March 2012 - Green Meadow Waldorf School

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Don’t miss four important films being screened at Green Meadow this Spring! Friday, March 16: Miss Representation The documentary Miss Representation, by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and aired on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network in October 2011. The film explores how the media’s misrepresentations of women have led to the underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence. Tuesday, April 17: Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children’s advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation. Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children’s marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids. Saturday, April 21: Mother Nature’s Child (1pm screening) In the spirit of Earth Day, we offer this engaging film, which explores nature’s powerful role in children’s health and development, and the rise of “nature deficit disorder”. Followed by a discussion facilitated by GMWS Kindergarten faculty Andrea Gambardella. More info at www.mothernaturesmovie.com. Co-sponsored by Green Meadow Waldorf School, the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America (WECAN), and the Nature Place Day Camp. Childcare provided! Friday, May 18: The Economics of Happiness The Economics of Happiness describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, a toxic alliance of governments and big business continues to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, people all over the world are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance—and, far from the old institutions of power, they’re starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to rebuild more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm—an economics of localization. ARRIVE EARLY FOR A SEAT! All screenings begin promptly at 7:30pm except where noted above, are open to the public, and take place in Rose Hall in the Arts Building. $10 adults / $5 students (9th grade and up) and seniors. 6 • The Bulletin • March 2012
Community Service Corner The ABCs of GMWS Community Service Work By Green Meadow Faculty Member and Community Service Chair, Raoul Cansino Parents are often (understandably) confused by the proliferation of worthwhile causes their children are involved in. Following is a list of these efforts and a note on how you can help. Neighbor to Neighbor Grocery Program For the past three years Green Meadow students and parents have been helping struggling local families with the most basic of needs -food. When we discovered that some children at the Chestnut Ridge Middle School had regular meals only in school, our high school students jumped into the breach and began a grocery program for the most challenged families. Every other week volunteers deliver a full grocery basket to these families. Nowadays, parents do most of the shopping and delivering, but students sustain the food deliveries by raising funds. Additionally, the sixth, seventh and eighth grades regularly sponsor holiday clothing and gift drives for the families and provide feasts on Thanksgiving and Christmas. As we have become better acquainted with the challenges facing our families, we have found resources in our parent body to help the families in many other ways. Our little Neighbor to Neighbor program has even inspired others to do the same—the Jerrahi Mosque across the street (the spiritual home to many school families) has since started its own family help program, and members of the All Souls Community Church (which holds Sunday services in the Arts Building) have been working alongside Green Meadow to help our families. How you can help… Neighbor to Neighbor always needs volunteer shoppers, fundraising ideas and the expertise of our talented parent body in all of the many areas in which a struggling family could use help and advice (budgeting, housing, law, public assistance, counseling, home repairs, self-help, etc). If it takes a village to raise a child, it certainly takes no less to help a family in need lift itself out of misery. Midnight Run Since May 2002, Green Meadow students have been bringing food, clothing, toiletries and good cheer to homeless people living on the streets in Manhattan. We usually have three Midnight Runs each year (in October, December and May with high school students) and one Breakfast Run (in March with the eighth grade). Green Meadow’s Midnight Run Chapter is affiliated with Midnight Run, Inc., a not-for-profit organization based in Dobbs Ferry, NY, which provides us with some supplies, a route for our runs (the famous “stop list”) and a set of ground rules for our outreach. How you can help… We need at least two adult drivers for each run, as well as donations of gently used, seasonally appropriate and street-worthy clothing for (mostly) men and women. Our next two runs are on March 11 and May 26. Helping Hands In December 2004, Green Meadow students did their first food and clothing distribution to the homeless of Rockland County. What they found on this run—people living in the most squalid conditions under highway bridges, in tents and lean-tos just out of sight along Route 59 in Spring Valley and Nanuet—sparked an initiative to help our homeless neighbors. Eight years later, Helping Hands is a not-forprofit organization which provides Safe Haven (a hot meal and a safe place to sleep) to the homeless during the cold season (mid-November to mid-April) in 20 houses of worship all over the county. Helping Hands also operates a year-round Outreach Center which provides the homeless with case management, laundry and shower facilities and clothing, at no charge. How you can help… Through mid-April, Helping Hands desperately needs volunteer drivers for the evening (8:30pm) and morning (6:45am) transport. This season, there are more people coming to us for help than ever before (25 to 30 on most nights). We also need overnight chaperones in the Safe Haven. Yearround we need help at the Outreach Center, serving people in the clothing “store” and overseeing use of the shower and laundry. The Neighbor to Neighbor Gardening Program Conceived as an antidote to the food and nature deprivation we saw afflicting many of the children at the Chestnut Ridge Middle School (CRMS), the Gardening Program introduces CRMS students to the wonder of working with the earth to produce food. Green Meadow High School students serve as mentors to the young gardeners, while gardening teacher Megan Durney of the Pfeiffer Center offers a rich curriculum that includes not only gardening but an introduction to beekeeping, farming and animal care. The CRMS students garden in the spring and fall and attend Ed Bieber’s Nature Place Day Camp in the summer. Full scholarships enable low-income students to participate in the program. How you can help… Come to our Community Gardening Day in April (date TBA), when we celebrate the spring by cleaning up the garden. Music, food and good company make this a wonderful social occasion. The Gardening Program also needs financial support— donations welcome! A “Relay for Life” team of Green Meadow students will be raising money to support research efforts of the American Cancer Society. Their fundraising will culminate in a celebration by many area teams in May. For further information, contact Senior Nina Kornberg. Checks to support any of our school service initiatives may be made out to GMWS, memo: name of the initiative (for example, Memo: Neighbor to Neighbor). Donations to Helping Hands should be made out to “Helping Hands”, as it is an Continues on page 8 The Bulletin • March 2012 • 7
Page 1 and 2: March 2012 A “beacon of light”
Page 3 and 4: From the Development Office As I wr
Page 5: School News, continued from page 2
Page 9 and 10: Nurse’s Corner The Importance of
Page 11 and 12: Kimberton Trip The Parzival Adventu
Page 13 and 14: Kimberton Trip (continued) Continue
Page 15 and 16: Kimberton Trip (continued) Continue
Page 17 and 18: Do you Co-operate By Hungry Hollow
Page 19 and 20: Community Announcements, continued
Page 22: FREE MONEY, GET YOUR FREE MONEY!!!

March 2012 - Green Meadow Waldorf School

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?