The feature below is brought to you by Realize Your Beauty, 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. “I learned that you can’t judge a book by its cover but by the details inside. Everyone has the same problems; everyone is unique, original and beautiful. I got to let out my thoughts and experiences in a peaceful fun way. I also got to let everything out to people in a group”. – Raynell, age 14 Realize Your Beauty is so excited for the opportunity to share our work with the See Beautiful community! To begin, we’d love to tell you more about who we are and what we do. Let’s start with our mission statement: Realize Your Beauty promotes positive body image to youth through theatre arts. We bring plays, workshops & summer camps to youth to promote self-esteem & kindness. Our workshops focus on fostering inner beauty- taking the focus away from societal standards and the pressure to be 'pretty'. We encourage students to put their energy into kindness, integrity and respect towards themselves and others and to focus on developing their own unique inner qualities. For our older students, we also teach eating disorder awareness. Teaching them the signs & symptoms of an eating disorder, and how to reach out for help if they or a friend need support. RYB is a 501c3 based in NYC, with program offerings in New York and Colorado. Our website can be found here: http://realizeyourbeauty.org  The Project Currently, Realize Your Beauty is hard at work preparing for our summer camps. This summer we are creating more beautiful by helping our campers fully discover the incredible gifts they have to offer to this world! We teach them that they are the most beautiful when they are the most themselves. Encouraging campers to understand that beauty comes from within and helping them to build their confidence allows them to grow and create their own beautiful in this world! “Never judge someone based on how they look. Get to know them better and their personality before you say something. I learned you must accept yourself for others to accept you”. – Rabeenah, age 14 More about camp: Every summer we hold Camp Realize Your Beauty- a 5-night summer sleepaway camp at the base of Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, Colorado. The summer camp teaches classic theatre techniques, while also including ‘empowerment’ workshops throughout the day. Our campers learn acting, play writing & directing skills, with a special emphasis placed on developing a positive sense of self. We cover the following topics of ‘empowerment’: self-esteem, kindness (towards self and others) and anti-bullying. Our course also includes tons of traditional camp fun – including nature walks, archery, arts & crafts, fire rings and s’mores! Throughout the week, the campers use their new knowledge and skills to create their own theatre piece, to be performed for parents on the final day of camp, at pick-up time. “I learned that I don’t have to say bad things about other people. They taught us that we are beautiful how we are, not how we look.” – Eloidy, age 13  The Need Camp Realize Your Beauty highly values a diverse and inclusive camp. We prioritize making camp a safe and judgment-free zone, and to include campers and counselors of all backgrounds. Among the ways that Camp RYB focuses on these philosophies is by making sure that campers of all financial backgrounds have access to our programs. For this reason, it is extremely important to us that camp remains affordable and accessible to children of all backgrounds. To that end, we keep our tuition as low as we possibly can and provide discounts and scholarships for those campers in financial need. This summer, 1/3 of our campers will attend camp on reduced tuition. However, the low tuition means that without support, it’s very difficult for us to meet our expenses. This summer is no exception, and Realize Your Beauty is in urgent need of support to bridge the gap between our summer camp expenses and the income we will receive from campers. With support, our summer camp can grow and thrive, and we can encourage a whole new generation to create beautiful in this world! We’re very grateful to See Beautiful for the opportunity to share our story! To learn more about our programs, please visit our website: realizeyourbeauty.org “I am now working towards being fully confident in my own skin & have tips on how to do it in the right way.” – Danielle, age 12   Written by Stacey Lorin Merkl, Founder and Executive Directory of Realize Your BeautyEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful
