This week, during Be MY Guest, Liberty and I spoke with Nathan Jochum, the Marketing, Communications & Special Events Coordinator for Aurora. In case you don t already know, Aurora is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the homeless and near homeless in the Greater Evansville, IN area. Each year, we serve over 500 individuals: men, women, children, those with disabilities, and the re-entry population. Of all the things that Aurora is to the homeless, the one they are NOT is a shelter, although they do work closely for the various shelters in Evansville.
During our conversation with Nathan, he told us more about the things Aurora does to re-integrate the homeless back into society. Nathan was also very excited (let s call it cautiously optimistic) about the schedule of events they have planned for 2021, including Trivia Tonight, Artistry Unhoused: Enlightenment from the Streets, a charity golf scramble, and the Homeless Experience Project: 48 Hours in the Life.
St. Jude has a Place Just for Teens that Allows a bit of Normalcy
As we continue to help St. Jude in their efforts to treat childhood cancer, I wanted to share something else about St. Jude that I think is really, really cool. That really cool thing is their “Teen Scene”. A place just for teenagers who are being treated at St. Jude.
The Teen Program at St. Jude is for kids who are 13 and older who have been diagnosed. Within this program, they have what are called Child Life Specialists. The job of the Child Life Specialist is to help teenagers feel less stressed as they go through treatment. One way of doing this is by helping kids understand everything that is going on around them in the hospital. This doesn’t just mean giving them the how and why but the specialists also help prepare patients for upcoming procedures and test that they might need.
The Children s Museum of Evansville (cMoe) isn t ALL about the kids - every once in a while they do something for the adults (kids at heart). One of those annual events is the
Ignite It creativity forum, which brings together area leaders each year for an energetic professional development workshop & lunch featuring motivating stories and strategies to cultivate creativity, innovation and FUN.
This year s forum will be held, virtually, on Wednesday, March 17th from 11:30am-1pm, and will feature special guest speaker Kevin Carroll.
Kevin is the founder of Kevin Carroll Katalyst/LLC and the author of three highly successful books. As an author, speaker and agent for social change (a.k.a. the Katalyst), it is Carroll s job to inspire businesses, organizations and individuals from CEOs and employees of Fortune 500 companies to schoolchildren to maximize their human potential. The topic of this year’s workshop is The PIVOT: Adopting a Game Changing Mindset During Difficult Time
To Cope with Her Son Growing-Up Mom Makes a Knitted Doll of Him
For starters, I know that I am writing this from the perspective of someone who does not have kids. That being said, I am pretty sure that I can say with certainty that it must be both gratifying and sad to see your kids grow up. Gratifying because you get to see them blossom into young adults. Sad because time goes way too fast and you still wish you could love on your kids like you did when they were little. One mom, however, has taken her son s growing up a bit harder than most parents and has come up with a pretty odd coping strategy.