Closing in on the Finish Line

Dear friends,

It's one week away from the Crescent City Classic and soon, I will be running out there with 20,000 other New Orleanians. Among them, there will be a contingent from Abeona House: children, parents, teachers, and even our chef! We will be sweating and smiling, and hope to bring awareness of our our organization. I'm writing to ask you for your support, as we are also raising money for our scholarship program in conjunction with the race. There is a massive FUND-RACING effort happening among our participants, as we compete to ensure our ability to serve an economically diverse population while providing a liveable wage for early childhood educators.



Since our move in December, 4 short months ago, we've doubled in size, begun accepting childcare subsidies for low-income families, and added a delicious and nutritious farm-to-table food program. It's been wonderfully gratifying to see "my baby" grow up a little, and see our many of our goals come to fruition. We wouldn't have been able to do this without your support, friendship, and belief in our mission.

As a parent, I've personally reaped the benefits of this program. My children have flourished. Yesterday, I had the bittersweet experience of meeting with Oliver's teacher to discuss his progress. While looking over his portfolio, his growth so painstakingly and beautifully documented, we begun to talk about when my preschooler will move on. We stopped for a minute and saw a picture of him talking with his friend Cadence...beneath it this conversation:

O: When we get married and have a baby, you can work and I will feed the baby.

C: I not have a baby. I am busy.

O: I will take care of the baby...OK??

As I flipped through images of Oliver problem-solving and hypothesizing, I could see that his individuality and humanity were of such value. I'm so grateful that he is seen, heard, and nurtured. I wonder what he will choose for himself as an adult, and know that he will know how to love and be loved.

 

 

But it's not just about my kid, or the three of them. It's about making children visible. Sharing with the world how inspiration, curiosity, and ideas shape powerful experiences. And honestly, how the values that young children have should be the influences that shape our "adult" world. Kindness. Compromise. Sharing. Caring. Listening. Using our words. INCLUDING all children, regardless of ability. This is what Abeona House is all about.

So I ask you to support this work with a donation of $5-$5,000. With your donation, you become a part of this wonderful work, these values, and our continued success. Donate now through Paypal (www.abeonahouse.org), or mail a donation to Abeona House Scholarship Fund, 3401 Canal Street, NOLA 70119, and indicate that you're supporting Emmy in the race.

 

 

I'm always grateful for your support, in whatever form it comes. Thank you.

Emmy

Dreams Do Come True (Wasn't that our senior song??)

Well, it finally happened. This last year, something I've been working towards since just after the storm became a reality. I had begun to think it was a dream I would never make true. From our sweet and humble 100 year-old cottage, Abeona House MOVED. This wasn't just a change of space...it was a qualitative change, a move towards our shared goals. And if you're included in this email, it's because I know you care about my children, or my dreams, or our work, and have maybe contributed to any of these. I want to share with you what I've been doing since last September. It's really a dream come true:

*We have a new home at 3401 Canal Street in Mid-City, in a building that has allowed us to bring in 25 new families, bringing us to a total of 55 children served!

*We are a CLASS A center, able to accept children on ChildCare Assistance, including foster children. I can't tell you the richness this diversity has brought us, and I know that our center has been able to bring stability and joy to children whose lives are in flux.

*We have a wonderful farm-to-table food program of fresh, local food. Whole grains, a wide variety of vegetables and fruit, and innovative healthy dishes that build solid foundations for healthy life choices so that our little ones live a long time, and live well. My youngest, Oliver, a tentative eater, is now scarfing down lentil burgers, and asking for frozen mango at home. I know we are creating a model. I'm very proud of our food program and can't wait to add the gardening and composting pieces.

*My role has changed to include more teacher development, community outreach and strategic planning. I now have the support of a center director who manages the staff. I can focus primarily on the development of our organization. We can further our outreach to early childhood programs in the region.

And our work continues, because it's our goal to build our own center that will accommodate the demand for our work, parenting classes, and spaces for local teachers to learn, and dialogue. We aim to raise the quality of life for these teachers, and become a better employer, raising wages, improving benefits, developing teachers toward their dreams and goals.

So yes, I still have dreams to dream for Abeona House. But I know that some things will never change:

*Our work will always be based on profound respect for children.

*We will always work in close concert with our parents to ensure that our children have strong foundations for life.

*We will always be inclusive of children with special needs. My son, Elliot, was our first, and many more have come, and will come, after him.

*Our work will always be open to the community so that we can share our documentation, the development of relationships and the capacity of children with parents, teachers, and supporters.

If you're still reading, its because you want to support this work, or me, because you know this is important to me. I'm asking you to pledge to my run/walk in the Crescent City Classic for Abeona House's Scholarship Fund. I will be in good company, with my husband and 58 other parents, teachers, and community supporters who all understand the importance of this work, of making children visible, and empowering their teachers. This will be my fourth year raising funds this way. Last year, we earned $7000. This year, our goal is $12,000.