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The feature below is brought to you by Paint Love, 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. Paint Love brings free, high-quality arts programming to youth facing poverty or trauma. “Sometimes when I feel mad at myself, I will say mean things about myself like I’m stupid, or I’m ugly. But since we did this Paint Love project, now I will think about myself that I’m smart, and unique, and perfect just the way I am.” Fourth grader at Powder Springs Elementary School, working with Artfully Made Club The ten-year-old girl smiles and goes back to creating a mosaic border around a mirror on which she has written “I am smart and quirky,” as a daily reminder to herself. Being a kid is hard enough- facing self-doubt, bullying, and peer pressure. But for the two thousand young people Paint Love works with each year, growing up is even more stressful. Most of the kids in this project, this school, and throughout other schools and nonprofits Paint Love serves, are growing up facing poverty or trauma.  Paint Love empowers kids through art. Our programs go above and beyond the ordinary. Paint Love projects introduce youth to new ways of seeing beautiful in the world, their community, and themselves. Through projects like screen printing, wax encaustics, collaborative murals, metal pours and metalsmithing, writing and storytelling, design and illustration, stop-motion animation, glass blowing, quilt making, sculpture, paper making, photography, and more, our programs teach new mediums while incorporating intentional themes and social-emotional skill building focused on seeing and creating beauty and goodness. Paint Love serves young people who often have the least access to the arts and creative self- expression, but could benefit the most. To reach youth who face, or risk facing, poverty or trauma, we pair local, professional artists with Title 1 schools and youth-serving nonprofits. Paint Love takes care of all the planning and provides all the supplies to create extraordinary projects that our partners wouldn’t be able to do on their own.  Our nonprofit partners serve children fleeing domestic violence, facing sexual abuse, grieving after the loss of a parent or sibling, homeless youth, new immigrants and refugees, and more. Our school partners are designated Title 1 by the GA Department of Education based on the number of students eligible for free/ reduced lunch (FRL). On average, 65-95% of their students are eligible for FRL. Over half of the art teachers have zero budget for supplies, and at best, serve between 500-1000 students with a supply budget of $1- $3 per student for the entire year. Since Atlanta is a hub for newcomer refugees and immigrants, most school partners have a high rate of English language learners and children who do not speak English as well as high numbers of transient students- including homeless children and those in the foster care system.  Studies show that constant stress (like growing up in poverty) or trauma (like losing a parent or being abused) impacts kids’ developing brains and has a permanent effect on their lifelong ability to do everything from have healthy relationships to manage emotions. Arts engagement is actually proven to reduce stress and teach skills that can help them live healthy, happy lives. Here is one example of how Paint Love’s art programs make a difference in kids’ lives: Cat Goolsby, a professional metalsmith and Paint Love artist, works often with teens from Wellspring Living, a residential program for girls who have been removed from sex trafficking. A young woman participating in Cat’s jewelry making workshop is trusted with real tools like a motorized drill and experiences how good it feels to earn trust, and even overcomes a little bit of fear operating the machine or stamping a piece of metal. When she gets discouraged that her pendant didn’t come out how she wanted, she is supported and encouraged to try again and she learns persistence. When she is finished, she gifted the necklace to a friend, and she feels pride that she created something beautiful and unique and happy to have something to give away. Through this project, she learns new skills and her mind is challenged in new ways with designing and creating. She acknowledges and manages tough emotions, and thinks of a way to do something kind for someone else. She sees that everyone’s projects came out differently and there is more than one way to do the project. She learns to control her anger and frustration, maybe she realizes that drawing designs is calming to her and recognizes that is something she can do next time she gets upset. She has fun and leaves feeling good about herself, and like she can successfully tackle new challenges.  Paint Love would use support from See Beautiful to bring empowering arts programming to new Title 1 school partners in the upcoming school year. We currently have a waiting list of teachers and principals from Title 1 schools across the Metro-Atlanta area who want to bring Paint Love projects to their students. Our school partners receive a minimum of 8-12 hours of programming, but sometimes, with funding support from the community, we have the capacity to offer even more, like the recent 200- foot mural artist Brent Coleman created with students at Clarkdale Elementary. At Clarkdale, 86% of students are economically disadvantaged and receive free or reduced lunch. Brent volunteered over 80 hours and worked with all 800 students during every stage from planning the mural to the final touches. The mural highlights the STEAM focus at Clarkdale and the international community at the school, as well as includes sections where the kids could paint anything they wanted to represent themselves and leave their mark on their school in a big way!  