The feature below is brought to you by LOTUS Legal Clinic, 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.  Mending broken into BeautifulIntroducing LOTUS Legal Clinic! LOTUS was founded in 2013 to provide Legal Options for Trafficked and Under-served Survivors (LOTUS) in Wisconsin. Our mission is to serve victims of gender-based violence and human trafficking (labor and sex) through trauma informed legal advocacy, policy initiatives, education, and survivor empowerment. Gender Based violence is an ugly problem! Rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, and sex trafficking are forms of gender- based violence that are not typically addressed in regular legal practice; LOTUS is fighting to change that. “Creating a beautiful life.. with what is left” LOTUS sees the inherent worth and humanity of every survivor. We give each client a beautiful quilt handmade by the Material Girls. The Material Girls is a group of 25 women in Baraboo, Wisconsin, who have provided LOTUS more than 200 quilts for survivors. These extraordinary quilts are gifts to lift up fellow women, girls, and boys who have been abused and trafficked. The quilts given to LOTUS’s clients remind them there is beautiful in the world and someone cares about them with no expectations- no strings attached. “Many of the fabrics are less than top-of-the line since quilters are a frugal bunch who often make do with what is left. Sort of like creating a beautiful life or a gift with what is left”  “This quilt reminds me every day that people care. Especially in times of self-doubt and difficulty, I like to wrap up and it makes me feel safe” Samantha’s Story LOTUS met Samantha, a fifteen-year old survivor of human sex trafficking, last year. While she was in “the life” everything had been controlled by her trafficker including food, clothes and possessions. When she left the exploitation and went into a state-sponsored care program, she had nothing to call her own. For Samantha, her inability to trust others made her sometimes feel like the state took the trafficker’s place in providing her physical necessities. She still had nothing to call her own. Despite her strong spirit and intelligence, her trauma made it hard to adjust and to sleep, get back on track with education, and form healthy relationships. In time, she came to LOTUS for legal assistance related to her victimization. After the first meeting, Samantha received a vivid handmade quilt from LOTUS’s executive director and staff attorney. This quilt was her very own. She helped pick the patterns and the colors that felt most like her “Soulmatch,” and said that it was something that belonged to her that no one could ever take back. LOTUS hopes for $3,500 in support from See Beautiful. The Material Girls intend to continue making quilts for survivors and even have plans to recruit other quilt guilds in Wisconsin to help. Although the Material Girls have an unlimited desire to help, they have limited resources to acquire the materials and make recruiting trips. Support from See Beautiful would offset some of these costs. The price of materials (fabric, batting, machine quilting) is about $200-$250 (minimum) per quilt. Additional costs for other supplies (e.g., thread, needles, fusible webbing, binding; cost of electricity; cost for trips to shop for supplies and deliver quilts to LOTUS) are extra. In addition to materials, a lot of time and talent are required to make the quilts. Volunteers contribute many hours to making this project successful (shopping for materials, design, sewing, machine quilting; washing, drying, cutting, and ironing fabric; piecing together the fabric; etc.). The volunteer commitment alone is estimated at between $14,500- $48,000! You can’t put a price on feeling valued and respected for who you really are, “as is”; there’s nothing you can buy that says Made From the Heart like the work of human hands who put love in every stitch. LOTUS knows this project changes lives. Written by Madeline Monien for LOTUS LegalEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful
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The feature below is brought to you by Foster Care Alliance, 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 best way for us to introduce to you the work that we do is to share with you a story of one of our moms and her daughter. To see the beautiful in the faces of moms who want second chances and precious children who are always ready with pure forgiveness. A precious 3 year old girl, so excited to see her mommy, came in from the car. I walked them through our building, offering fresh coffee on the way down. And then we walked into the visitation room, a giant wooden playhouse in the middle with a bright blue slide caught her attention. She ran straight to the slide, then to the coloring books, then the fishing poles with magnetic fish, then the kiddie kitchen and so on. So many toys, so many windows with the sun shining in on the beautiful mural! Val: "She is in heaven! This is the most beautiful visitation center I have ever seen! Can we do visits here every week?" Chelsea: "I am so glad you all love it. Make yourself at home. And yes, we would love to have you every week!" Kate arrives 15 minutes later. A friend had dropped her off. She walked in the front door. Kate: "Hi I'm Kate. Is my baby here?" Kate's daughter hadn't seen her mom in several months. But, it was as if no time had passed. She heard her mom's voice as we walked down the stairs and you heard her sweet voice get super quiet. Then she said, "Is that my mommy?" She squealed with excitement and hugged her momma's neck. // Isn't it amazing how