Your donation of $5-$500 will go directly to our scholarship fund for CCAP families and financial aid recipients. Please consider going to our website to Donate Now through Paypal: www.abeonahouse.org,
or drop a check in the mail to our new location: 3401 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA 70119.

Please indicate your donation is in my name, and do so before April 1 (That's no joke!). All donors will receive a sweet thank you, made with love by my children. It's important to all of us(-:

Abeona House

As many of you know, I work directing a non-profit childcare center on Oak Street called the Abeona House.  And I'm run/walking in the Reggio Run, 10K for this place I believe in so much.

If you've known me for a long time, you've seen my work in education swing dramatically, after many years teaching 8th grade language arts in New Orleans' public schools.  I can't say that I didn't confuse a few colleagues and friends with my choice to work with little ones...from adolescence to infants and preschoolers!  I don't know if I've ever been able to explain what this place has given me.

I took this job in early 2006 to help these parents open this center.  I took the job because "I knew I could do it."  My motivator for choosing this work was my son Elliot.  Diagnosed with congenital CMV at 4 months, his life at the time was a whirlwind of therapy and specialists' appointments.  How could I bring in income but still know what he needed?  I honestly had no idea what kind of community I was joining with Abeona House.   Each day provided me with a reason I could not have forseen.

First, there are the parents.  I was "hired" 7 months before we opened.  I wasn't sure if this whole thing was going to pan out.  Would this place ever open?  Did these people know how to navigate the city's bureaucracy, even more damaged after the storm?  But then I'd show up at a work day, and see moms with small children crouched at their sides holding toy tools hanging sheetrock, or painting.  And dads installing plumbing, nailing up boards on the porch, and moving in loads of donated furnishings from garage sales.  I wasn't really the director.  I was a participant being carried by a wave of good works, by these great people who were so determined, you couldn't help but want to help by meeting them, or observing them.

One parent in particular enlisted me in her pursuit to navigate the many licensing agencies and inspections.  The hoops we had to jump through!  Here are a few highlights:
-we didn't have offstreet parking; waiting for our waiver could have delayed our opening by another 6-12 months!  We rented a parking space at a nearby lot and painted a wheelchair on it. 
-the state fire marshall and city health inspector wanted oppposite things for our bathroom door.  So for the health inspector, we installed an automatic door closer.  For the SFM, we put it back up.
-our application for a designated drop off zone was brought to City Hall.  At the same time as Donald Trump's (failed?) CBD plans.  Needless to say, the documents so painstakingly created, were lost.

I know it's not the most interesting reading, but these little challenges greeted us each day.  Just the creation of the ramp, the $20,000 ramp, was a make-or-break decision.  Will we be able to pull this together?  We've already tapped out loans from families...

So it seems like a small miracle to me, each day that I walk up any of my children up that ramp.  Somehow we managed to do it.  To open this place. 

Our parents continue to work in the creation and growing of Abeona House.  After 3-and-a-half long years, we finally repaid the $60K in interest-bearing debt we acquired  in opening this place, and now, we can begin paying back our community lenders who believed so much in what we are doing here.  And still we continue to grow.

But it's what happens inside that makes Abeona House unique in the world:

• These teachers love children, and value their ideas.  This is obvious from each greeting, project display, or discussion about where a project should go.  This is no accident.  The Reggio Emilia approach, that inspires our work, espouses that children are collaborators in their own learning.  Teachers are to be responsive to their verbal and non-verbal curiosities; pay attention to the interests emerging in their play, and document through cameras, paper and pencil, video and audio recorders, the great richness that comes from dialogue.  As an educator, I can say that I always loved children and valued their ideas. But their ideas were separate from what happened in my classroom.  My classroom (my classroom, not ours) was about what I needed them to learn, not what motivated them as learners, as people, or as growing adults.  Working in the Reggio Emilia approach has completely changed my view of the teacher.  I will never work with children in the same way again.
• It's full-inclusion at it's best.  Once I met Elliot's teacher, Ms. Gwen, I knew that she was why I was here.  Her infusion of his therapies into every day routines, all with copious amounts of love and humor, showed me that my life didn't have to be defined by Elliot's disability.  My work was to find others who would see the many contributions he makes, and find ways to support his growth. I know that any child who comes through our doors will thrive.
• These parents truly value teachers.   I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see authentic communication between teachers and parents.  I continue to strive for this with my oldest two, as they enter "big school."  It's a rare and beautiful thing.
• Children love to be here.  They know their feelings are important, their wonderment is a gift, and that this place is theirs. They work collaboratively, value empathy, and nurture good ideas.  I look at them and wonder, with all of these tools, with all of this love, what will they do?  And it teaches me the potential of this style of learning: If all children were taught that their ideas had value, that schools are places that untap the potential of their uniqueness, what would our world be?  This is my daily work.

I work not only to make this place an amazing model of high quality early childhood education, I believe my work is also showing why we should do things this way.  One walk through Abeona House will show you why.  You are all welcome.

