Socal Mom by Donna Schwartz Mills

Fresh Air Fund

I'm still trying to shake off the vestiges of the last-day-of-school summer cold my daughter gave me - but I know I'm on the way to recovery because I'm starting to feel a little stir-crazy from being home all week.

So you can imagine how my active kid is feeling right now. We're both looking forward to Monday, when she starts five weeks of tennis camp. I'm grateful that this is one budget item we did not have to eliminate this year.

Not everyone is so lucky. There are lots of kids in this country whose families cannot afford to give them a camp experience.

Fortunately, there are organizations out there that help. One of the nation's oldest is the Fresh Air Fund, which has been providing thousands of underprivileged kids memorable summer vacations since 1877.

The fund relies on donations and any amount donated before June 30 will receive matching funds from some of the organization's benefactors.

They are also looking for families to host a child. If you live in the northeastern United States and have the space, you could make a big difference in the life of a child. For more information, check out their website here.

More Sad News

I woke up this morning focused on all the minutiae of getting our Passover meal together (not to mention getting our home in order for the arrival of guests)...

...and then learned that Heather Spohr, a member of the L.A. blogging community lost her beautiful baby daughter this week.

Puts everything in perspective, doesn't it?

Heather has been an active supporter of the March of Dimes, a venerable charity devoted to the prevention of birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.

There isn't a lot any of us can do to assuage the pain Heather and Mike are in right now, so a March of Dimes donation will have to suffice. I've made mine in honor of Maddy. I urge any of my readers who are so moved to do the same here.

I'm afraid tonight's seder plate will have landed a few real tears in addition to the salt water representation upon it.

The Recession: Acceptance and Taking Action by Fighting Hunger

I think our country has been going through the five stages of grief for our sinking economy: I know that I've already done Denial, Anger, Bargaining and Depression.

I think I've finally come around to Acceptance.

How else to explain my strange departure this week from my usual favorite blogging topic? (You know -- ME.)

This week, my posts have all been about helping others: Tips for disaster preparedness and a plug for a corporate program that helps people who have been displaced by disaster.

The current recession has all the makings of an economic tsunami. I know it's largely man-made, but throughout history, booms and recessions have followed one another as surely as winter comes after summer. We're all being affected by a situation that is out of our control (just like a hurricane or earthquake). And that leads to feelings of helplessness.

Los Angeles is not the friendliest of towns. I do not see much of my neighbors, and I think they're OK with not seeing much of me. So my most indelible memory of the 1994 Northridge earthquake was what occurred after the shaking stopped: Neighbors who had been strangers coming together and looking out for one another. It was beautiful.

I think the recession is sparking a similar reaction. People are fighting that helpless feeling by pitching in. And that's a good thing, because the need is great.

Earlier this week, I joined other LA-area bloggers (Joy Unexpected, Los Angelista, The Spohrs are Multiplying and LeahPeah) at a volunteer event at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which fights hunger in our area by supplying food to some 900 different agencies throughout Southern California.

"Demand for our services has increased 41% since the start of the recession," reported Food Bank volunteer coordinator Ana Martinez, who led the bloggers on a tour of the massive warehouse structure. It was a little bit reminiscent of Costco, with crates of food stacked high to the ceilings, interspersed with assembly line areas, where volunteers and employees can inspect food donations and assemble assistance packages.

Ana told us that the Southern California food pantries and soup kitchens serve over 600,000 individuals in a typical year (so you can imagine how many residents will benefit in atypical 2009).

Food Bank products come from three major sources: Food industry donations (from several sources, including all the area's major supermarket chains), USDA commodities and food purchased from monetary donations.

The LA mom bloggers were put to work on a project we all could relate to: the Food Bank's Backpack Program, which serves around 400 children at risk of hunger: Each Friday, the kids are given a backpack with food to carry them through the weekend, when they don't have the benefit of free school lunches. "They come back to school on Mondays focused and ready to work," Ana told us, "because they're not distracted by being hungry."

For the next couple of hours, we cleaned out backpacks and stuffed each of them with a big box of cereal, a bottle of fruit juice, packaged macaroni and cheese, and canned mac and beef and chili.

I know. It doesn't sound like a lot - but even a little makes a difference.

Because the food is donated, there IS an abundance of canned and processed products. But the Food Bank makes an effort to balance that out with their Rapid Distribution program of good, fresh produce and other perishables. "Given that many agencies have very limited refrigeration, this allows nutritious food to get to recipients at agency sites, primarily food pantries," the organization's website explains.

Our work went quickly; we all agreed that assembling the backpacks was really easy (and not a lot different from collating classroom materials for PTA). Plus, we had fun and walked away with the knowledge that we had done something to help families who are struggling through this very difficult time.

I'm thankful to Yvonne of Joy Unexpected for organizing our Food Bank visit for Quaker Oats' GO project. I was especially looking forward to participating because my daughter's Bat Mitzvah project is to raise funds for a local pantry (which is one of the hundreds that is supported by Los Angeles Regional Food Bank).

The LA area bloggers who were at the event all talked about organizing another one in the near future. The Food Bank needs volunteers ALL THE TIME (and spring is an especially busy time of year, thanks to the National Association of Letter Carriers' annual Mother's Day food drive).