much we can learn from children? The ability to forgive and forget.The ability to love with no strings attached. And the ability to always give second, third, and fiftieth chances! // They played and laughed. My heart was glad. After their visit, Kate and I met. Our time was sweet. Her story was typical. No family, so support, no education, and no resources. So, where does she start? We talked through the Reunification Readiness Process at the Foster Care Alliance: - Initial Reunification Readiness Assessment (Reassessed for progress every 3 months) - Weekly Birth Parent Coaching Group - 2 hours/ week - Employment Coaching - Weekly Visitation with her daughter - 2 hours/ week CONSISTENT AND MOTIVATED ATTITUDE FOR 1 MONTH - Place in an apartment. - Write reports and attend court hearings to document progress. - Reunification with children (DFCS lead). CONTINUE IN THE PROGRAM TO COMPLETE 12 MONTH I told her that we are not a service provider, but a community program. Kate: "What does that mean?" Chelsea: "That means we don't check boxes and send you on your way. We are your community, your safe place. You don't have a mom, or a person to ask questions? We can stand in that gap and be that for you." Kate: "Really? I want all of that!" She signed the program agreement and signed up. She wanted to better herself. She wanted to get her GED. She wanted help, but no one had offered before.... UNTIL NOW We have asked for this grant to help pay the fees for mothers like this one to be able to participate in our program and become healthy parents for their children. Written By Chelsea Sabo, Executive Director of Foster Care AllianceEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful The feature below is brought to you by Every Woman Works, 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. Kamp Kids SEE BEAUTIFUL! How Every Kids Kamp got started… Hello See Beautiful Community! My name is Sonia and in order to share about what we do at Every Woman Works (EWW) and the program this grant was written for - Every Kids Kamp, I will have to share a little about my background. As mentioned in our SEE BEAUTIFUL application, Every Woman Works is a job readiness program serving a portion of Atlanta's disadvantaged and displaced women as they move from homelessness (to include homeless female veterans), alcohol and substance abuse, domestic abuse and system dependency to a life of self sufficiency. In January of 2013, as an Army veteran of 9 years and combat veteran, I found myself homeless due to PTSD, depression and anxiety. While at a transitional housing program in Atlanta called Mary Hall Freedom House (MHFH), I was referred to Every Woman Works - a holistic job readiness program for women. Even though I needed help, I didn’t know how to let others in because of the walls I had built due to challenges I’d been facing. The staff at EWW helped me to break down those walls and find healing as I took the necessary steps towards gainful employment and regaining my identity. This was in 2013. That summer, I was employed but still in transitional housing. The most challenging thing about being in transition with a child(ren), is knowing that you’re receiving the help and support you need emotionally and mentally but not having the necessary resources to help your child(ren) as they transition. I found an AMAZING summer camp 2 hours south of Atlanta called Camp Grace for my then 9 year old son Michael. After spending a week with nothing but unlimited fun tailored to him, as we drove back to MHFH, I literally heard… “Is Michael the only child in transition that needs camp?” So I’m having this conversation with God like, “G, really? I’m homeless right now dude AND you want me to take other kids to camp? I’m barely making ends meet in taking care of the one I have! Come on, really?” I know, G and I have a unique relationship. One day at EWW, I shared with a board member that my son Michael had the most amazing time at Camp Grace and I mentioned how much it costed for him to attend. She was blown away and wrote the check that provided sponsorship to take 7 kids to camp. That’s how Every Kids Kamp was started. Since then, I have been partnering with other camps throughout the Atlanta Metro area that cultivates relationships with these kids for years to come. Every Kids Kamp serves not just the children of the women at Every Woman Works but MHFH, AutoGift and kids from several other nonprofits as well as children in low income families or families facing financial hardships. How are you creating more beautiful? There is nothing more beautiful than helping to change a child's heart and mind from doubt, fear, and hopelessness to acceptance, inclusiveness, fun and love. One week in nature, surrounded and supported by kind, authentic, loving people, free to just be kids and play, creates beautiful, lasting memories for children whose life experience have been challenging thus far. I am the mother of one of those boys who experienced the saving grace of summer camp and his life has forever been changed because of it. His mind was expanded and challenged and camp provided him with opportunities to discover who he is truly meant to be. As the mothers of these children are breaking the cycle of dependency, their children are experiencing the potential that life has to offer and I am helping pay it forward so other kids (and parents) can experience the change that summer camp brings. Since graduating from Every Woman Works, I’ve started Every Kids Kamp, served on the board of Every Woman Works and currently serve as their Camp Director (this is a volunteer position). I’m also on the board of directors of Mary Hall Freedom House and another non-profit called AutoGift where we gift single moms with minor children, and no access to a vehicle, with ownership of debt free transportation. We’ve also partnered with Camp Grace for the past 5 years. We are so excited to be a part of the SEE BEAUTIFUL community, and even more excited to learn about all the other amazing programs that are creating beautiful in the life of others. Please visit us at www.everywomanworks.org or take a look at our brochure to learn more about who we are and what we do. Thank you guys for SEEING and SUPPORTING Beautiful! Summer 2016   Summer 2015 Written by Sonia Simon of Every Woman WorksThe feature below is brought to you by Empowered Readers, 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.  