We believe every child should have access to programming that helps them see beautiful and encourages them to spread that beauty. Paint Love serves See Beautiful’s priorities of equity, inclusion, justice, and peace, as our core mission is built around providing opportunities to youth across the spectrum of access, ability, and privilege, with a special focus on those who are often overlooked and underserved. At Paint Love, we choose art as our tool because we know how transformational it can be, but our main priority is always empowering youth to create and see the beautiful in themselves and their world, even beyond the time they are holding a paintbrush.  Written by Laura Shaw, Operations Manager at Paint LoveEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful The feature below is brought to you by YFC Maine, 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. There is a lot of "ugly" in our community of Howland, Maine, and well, in our world, really. Did you know our small city’s hospital is the leading hospital in the United States for delivering drug addicted babies? Or that over half of our town’s school population goes hungry for meals each and every day? Did you know that on average our community’s prison holds a minimum of over 50 more inmates than it is designed to hold? Or that our EMT’s administer more Narcan (a heroin overdose reversal drug) on average more each day than previous years combined? There is a lot of "ugly" in our community. Sometimes it’s easy to get distracted, caught up, if you will, in all of the ugly. But there is beautiful... A whole lot of beautiful... Our aim is to help bring light to that beautiful. Rather than getting lost in the statistics and all of the ugly, we hope to walk through the ugly and fix our eyes to the beautiful. My husband and I spent five years working for a local high school. A baby brought about a job change and we found ourselves running a restaurant in our community. We began to see life from both sides, first our students’ and then what these students were aspiring to do after high school. This dishearteningly opened our eyes to the drug epidemic’s full force. It knows no bounds or social status. Young lives are being ripped apart in an ever increasing force. On more than one occasion, I cried with our community members as they chose to spend their last dollars to feed their drug addiction, instead of their children. It’s not just a statistic to say over half of our students are going hungry everyday. It’s real lives, real children, right here. It was through having our eyes really opened to all of the ugly around us, that we knew we needed to strive to create beauty in the midst. Through law enforcement friends and area organizations, we began to see the generational issues that were at hand. It wasn't just young people, but young and old alike. A sheriff patrolling our town once told me that in the same day he had arrested a grandmother, father, and son all in the same family, for separate crimes. That's when we began to think, “What if we created an avenue were we could reach students before they became a statistic? What if every student we came into contact with knew they were loved, pursued (we were around for the long haul), and that they were beautiful?” We teamed up with YfC a nationally recognized after school program, to create an avenue, an escape for students in need. Our aim is to be there, to place caring adults into the lives of students for genuine relationships, no strings attached - just purely loving on the hurt and broken (and who isn't hurt and broken?) helping them see the beauty in their own lives. We do this through Campus Life nights, which are high energy, everyone come-as-you-are evenings. Where we create a family-like atmosphere, we discuss things like making the right choices and how to navigate hurdles life undoubtedly throws at us. We also hold regular events which are just different ways we have fun with each other! Most recently we teamed up with our local high school to provide much needed meals for our students. While the school works tremendously hard to see that no student goes hungry during the school year, they are left with a loss over the summer months. That's where we were able to step in and continue their food program all summer long ensuring that no child goes hungry in our community. We recently applied for a grant through an amazing organization called See Beautiful. If chosen, this grant will help further our program, help us finalize our building, replenish our food supply, and ensure that our program continues to run. See Beautiful's mission is to help create more beautiful in the world, and they do just that through a tremendous history of giving to nonprofits. You may also purchase clothing, jewelry and more from their site to help them continue their beautiful work. I wanted to paint a picture of our community, how our students are living, what it is like day-to-day to be a student in the Howland area. Although it may seem like the odds are stacked against these students, they are beginning to see the beauty in our community around them, and they are beginning to learn that they have people in their corner. A small town carpenter has donated countless hours to help us prepare our building for the upcoming food program, because he sees beautiful in these kids... The town unanimously voted to sell us the building at a ridiculously low price, even when they could get more, simply because they see beautiful in what we are doing together... A family of 8 living in one small trailer handed me what could possibly have been their last $10 bill to further help those students who are hungry. We see beautiful in their sacrifice. A man whose name I don’t even know backed his truck up to mine and said, “The back end is full of food. Get it to families that need it.” He left without another word, because his thanks was in seeing the beautiful of giving. We are seeing beautiful. Written by Kayla Thompson for YFC MaineEdited by Jannan Poppen for See Beautiful The feature below is brought to you by Georgia Steppers League, 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.  