The feature below is brought to you by Heart of Courage, 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. Uniting Families. Changing Futures. Heart of Courage focuses on mentoring and advocating for women who have had their children placed in Child Protective Services and wish to be reunited with their children and create better lives for themselves. Since our inception, we have been able to extend our reach to working with mothers who have aged out of foster care and whose children are either in foster care, or have a strong possibility of being placed in foster care themselves. The overall purpose of our program is to help the mothers in our program become self-sufficient both mentally, emotionally and physically so that they can become better individuals and better mothers to their children. The end result being children united with their mothers into loving and sustainable environments . Our original goal was to help with the large number of placements in foster care. We believed that if possible, children should be with their mothers if their mothers are willing to work hard to make the changes in their lives to create positive and sustainable futures for their children. What we begin to learn, and continue to learn, is that these mothers need a voice. That many of them have a story and their story deserves to be told. We learned that these mothers have incredible strengths, strengths they don’t realize that they have until you as their mentor point it out to them. These mothers have fought abuse of all kinds, teen parents at 12 and 13, addictions, homelessness, abandonment, mental health... and yet they continue to fight for their children. They continue to desire to provide a better life for their children than they had. They just need the support and encouragement- encouragement that they may have never had. We try to offer that to them. Heart of Courage is completely volunteer based. We know that the women in our program, genuinely want to benefit from our array of services, such as education and advocacy, one on one mentoring, parent support groups, job readiness, educational services and community outreach. When we mentor these mothers, they become so excited to have our support because many feel alone. But it is a reward for all of us. The joy we feel when we see a mother, 9 months clean from meth, and know that her child will be coming home to live with her next month is amazing. When we witnessed first-hand the sacrifices she made by making the decision to not go back to the friends and family that she knew would try to keep her in that negative environment. Or the excitement as a few of our mothers enrolled in school, and you watch tears in their eyes because people in their past had told them they weren’t smart. We have one mom, whose goal is to get her GED before she turns 30, which is later this year. She is now in a GED program! We work with each mother to see how she can become self-sufficient and come up with her own set of goals. Each week we work on those goals as well as talk about other things going on in her life. Sometimes it is just listening to her, sometimes it is encouraging her, and sometimes it delivering her tough support and telling her she has to be patient. Telling her to be patient is probably the most difficult because she can easily get disappointed or discouraged. Sometime she gets tired of fighting because she feels like she has been fighting most of her life. It’s during those times that we show her how special she really is and that she has to ignore people’s misjudgments of her and that negative voice inside her head. Instead we tell her to look at how far she has come and to remember that child who she is fighting to make a difference for. That child just sees her as his or her beautiful mommy. We want her to see that same beautiful inside herself and see beautiful in the world. Instead of just living each day as it comes, we see her now living for the future. To get further insight into Heart of Courage and meet one of the mothers we are helping you can watch us on Plugged Into DFW: https://dfw.cbslocal.com/show/plugged-into-dfw/video-3804719-heart-of-courage-3-4/ Written by Dania Carter, Founder/ CEO of Heart of CourageEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful
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The feature below is brought to you by Safe Haven Transitional, 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.  Safe Haven Transitional Inc. offers SAFE dwelling Transitional Housing for abused single women and women with children living in the Atlanta Metropolitan area. Our program provides a variety of supportive services with the necessary tools that will strengthen and equip the women as they re-enter society as healthy independent people. One of our goals is to transform the abused from being Victims to living Victoriously as we educate, empower and raise awareness of the various types of abuse and crimes in the home and in our communities. The Transformers Youth Intervention Program focuses on breaking the inter-generational cycle of abuse and decreasing children’s use of aggressive and internalizing behaviors and the negative effects that domestic violence has on children. The second component of the Transformers Youth Intervention Program is the Haven Girlz and Haven Boyz Program, entitled “No More Pain No More Drama”! This entails regular meetings/sessions for teens in a therapeutic environment that addresses the effects of dysfunctional and unhealthy friendships and relationships such as peer pressure, bullying, abuse, teen pregnancies, self-hatred, sexual molestation, neglect, and abandonment. Please visit our website for more information please visit www.safehaventransitional.org Remember: NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO BE ABUSED and ABUSE OF ANY KIND IS UNACCEPTABLE! Written by Mary Winfrey, Executive Director of Safe Haven Transitional, Inc.Edited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful The feature below is brought to you by Helping Mamas, 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.  Helping Mamas began as a labor of love by two social workers and moms. After 15 years in the social service field, we noticed a huge gap in services. This gap was preventing families from being able to move out of poverty, feel confident in their parenting skills and provide the most basic needs for their children. Prior to Helping Mamas there was no coordinated effort to collect and distribute essential infant and children items. Diapers, wipes, car seats, and cribs are critical to the health and safety of children and are often the most expensive items to purchase. These items cannot be purchased through Public Assistance Programs like WIC and SNAP (formerly Food Stamps). 1 in 3 moms in the United States has to choose between diapers and food for her children. Without an adequate supply of diapers, children can’t attend early childhood education programs. Without childcare, parents can’t work. This gap in services was keeping families stuck in the diaper gap and unable to see the beautiful of being a parent. If you are constantly worried about providing for your child’s most basic needs, you can’t stop and feel the joy of parenting. Helping Mamas was formed to provide these essential basic needs for families who need them the most. At Helping Mamas our mission is to connect helping mamas to mamas needing help. We collect and distribute essential infant and child items to organizations that serve women and children in need. We are the baby supply bank of metro Atlanta. In 2017 we distributed over 500,000 essential items to over 15,000 children living in poverty in Atlanta. We collect and distribute diapers, wipes, clothes, bottles, car seats, cribs, strollers and so much more. We are able to serve children birth to age 12 with our services. We currently partner with over 95 agencies throughout the state of Georgia to provide these items.  