This month alone, we will host 20 educators who want to learn more about our work with children.
In two months, we will participate in a major educational symposium with the Louisiana Children's Museuem, and visitors from Harvard University and Tufts, as well as local lawmakers. It's so easy to get caught up in the quantitative values of ed...our work seeks to show them the potential of a qualitative focus.

There are a million reasons you should support Abeona House, and me, in the Reggio Run: our sliding fee scale, our health insurance plan for teachers (so rare in this field), and you can read more for yourself. I hope while you're visiting the site, you'll click on the Donate Now button, and support our work, and our growth.


And sorry for the shameless self-promotion, but if you do donate, please note that you are supporting Emmy in the Reggio Run.  Thank you for reading.

Craft for Cows

It's tonight! Abeona House preschoolers will sell their wares in the name of preventing hunger and promoting peace and self-sustainability through Heifer International.

Their work looks so beautiful. My favorites are their self-portraits and the earrings they made with Georgia when she came to school...I don't know how I can stop myself from buying it all.

I hope to see you there. 5-7 pm at La Divina Gelateria (3005 Magazine).

Trick or Treating on Oak Street

Ana was produce-shooter, Elliot was Superman (at Bright School), and Mom was Third Eye (a superpower who can see the future with a third eye on her forehead). We traipsed up and down Oak Street with princesses, ladybugs, elephants and lions. The neighborhood was very supportive, and the kids' bags were heavy by the time we got back. Definitely a new Abeona tradition.

Thanks, Holly for documenting our trip!

Rites of Passage

In a move parallel to my own preschool stylings, today Ms. Ana got a bead stuck up her nose. She was "trying to show Gabby a trick." Some trick. It reminded me so much of the popcorn kernel I got stuck up my own nostril at Kiddie Kollege, I don't even think I responded with the appropriate alarm.

I could touch it from the opening, and imagined it being a small Mardi Gras beading number. She was squirming and panicking. What could I do? Thinking of calling her pediatrician, I thought about our Abeona expertise, and deferred to Gwen.

Ms. Gwen seemed hesitant to share her problem solving method, but then said it plainly. "Just blow into her mouth. That will get it out."

Sure enough, I laid Ana down on the floor, covered her mouth with mine, and with one strong puff of air, an enormous pink pony bead flew into my cheek with a sting.

Ana's nose no worse for the wear. But I believe that her eyes grew two-and-a-half sizes from watching this all happen.

That Ms. Gwen. What a gem.

I'm quite certain that my mom had to pick me up and bring me to Dr. Casey when this happened to me.

It's OFFICIAL!

Yesterday, we recieved news from the IRS that Abeona House is now officially a 501(c)(3) organization!

All of our hard work, vindicated with a stroke of the pen.

I don't know if I have fully internalized what this means for us, long-term. But I do feel with great certainty that what we have built at Abeona House has lasting value. That means so much to me. I do feel, in my dramatic romanticism, that in my daily work, what I do must mean something, must effect some kind of change, must have impact. I now feel that the impact of this organization will outlast me. We can begin in earnest to work to influence the face of childcare in the city, and what it should look like.

I'm so proud to be a part of this group of parents, willing to shape what might not already exist, because of their commitment to their children and families, and other families.

That's enough of what this means to me. Here's what this might mean to you: all your donations to Abeona House are now tax-deductible! To learn more about Abeona, please visit our website, and be a part of shaping a healthy New Orleans one young child at a time.

Teacher Appreciation Week

There was nothing quite like opening my "bag of love" where parents could leave their children's teachers thank you notes.

No one goes in to teaching to be appreciated. I guess that's why it feels so special.

At the end of an especially challenging week, all those kindnesses really kept me going.

Thank you, parents, for taking a moment to let each of us know our impact.

Our First Grant

YAY! Our first real grant: $3880 from Junior League of New Orleans. I can't wait to put our Home project into action! Thank you, Junior League! This will go a long way at our little Abeona House.

I could really get used to this grant writing thing.

Changes Brewing

I don't usually go into much detail about my work with my friends and family. It's both consuming and gratifying, which makes it difficult to make the story short.

My work in creating Abeona House in collaboration with so many dedicated parents and teachers, is a great joy in my life. The challenges of the work is a puzzle to piece together, and thinking it through is intriguing and stimulating. I'm very proud of our little school...but mostly of our (the board, the staff, the parents) willingness to look at what we're doing, and make meaningful, thoughtful changes when things aren't working. It's pure Reggio...embracing the why.

Today, the staff met for a professional development day to discuss the physical space. After meeting at the Children's Museum on Thursday to see how their view of the child manifested itself in the preparation of the space. It's a real challenge to have no budget, then walk into the museum and see the ideal, and come away inspired and ready to make changes with what you have...but that's just what our talented staff did. So today, we began discussing the Master Plan for the space, which will hopefully take shape for the coming school year. I'm confident that, with or without the money, we will continue to make strides to have our environment act as the third teacher, and give the children a space to reflect and communicate their ideas.