The Georgia Steppers League Creates More Beautiful Youth Step League Highlights Individualism Through Creative Expression The world is just a bit more beautiful when it is colored with the creativity and comradery displayed by the members of the Georgia Steppers League. The Metro Atlanta-based league, now entering its tenth year, has served as the umbrella organization for more than 1,000 male and female step team performers ranging in age from kindergarten to college freshmen. Since its inception, the league has taken pride in providing leadership training, character building workshops, college scholarships and local competitions awarding cash prizes to winning teams from Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida. The Georgia Steppers League’s 2018-2019 initiative, “Bring Back Our Boys,” is in final grant review with See Beautiful and the league hopes to use the funding award to recruit and support more male participants during this year’s competitive season. With the funding, the league will continue its impact in area schools by developing student ambassadors who will provide leadership in their local communities. Any young man receiving funding through this source will be charged to conduct one culminating team event inspiring league members to see what beautiful in themselves and one another. The league’s goal is to provide a lens for students to use to see themselves as the beautiful individuals they are. In addition to serving area young men, the league provides ten months of services to any student wanting to be a part of a step team program. The league has been home to over fourteen teams who hold national titles as the best of the best in the country. As the league continues its mission and vision to Empower, Expose and Elevate is members, it is evident that a partnership with See Beautiful is a perfect, beautiful combination. Written by Clarisse Frazier of Georgia Steppers LeagueEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful 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 At the Hope Shines summer camp, campers complete arts and crafts activities, practice dance routines, and play games. They get to know the other campers and camp mentors and laugh and build community with one another. They share meals, encourage each other, and gain confidence. All of this sounds like a typical summer camp, but the Hope Shines summer camp is so much more. Every summer, 36 Rwandan kids come together for a special fun-filled week where “imagination meets education.” In addition to the standard camp fare of games and crafts, the kids learn through an ever-changing curriculum that includes everything from Engineering to Global Geography to English speaking. And it always includes a strong focus on health and hygiene. Dan Gladden, Hope Shines’ Executive Director, explains what the health and hygiene curriculum entails, “This year’s curriculum includes oral hygiene, fluoride treatments, annual health checks by a doctor, a science and engineering curriculum, first-aid, a self-esteem workshop, malaria prevention, and HIV/AIDS prevention.” The children also receive nutritionally-fortified meals and clean water to drink throughout the camp. For the camp participants, whose families live on an average of $17 per month, access to healthy food and clean water is paramount. It helps relieve the financial burden on their families and of course, improves their health.  One way Hope Shines provides healthy meals is through their sustainable greenhouse project. Once crops are harvested from the greenhouse, they not only go toward the camps’ meals, but they are also sold to provide sustainable revenue. The See Beautiful Milestone Grant funding will help sustain the greenhouse project and will also offset the major cost of running the camp - transportation to and from the camp. Although the grant funding will support the summer camp operations, Hope Shines stays busy year round with their various programs. They provide basic needs for education, such as uniforms and school supplies and run an after-school program to keep students engaged and learning when they are not in school. And the focus on healthy children serves as a tenant of Hope Shines, empowering young people to understand and respect their bodies.  With values like healthy living, integrity, sustainability, commitment to children, and expanding impact, it’s safe to say that Hope Shines creates beautiful in the lives of the children and families they serve. And See Beautiful stands behind them every step of the way. AuthorJannan Poppen, Giving Coordinator  We have a lot of caregivers, educational stakeholders, and families in our See Beautiful Community. We also have an amazing opportunity for you to get kids involved in an art project that leads to more beautiful for an extraordinary non-profit: Helping Mamas! Short story: Your kid(s) creates a piece of art depicting "A Vision of Unity" and it will be on display at Helping Mama's Art Show!  