So, I took the plunge and have signed myself up for the Blogathon. It happens on a NERO faire day, which I find interesting--I won't have anything to do *but* post, at least for the first few hours of the day. There are people on the mailing list who are talking about themes for their entries, and about other big, elaborate plans that I just don't think I'm going to be able to do, myself, even though it sounds like a lot of fun. I've looked over other people's blogs from past, and am rather relieved to find that I don't have to write the Great American Novel for each post. Yay.
There'll be no particular theme for my entries, some may be pictures or random comments, some may be bits of dialogue from whatever I'm watching at the time...it's an interesting challenge, and I hope to have fun with it. I'm sorry in advance to everyone watching the LJ feed. :)
If you're interested in sponsoring, you can either follow this link to the Blogathon page, or you can click on the button I've downloaded (it's off the blog's main index page).
Now, for more about why I chose my charity...
With Arms Wide Open was, as mentioned, founded by Creed's Scott Stapp. As for why I chose this particular charity, and not one of the other two? That's a bit harder to explain.
Though I don't really want any children of my own, there's still a large amount of fondness there, dating back to the days when I was working at the Family Nurturing Center in Park City, Utah. I wasn't assigned a specific age or class, and I did a lot of behind-the-scenes work with getting snacks ready, setting up rooms for naptime, ordering supplies, that kind of thing. My favorite times of day were naptime, which I helped supervise, and the four to six pm hours, when I got to play with all the kids before their parents came to pick them up. By then, the structured, separate lessons were over, and everyone got to play all together. They ranged from a year old to six years old, and they'd occasionally ask for my help with one of the older kids, who didn't like very many people, but who took a shine to me, for some reason. Turned out, he was just one of those kids who needed a little bit of individual attention every once in awhile.
And, of course, some of it just ties into my own childhood, and facets of my own childhood that I would hate to see anyone else go through, but that's a smaller part of it.
The With Arms Wide Open Foundation works to improve the lives of children by fostering healthy bonds with their parents. That's a really basic description, something more in depth is available on their website, but the role of a parent in the lives of their children is a pretty big thing. They provide financial assistance to low-income families, assist families in dealing with problems that might threaten the family unit, provide grants for various places to help children, all sorts of things.
That's what the Family Nurturing Center was all about--thus the name of the place. And, like I said, even though I don't want children of my own, this is still an important thing to me to promote.
And there you have it. Questions/comments welcome, of course. And pledge for me, please? :)
Posted by Liz at July 10, 2003 08:03 AM