Our team was thrilled to learn of the See Beautiful grant! One of our biggest and most effective program to help others see beautiful is our Volunteer Program. We have over 200 volunteers that donate over 2000 hours a year in service to our mission. Helping Mamas is requesting funding to support creating a space in our new building that is solely dedicated to our volunteers. In this space we will have a wall of recognition of our volunteers and a break area that is specifically for them to rest and recharge. The funds from See Beautiful will also help us create more user-friendly work spaces for our volunteers. Our organization is 90% volunteer run. Without their help, the 15,000 children we serve every year wouldn’t get near the amount of items they need to be successful. Our volunteers sort and organize our warehouse, fill wish lists for the families we serve and volunteer at our play date events. Our volunteers help the parents we serve see the beautiful in parenting again. They pack the wish lists with so much love and kindness! Our volunteers help us see beautiful through their service every day. Without them, our work wouldn’t be possible. We want to create an efficient and comfortable work space for them while they are here. We want Helping Mamas to be the place to volunteer in Atlanta. When we encourage others to give back, they are then able to see the beautiful in themselves as well! This funding will also help us create a special place for children to come and volunteer. We love having two generations of volunteers impacting two generations of poverty. This funding will allow us to create a space where kids want to come and give back. They will have tables their size, projects they can complete to help other children and art to go out with each of our wish lists. Engaging children in service is critical in helping us to promote beautiful in every generation. This space will allow for individuals, families, children, and groups to come and help families living in poverty see the beautiful in the world. For more information on how to volunteer with Helping Mamas, please visit their volunteer page of their website, here. Written by Jamie Lackey, CEO and Founder of Helping MamasEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful 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 With community at its core, Beloved Atlanta supports women on their path to overcome commercial sexual exploitation. Women complete three phases over the two-year commitment to the residential program. Through an individualized plan, which includes restoration, education, and employment, women are supported in healing past trauma in order to ultimately graduate from the program with a full-time job and three months of living expenses saved. Seeing the transformation in the lives of the women they serve inspires the BeLoved Atlanta staff. Amelia Quinn, the Founder of BeLoved, shares, “Last Monday we celebrated the college graduation of a BeLoved resident. When she came into the BeLoved Program, she had lost custody of her daughter and had been in and out of addiction for years. I sat in the school auditorium with her daughter, the BeLoved staff and volunteers as we watched her walk across the stage and all yelled and celebrated as loud as we could. The next day she went to her full time job and found out the company was giving her a car.” This kind of success begins with allowing the women to heal from past traumatic experiences. As BeLoved has supported more women, they have witnessed first-hand just how important this foundation of healing can be in each woman’s overall journey. The See Beautiful Milestone Grant funding will help to provide individual counseling to the women of BeLoved Atlanta. Big victories begin with small victories, and counseling helps women to begin building confidence in those small victories.  BeLoved Atlanta seeks to change the perception that women in prostitution are criminals. Rather, they are survivors and leaders. They are “gifted, strong, and trustworthy.” They are beautiful and capable of seeing and creating so much beautiful in themselves and their communities. See Beautiful is honored to support an organization so committed to community and empowering women. Thanks for letting us help celebrate those small victories. AuthorJannan Poppen, Giving Coordinator “If we give girls and women the chance to change their lives, they can change the world.” -Frida Giannini  A wise and trusted teacher or counselor. A guide, adviser, influential supporter. Someone who helps a less experienced person. A mentor can be all of this and more. And for high school girls who are underserved in their communities, a mentor relationship can mean everything. The right mentor can help build confidence, skills, and self-worth and help open the space for girls to see and create more beautiful. Girls Grow Inc supports college women to serve as mentors to high school girls through weekly meetings. Through the Girls Grow curriculum, mentors lead activities and small group discussions “to help foster a sense of Growth, Openness, Respect, and Worth.” College women guide the high schoolers through defining their values, coping with negative emotions, and developing positive self-esteem. The curriculum also covers how to prepare for the future, create and maintain healthy relationships, and even how to develop mindfulness.  In addition to the amazing individual growth that occurs as a result of the mentorship, the group aspect of Girls Grow demonstrates something else transformational to the mentees: the realization that they are not alone. This core element of Girls Grow inspires Natalie, the founder, to keep building and growing the organization. In the two years since its inception, Girls Grow has supported 77 mentors who have empowered more than 230 high school girls. And the impact of Girls Grow is certainly not stopping there.  The $1000 See Beautiful Milestone Grant will allow Girls Grow to develop more training for the mentors. The skill-building that occurs through increased training not only strengthens the impact for the high schoolers, but the mentors carry with them lessons in leadership and relationship-building as well. Relationships and the deep connections formed through Girls Grow are beautiful, indeed, and we are honored be a small part of this uplifting community. 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 The 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.
Do you know your story matters? It does. Do you tell it? You should. Kelly Rae Roberts tells her story, and it's a beautiful one that inspires others. This is a piece of her collection. Are you seeing beautiful? We do.  Kelly Rae Roberts' thinking about her work emulates the mission of See Beautiful. She shares, "My hope is that my work invokes a sense of clarity and peace within you as you walk your own path in life, and that it inspires you discover your own limitlessness." We think this philosophy, matched with her art, exemplifies many ways to see beautiful: 1. Find clarity and peace in the every day. 2. Be inspired by art (and you define the art). 3. Discover your own limitlessness and be empowered by doing so. 4. Remember that your story matters. 5. Honor your voice and tell your story. * Kelly Rae Roberts website * Kelly Rae Roberts blog * Kelly Rae Roberts on Twitter * * Kelly Rae Roberts on Facebook * Author: Lydia Criss MaysFounder & CEO, See Beautiful |
See beautiful in yourself.
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