Who We Are We are the Empowered Readers Literacy Project, a non-profit dreamed up by a 5-year-old little girl who set out to tackle illiteracy by helping families build strong reading rituals and by getting kids excited about reading. With this See Beautiful grant, we will fund Project 500. We take a holistic, emergent approach to literacy. We believe that literacy is more than a set of skills that enables a child or adult to memorize words and sound out phonics. We believe that literacy is not something that is simply taught, and it does not start when a child begins school. Literacy is a complex process that starts at birth and requires family and community connection. We are helping kids and families change the focus of reading by engaging them in imaginative adventures and tapping into their creativity. We believe that books with diverse and engaging content, shared in connection with real human interaction, will get kids excited about reading on their own and with their families. The Work We Do "Every kid deserves to read." - Selah Nicole We create hope and inspire dreams in the hearts of at-risk children (ages 0-9) and their families through the empowerment of reading and providing access to books. We achieve this through our 4 core programs that impact families and children at key intersections that are at the heart of the DNA of a creating a good habit. Adventure Time Readers Club After-school Program Our free after-school program for K-3rd grade students at Title 1 schools within the Atlanta Public Schools District. We gamify reading for kids, engage them in readers’ theatre, and provide them with free books monthly to add to their Project 500 Library at home. Project 500 Our initiative to give families access to the necessary tools to literacy by helping them build an in-home library of 500 books. Studies show that when kids have 500 books or more in their homes, their education is boosted 3.2 years on average. Adventure Bag of Books -- Pediatrician Partnerships Building strong reading rituals starts early. Our initiative to get books in the hands of new parents and young, non-school-aged children (ages 0-3). Children and Parents receive an Adventure Bag of Books at their Well Visit doctor’s appointments to add to their Project 500 Libraries at home. Out of the Margins Our initiative to eradicate library deserts and help move communities out of the margins of literacy. We identify library deserts and build and maintain Little Free Libraries, giving under served communities access to books. The Beauty We Create We are creating beautiful in children, beautiful in families and beautiful in communities. The joy that children experience when books comes to life for them is beautiful. The unity that families share when they build reading rituals together is beautiful. The empathy exhibited by a community of children and adults giving back to help their neighbors learn to love reading is beautiful. If you are passionate about reading, family and community, contact us today to see how you can help us positively impact people's’ lives. Contact: [email protected] Written by Nicole E. Thompson, Executive Director of Empowered ReadersEdited 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 The feature below is brought to you by Diversify Dietetics, 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. Registered dietitians nutritionists (RDNs) are the nation’s nutrition experts. We are the healthcare providers you come to in order to learn how to navigate eating out when your child has a life-threatening food allergy, when you’re diagnosed with gestational diabetes during your first pregnancy, or when your friend is in a traumatic car accident and placed on a feeding tube as his only source of nutrition. We can be found in every hospital caring for patients, every school system creating healthy meals for kids, and pretty much at any other community organization or corporation that has anything to do with food. If you’ve eaten a meal anytime lately (read: all of us!) an RDN has influenced your food choices somewhere along the way. But here’s the problem: our profession is comprised of only 9% professionals of color. We do not reflect the diverse populations that we serve. This lack of diversityin our profession has persisted for years. For some groups, such as for African Americans, the number of students choosing to study nutrition in accredited programs (the only pathway of becoming an RDN) has fallen in recent years. This lack of diversity affects the quality of care that we give to the clients, patients and students that we serve. When there is less diversity amongst healthcare professionals, research has shown that the care for patients and students of color also suffers. Our patients and students are more receptive to taking recommendations from providers that look like them because they feel that the provider or educator might understand them and their needs better. The nation’s population is rapidly becoming more diverse and needs its food and nutrition healthcare experts to reflect its diversity.  