to be a part of something that is truly beautiful and equally resilient. Thank you so much to the students. To the parents. To the instructors. To Whole World. And to most of all...Andy. P.S. His cat is doing great. Written by: Bethany Rowe, Lead Instructor of the X Group |
See beautiful in yourself.
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