More details: Helping Mamas is an amazing Atlanta non-profit doing incredible work to empower families and organizations in need. They're hosting an Art Exhibit called: A Vision of Unity. All of the art displayed will be student art work and YOUR kid(s) can create it! The art will be matted by Helping Mama's and on display at their event on Saturday, May 13th at The Hudgens Center for the Arts. Please let us, or Helping Mama's, know if you'd like to participate and we can get you additional details! Visit Helping Mama's invitation HERE. Know a non-profit we should partner with? Tell us about them on our nomination/application page. Inspired by this post and want to spread the word? Share away.... Author: Lydia Criss MaysFounder & Owner, See Beautiful “Love knows nothing of short hauls because it has committed itself for the long haul.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough We're in it for the long haul. Our love isn't going anywhere. I stare at the faces of these amazing, resilient, loving, trusting, hope-filled girls and they make me see beautiful. I listen to their conversations that empower each other and come together to plan ways to make the world - THE WHOLE WORLD - a better place and it gives me chills. I watch them turn dreams into action and I cannot imagine not having learned from them. Their lives have been filled with much fear as refugees, losing their home and all they know. Can you imagine? As a child? Their lives have been shaken in ways children should never experience. I love knowing that when they needed comfort and love our Country had open arms and provided a home of refuge - a place where children could run and play and feel safe. We are a people who love and serve and give. We love our neighbor. We love strangers. This is why we are here: To love everyone. Always. When our ability to love others is threatened, we dig in. We're strong and awesome like that. Love can't be stopped. The girls in our See Beautiful Clubs know this and I'm so glad they do. I'm so glad they'll never have to wonder if they're valued and loved here. They are. We work to reinforce this understanding all the time. We're a country of WE - a WE that brings love to the table and we're in it to win it. Love always wins.  Author: Lydia Criss Mays; Founder of See BeautifulThe beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you." ~ B.B. King Join us in celebrating our newest giving initiative with the Kutemwa Foundation. The Kutemwa Foundation, alleviates the cost of schooling for young children in Lusaka, Zambia, by providing funding for required school supplies. Additionally, many children with whom they support are vulnerable to not being able to continue education or are orphans and must receive supplemental financial support to attend school. Since schools in Zambia work on a trimester schedule, there are three points during the year they look provide funding for school supplies including books, pencils, paper and more to the tune of $6-7 per child. Additionally, when the school year starts many children do not have the means to pay for tuition or school uniforms. And while this is only Kutemwa Foundation's first year of operation, they are working to collect livelihood gifts to bless children with for the coming year (i.e., soap, toothbrushes, etc). How your purchase helps: Your purchase provides a child with required school supplies for an entire trimester. Additional funding from this Giving Initiative will provide tuition for students who need the supplemental support. Connect with Kutemwa Foundation directly here, Facebook, & Instagram.
Just so you know, this isn't one of those, "Breakfast In Bed" stories, though we can see a lot of beauty in having breakfast delivered to bed. This story was shared by a mom who didn't find it that beautiful when she discovered food popping in her bed. "A day in my life.... Mom (YELLING...and ANGRY): WHO was eating popcorn in my bed?!!!! Will: I did. I was cold and your bed is warm and it smells like you when your covers give me a hug. Mom (walking away, smiling, comment to herself): Damn! He is good!"  Leave it to the wisdom of a child to help us understand what it means to eat in bed for love. Here are a few ways he helped us see beautiful: 1) Covers give hugs. 2) Beds offer warmth. 3) Beds smell like people we love. 4) Finding a comfortable place to eat makes food taste that much better. 5) Eating in bed can be filling in more ways than one. As you crawl into bed tonight, perhaps you'll see beautiful in ways you never have. Let the covers give you a hug and carry you to sleep, feeling more love than this morning when you climbed out of the hug-giver. And for those days you find crumbs in your bed, instead of anger, feel the love. Who knew popcorn could help you see beautiful? Are you looking for a tangible reminder to see beautiful, or know someone who needs one? Check out our See Beautiful™ products (and feel good knowing a portion of every sale is donated to the See Beautiful Giving Initiative of your choice. Author: Lydia Criss MaysFounder & Owner, See Beautiful |
See beautiful in yourself.
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