How do we create a more diverse RDN workforce? It’s simple: by increasing the number of dietetics students of color. Except that it’s not so simple: the educational pathway to dietetics is not an easy one. It requires a student to complete a bachelor’s degree in a science-heavy curriculum, with courses such as biochemistry, metabolism, microbiology, organic chemistry (I and II!). Students must also compete to be accepted into a post-baccalaureate internship, where only about 50% of students who apply are accepted. These internships are not only unpaid, the students usually have to pay tuition to attend. This all culminates to the largest exam any of us RDNs ever take: The Registration Exam for Dietitians. If you don’t pass this exam, you don’t become an RDN. Oh yes, and in 2024, a master’s degree will become the minimum requirement to become an RDN. All of this means: barriers along the way for students of color who want to become RDNs. This is where Diversify Dietetics comes in. After all of this seemingly bad news for students of color it was time to See Beautiful! Diversify Dietetics’ mission is to increase diversity in the field of nutrition by empowering students and young professionals from underrepresented minority groups to join the next generation of nutrition experts. We are aiming to achieve this by creating a community for students, professionals and educators, dedicated to increasing ethnic and racial diversity in the field of nutrition and dietetics. In just our first few months of launching, we have connected with hundreds of current students and dietetic interns of color, finding them where students are these days: on Instagram and Facebook. We are offering free or low-cost, high quality programming that uses social media and technology to extend our reach. Some of the programs are our RDN Spotlight Series, where we highlight RDNs of color, because we believe representation matters. We are also recruiting mentors and mentees for our 2018-19 Mentor Program. Our program is a little different from other mentor programs, because where we don’t see success in a current method, we always aim to go beyond the status quo and find a more effective way. We have also launched our “Feed Me the Facts” Facebook Live Series, which covers topics and offers resources critical to the educational success, specifically targeted to students of color.  Tamara Melton with her students at Georgia State University We have also connected with hundreds of educators- which is critical to our mission. Educators are the gatekeepers- the ones who get to decide who is accepted into these accredited dietetics programs and internships. Using ideas stemming from our own lived experiences, and from the feedback from the students we’ve connected with, we are developing training webinars and workshops for dietetics educators to better prepare them for recruiting, retaining and supporting students of color. These professional development experiences will include such skills as unconscious-bias training for faculty, admissions committees and preceptors, will showcase effective recruitment techniques, and will offer examples for promoting cultural and structural sensitivity throughout the curriculum and in student advisement. If we are selected for to receive the See Beautiful grant, we will be using this support to host our first large-scale Educators’ Workshop during this fall’s Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo (FNCE). FNCE is the largest annual conference for RDNs; it will allow us to offer this workshop to educators from all over the country. We will then tweak the workshop based on evaluations from our attendees and our own observations. The funds generated at this first workshop will provide us the capital needed to refine and offer an improved and more focused workshop to educators on their campuses all around the country. All of these initiatives will help us to increase the number of RDNs of color, and better serve all of our patients, clients and students. We are so excited to have found the See Beautiful community, and are thankful for this opportunity to share our story! You can read more about the co-founders of Diversify Dietetics, Deanna Belleny and Tamara Melton, here. Written by Tamara Melton, Co-founder of Diversify DieteticsEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful 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 Friends to the Forlorn Pitbull Rescue, 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. Friends to the Forlorn Pitbull Rescue creates beautiful from unexpected places  Forlorn: pitifully sad and abandoned or lonely. The word forlorn isn’t one that you would to describe beauty. However, beauty from despair is exactly what Friends to the Forlorn Pitbull Rescue strives to create. FTTF was founded in 2009 after founder Jason Flatt learned the plight of the pit bull. Pit bulls are the breed that even dog lovers love to hate. These dogs are discriminated against, abused, discarded, and forgotten, but we seek to step in and change fate for these pups. Friends to the Forlorn Pitbull Rescue is a volunteer and foster program for pit bull rescue located in Dallas, GA. We aren’t your typical rescue, we rescue with our hearts and not with our pockets. We search out the dogs that no one else will take: those with major medical issues, behavioral issues, emotional issues, and more. We see the beautiful in these animals. We know that, more often than not, they just