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A table allows people to share a meal together. It serves as a place for children to play games and make crafts. It’s a place to gather, to rest, and to share conversation. At Lantern House, which exists to “aid the poor, needy and homeless by providing them food, shelter, and critical emergency services,” delicious, well-balanced meals are served daily to anyone who needs one. And they are served around old, wobbly tables that are sometimes missing legs, or are strategically held together by duct tape or propped up on books. Last year, Lantern House had the opportunity to replace some of the old tables, and the impact could be felt and seen immediately. As Michelle Perry, the Kitchen Manager and Chef at Lantern House explains, “When the new tables were put in the dining area and people came into eat, you could see the smiles on their faces as each person wanted to sit at them.”  With the $1000 See Beautiful Milestone Grant, Lantern House will be one table closer to replacing the old, tired tables. A new table will make way for more beautiful to be created and shared in the dining room and beyond. Lantern House’s core values of compassion, service, dignity, and responsibility shine through around the table. As residents of the center transition from homelessness, they do so with self-sufficiency, independence, and self-confidence. But there always remains a spot at the table. AuthorJannan Poppen, Giving Coordinator
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When a child has to quickly leave a home due to abuse or neglect, they often are not able to take anything with them. Not only are they experiencing a likely traumatic situation, but they also are not able to keep the most basic of necessities or comforts. Little Lambs Foundation of Utah provides comfort in a bag for children transitioning into foster care or a shelter. In 2016, over 3,200 children across 10 Utah counties received basic necessities and gifts of love from Little Lambs Foundation. The children are given a backpack full of items that serve as a tangible reminder that they are loved. Little Lambs hopes that children will be able to smile a little brighter through a difficult situation, and that they will see beautiful in themselves through this act of love. On June 24, volunteers gathered for a comfort kit party. With the $1000 See Beautiful Milestone Grant, Little Lambs Foundation provided 200 backpacks for community members to come together and fill with everyday items that are often taken for granted. In addition to basic hygiene items, the comfort kits also contain small toys, snacks, and games. They might contain socks or blankets, providing warmth and solace.  Thanks to the amazing See Beautiful and Little Lambs Foundation communities, 200 more children received a comfort bag during a traumatic time. 200 more children were able to brush their teeth, comb their hair, and care for their basic needs. 200 more children were able to play with a toy and simply be a child for a moment, and 200 more children now know that they are loved and uplifted by their community. AuthorJannan Poppen, Giving Coordinator Helping put families back together. It’s a small statement with a huge impact. Through a holistic approach, Foster Care Alliance “creates and completes healthy permanency plans for children in foster care.” To do so, Foster Care Alliance provides wraparound care for the parents, offering everything from transportation to therapy. This type of care allows families to heal from past trauma, while empowering them to make decisions and plans for the future. One beautiful aspect of Foster Care Alliance’s services is the visitation center. The visitation center exists so that parents and children can play and interact together in a safe, creative environment. The $1000 See Beautiful Milestone Grant will allow for the purchase of toys and games to enhance the center and encourage bonding between parent and child. Foster Care Alliance exists without any agenda to push adoption or reunification. They simply support families in the foster care system to achieve health and make decisions that are best for them. Of course, when reunification does occur in a healthy thriving family, it is certainly beautiful. And with Foster Care Alliance filling the gap in care, more families are on their way to being whole again. AuthorJannan Poppen, Giving Coordinator Our See Beautiful Clubs create so much beautiful, and the Cheatham Hill Elementary School club is no exception. Led by Dr. Monica Cann Alicea, the club shares and spreads the vision of creating beautiful in everything it does. The students and teachers of Cheatham Hill form a community that shows that they care for one another, and of course, through the Milestone Grant, they plan to further their love and support for their school community and beyond. Fourth graders at Cheatham Hill sponsor the Must Ministries Save it Forward program, which provides food and toiletries to students in need, by hosting a dinner where guests are asked to pay for their meal in laundry detergent. In order to deepen their impact to the program, Cheatham Hill students have also started a garden. They hope to produce food to donate to the program. That’s already a lot of beautiful being cultivated, but it doesn’t stop there.  With the See Beautiful Milestone Grant, Cheatham Hill students will work together to beautify the space, while sharing positive messages and celebrating uniqueness with classmates. To accompany the garden, members of the See Beautiful Club will also share reminders through the school announcements about the special uniqueness of each person. Through the help of the school’s art teacher, students will then harness their own uniqueness by painting a rock. Each rock becomes an expression of the individual. Together, they will also create a pathway to the garden, and offers a visual representation of what the school community already knows so well - that when we work together, we can do anything. AuthorJannan Poppen, Giving Coordinator There is little doubt that art is beautiful. That’s why we go to museums - to experience the beauty and inspiration that art offers. But, the process of creating art is perhaps even more beautiful, and thanks to Paint Love, artists and nonprofits can connect to bring the process of creating and experiencing art to young people who otherwise may not have that exposure. The positive impact on youth that Paint Love helps orchestrate goes beyond the initial opportunity to be involved in an art project. Children who benefit from Paint Love get the opportunity to create art themselves, something maybe they didn’t know they could do. At Paint Love, anyone and everyone can be an artist. As the Paint Love founders state on their website, creating art fosters “self-expression, acceptance, and even emotional healing.” And all of this happens with love at the forefront, providing “fertile ground for positive change and growth to happen.”  From making books at Ronald McDonald House, to transforming a garden at a primary school, each project that Paint Love supports meets the unique needs of the partner organization. In a recent project at the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy, artist Zully Conde helped students design self-expression boxes, with the box serving as a metaphor of how we present ourselves to the world. Society may “box” us into a certain category, or we may chose to hide away certain aspects of ourselves. While the outside of the box represents how the world views us, the inside of the box reveals our true selves. At See Beautiful, we’ve been lucky to know Paint Love for a while and to work with them through our See Beautiful Clubs. So, we were honored that they wanted to use their See Beautiful Milestone Grant to host an art workshop for 50-300 children in underserved areas. No matter the project or participants, always, always, some serious beautiful is being created with Paint Love involved. Keep it up, friends. AuthorJannan Poppen, Giving Coordinator |
See beautiful in yourself.
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