need a little love to make all of the difference. And our foster families step up time and time again to help rehabilitate these dogs so that they can find their forever homes. There is a tremendous need in our communities regarding pit bulls (and other pups). We learned quickly that we had to do more. We decided to take a two-pronged approach to helping these animals. The first prong would be to continue rescuing; we are a pit bull rescue after all. Since we are foster based, we can only take in a limited number of dogs at a time; and because we take in the broken and unwanted, they often stay with us for a while before they go on to their forever homes. Our ultimate goal on this front is to build a shelter. We want to build a state-of-the-art facility that will allow us to rescue more pit bulls, but also give them a great quality of life while they are in our care. We want to install indoor/outdoor runs (with individual drainage systems to prevent cross contamination), play areas, onsite vet space, conference space, therapy pools, and so much more. You can learn more about our dream facility at https://www.friendstotheforlorn.org/fttf-shelter-capital-campaign/.  Conceptual Shelter Rendering | Credit: Formations Studio In 2016, our Board finally felt it was time to begin making that dream a reality. We have begun the capital campaign for funding this beautiful facility. Our goal is $2,000,000 to build this facility and we have raised $478,129 to date. This grant, if we are so honored to win, would be applied toward the cost of constructing 2 dog runs/kennels. Kennels are the most important area of our facility. This is what will allow us to be able to rescue more dogs than we can in a foster-based set up. More kennels allow us to rescue more dogs; and as these dogs find their forever homes, it opens up more space to save another. Kennels are the living space for these dogs and therefore the building blocks of our dream. But, we are also painstakingly aware that we can’t rescue our way out of the problems that face our community. There is a massive pitbull overpopulation problem occurring and we have to help prevent these dogs from needing to be rescued. Because we know what it’s like to have our dogs discriminated against in housing, airline travel, dog boarding facilities, stores, and more, we decided that our solution would be non-discriminatory instead. In 2010, we began our Beat the Heat program. This program provides spay/neuter services, vaccinations, pain medications, and more to animals in our areas at no cost to the owner or the community animal control facilities. Since the program’s inception, we have spayed and neutered over 6,000 ANIMALS- not just pit bulls, but all breeds of dogs and cats. This program was created in a hope that we can reduce the unwanted pet population and maybe one day reduce the need of rescues. We continue to chip away at the problem piece by piece. For the dogs we save, we know that what we do makes such a difference in their lives. And for the dogs that we haven’t been able to save, their fate haunts us. These dogs are why we do what we do. Their memory is what drives us forward to accomplish the unthinkable. We will never stop. We can do more, and we are going to do more! To learn more about Friends to the Forlorn, please visit us: Website: www.savingpitbulls.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FriendsToTheForlornPitbullRescue/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fttfpitbull Written by Jordan Sutherlin for FTTFEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful The feature below is brought to you by Grow Restored, 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. Hi See Beautiful community! We are excited to introduce ourselves and become more involved in what you all are doing to create beautiful in the world. GROW Restored is an organization that is committed to providing access to affordable mental and emotional health care for individuals and families and also to providing resources and support to organizations actively doing good work around the world in an effort to deepen their impact. We are currently striving to deepen our impact with a few special groups of individuals who are often left out when it comes to receiving necessary care - first responders, veterans, and families dealing with childhood illness. Through our scholarship programs, we are able to provide a significant portion of funding towards care, which helps fill a huge gap between what someone can afford to pay for counseling and treatment, versus what it actually costs (usually a LOT of money!). We know that when individuals and families receive appropriate and timely care around mental and emotional health issues, healing and restoration can happen and people can thrive in their personal lives, in their families and in their communities…and that is incredibly beautiful. Our world will see better days when we are all experiencing health in all aspects of our lives. Feel free to check out our website to learn more about what we do and join our mailing list for updates. We would love to connect with you! We are always looking out for exceptional therapists to join us in partnership, as well as for opportunities to spread the word about the work we are doing in communities. We have a couple of videos on our site which share what we do, what we hope to do, and also share some personal stories from people we have been fortunate enough to walk through restoration alongside. Written by Michele Jones, Executive Director of Grow RestoredEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful The feature below is brought to you by Puppy Prodigies, 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.  Puppy Prodigies is a non-profit organization that provides paws-on healing through canine-assisted surfing, paddling, swimming, playing, therapy and other initiatives through our Waves of Empowerment program. We provide no-cost assistance to kids with special needs, people with disabilities and wounded warriors and veterans with PTSD. We have applied for a See Beautiful Grant, and are honored that our application has moved to their next round of review. We look forward to partnering with See Beautiful in uniting diverse populations through the challenges they face. We create more beautiful through our unique and innovative organization that utilizes service, therapy and emotional support dogs. Our highly effective, non-traditional approaches enhance and improve the quality of life for individuals with physical, cognitive, or emotional disabilities.   We are a grassroots organization that prides itself on our pioneering efforts and innovative programs. We are rooted in the human-canine bond and are dedicated to helping individuals grow in mind, body and spirit through the unconditional love and acceptance only a dog can provide. Every 65 minutes a veteran with PTSD takes his or her life by suicide. That’s 22 lives a day! Kids with special needs and people with disabilities are two of the most marginalized and excluded groups in society. Drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages one to four, and the third leading cause of death in children 19 and under. However, the danger of drowning is much higher for children with special needs. In fact, drowning is the leading cause of death for kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders. We are determined to reduce these staggering statistics and improve the lives of our physically and emotionally wounded war heroes and children with special needs while embracing diversity and creating an all-inclusive, non-judgmental environment for our participants. Opportunities are provided that enable veterans to continue their lives of service, while finding new purpose by engaging in community service by mentoring and inspiring future generations. Our objective is to empower and enrich the well-being of veterans and civilians of all abilities and backgrounds, taking them from the battleground to the playground. Each veteran becomes a mentor, and is paired one-on-one with a child who has special needs for a day of canine-assisted activities. We find that being of service to another individual affords a sense of responsibility and self-worth. The goal is to connect diverse populations through the challenges they face, bringing them together for their greater good and the greater good of the community. Our Waves of Empowerment program is three-fold: 1) improving the PTSD symptoms of active duty service members and veterans by helping them transition from military to civilian life through recreational and canine-assisted activities. 2) Exposing kids with special needs and people with disabilities to adaptive surfing and other recreational activities. 3) Providing swim lessons to kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other special needs in an effort to reduce the high incidence of drowning. Canine-assisted swimming is the newest facet of our program. We strive to reduce the number of drowning incidents among kids with ASD and other special needs by providing a unique approach to water safety and swim lessons through our partnership with Special Fishies. We focus on underlying roadblocks that often manifest as anxiety, distrust, combative behavior, non-compliance, and unresponsiveness. Our newest pup, Cori heads up the program and provides an expeditious conduit that breaks through barriers much faster than her human counterparts. What can take months or years with traditional lessons can often be accomplished in one miraculous session! Click here to watch a video of three-year old, Caiden who was anxious and crying until Cori joined his lesson.  Surf Dog Ricochet is the most known dog in our program. In 2009, she made an independent decision to jump on a surfboard with a boy who is quadriplegic. A "kleenex alert" video of this surf session went viral on YouTube and has over 6.5 million views. As a result, she became the only SURFice dog® on the planet, and has been surfing with people/kids with disabilities ever since. She adjusts her surfing style based on the person's disability. Kids often hold on to her back end while she balances the board so they can stand up. Although surfing has been at the forefront of Ricochet's work, it’s not the act of surfing that makes her interactions so life changing. It’s her extraordinarily powerful ability to make immediate, deep, heart-to-heart connections with the individuals she interacts with. She intuitively and empathically alerts to their emotional and physical changes which allows for profound paws-on healing interventions. Ricochet has taught us an exponential amount about the healing power of dogs. Thus, we are privileged to share it on the “unleash your dog’s healing power” page of our website. We hope the information provided will further unleash your dog’s abilities to see more beautiful too! For more information, please go to http://www.surfdogricochet.com And on social media: https://www.facebook.com/SurfDogRicochet https://twitter.com/SurfDogRicochet http://instagram.com/surfdogricochet/  Written by Jody Fridono, Executive Directory of Puppy ProdigiesEdited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful |
See beautiful in yourself.
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