Until we get our act together, I've set up a virtual drive here on the Internet. I've set myself a lofty goal of raising $1000. It's really lofty when you see that I only seeded it with a $10 donation of my own to start - but I figure if I can reach 100 people here who each donate $10, we can do it. Every dollar donated allows the Food Bank to distribute $5 worth of food, so it's money well-spent.

More on Disasters: Corporate Assistance

When I got home from Friday's disaster preparedness event, I found the following email from my friend Jenny (who works at BlogHer):

"Tide's Loads of Hope helps in the aftermath of a natural disaster by providing clean clothes and a sense of comfort to families in need. Partnering with Feeding America, we travel to disaster affected neighborhoods with the Tide Loads of Hope truck or vans, our free mobile laundry service.

Tide Loads of Hope truck:

• 32 high-effiency washers and dryers stationed on the truck
• Can do 300 wash and dry cycles a day -equal to one year's worth of laundry for a single family
• Will wash about 9,000 loads of laundry over a four-week period
• Leveraged during massive disasters where electricity is unavailable in the region

Tide Loads of Hope vans:

• In partnership with a local laundromat, the Tide Loads of Hope vans provide free laundry service at the same load rate as the trucks
• Leveraged during disasters where neighboring communities still have a source of electricity

To date, Tide Loads of Hope has washed more than 35,000 loads of laundry for over 20,000 families. Most importantly, the Tide Loads of Hope program means we're equipped to take action whenever and wherever there is a need in our country.

---

OK. Getting the opportunity to wash your clothes might seem like a little thing, but having experienced the trauma of being evacuated in an emergency (just for one day after the fire - but for nearly a week in 1971 following the Sylmar earthquake), I can tell you it can make a big difference.

Sure, it's a marketing opportunity for Proctor & Gamble (the manufacturer of Tide) - but so what? Corporations SHOULD give back and this kind of program makes perfect sense.

 And they've come up with a fun way to support this program: Through sales of these vintage Tide t-shirts, which come in four different colors. All of the profits from the $20 shirts go to the Tide Loads of Hope program and can be purchased here.

The Jonas Brothers: NOT the Reincarnated Beatles. And That's OK...

... because two days after I attended the world premiere of their new concert film, my ears are STILL ringing.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This week, I found myself in the enviable position of being invited to TWO simultaneous red carpet events. The fact that this largess has nothing to do with my own accomplishments (Donna WHO?) is one of the many ironies of spending a life in the shadow of Hollywood.

(NOTE: I will eventually get to the part where I talk about the Jonas Brothers and their first headlining concert film. But this is my blog, and you're gonna have to read what I have to say about ME first.)

However, here's a little taste of what I saw on Tuesday night:

A Votre Sante

Nearly a year ago, one of my oldest friends experienced a severe health crisis, which I blogged about here.

Because of her penchant for privacy, I never wrote a follow up post about her...until now.

Seeing my friend unconscious and hooked up to tubes and monitors was shocking. Hearing the prognosis for her recovery was frightening. Her situation scared me right into signing up for a weight loss program. I lost 56 pounds in seven months and today, I eat a lot better, work out regularly and feel pretty good.

And I'm happy to say, my friend is feeling good, too.

She came out of that crisis and embarked upon a regimen of painful and difficult therapy. She remained in the hospital for several months. I visited her a few times, ran some errands, and chatted. At the time, she was using a walker to get around.

And then school started, along with my daughter's gymnastics schedule. I'm ashamed to say, I did not keep in touch. It was difficult; during her first few weeks in the hospital, I learned that using the telephone didn't work; I could not reach her and my messages did not get to her, either. The only way to do it was to show up at the hospital and hope she wasn't in therapy or having a meal, and this became very hard to do when summer was over.

Did I feel guilty? Uh, yeah. But this post isn't about that.

A couple of months ago, my friend emailed me to let me know she had been living back in her home and making enormous progress in her therapy. We made a date for coffee.

I did not know what to expect when I arrived at her condo. I was definitely not prepared to see her walk confidently out her door without a walker or a cane. This is a woman who suffered a stroke and then had the misfortune of contracting a nasty infection while in the hospital. She has been to the brink and back...

...and she walks. She talks. Her brain has been rewired and is back to normal (or pretty much normal - after all, like me, she is turning 52 in a couple of weeks and we are both prone to some short term memory lapses. But hers are about the same as mine).

I was very near tears several times that afternoon. My friend is the poster woman for the power of a positive attitude. She has NEVER wavered, NEVER lost faith, has always been confident of a wonderful future. And her life had been good.

On that day, she talked about her illness and subsequent stroke and other problems as an "incredible opportunity to learn how to live again." And she truly BELIEVES this.

She said she had no idea that her situation had been so dire; this is something that she realized over time. She also did not know that I seen her during this period. I did not tell her that I was certain we had lost her. 

Before all of this occurred, she and I and our mutual friend (the one I wrote about in that old post) would get together every few months for dinner at P.F. Chang's in Burbank. We decided it would be great to resume this habit -- and last night, that's what we did. We sat, we laughed, we reminisced about our younger, crazy (and more alcohol tolerant) selves. And we made plans to do it again.

She also informed us that she's giving herself a birthday party, as she'd missed her birthday last year. "Yeah, I was lying unconscious on my kitchen floor," she laughed.

She's been certified to test for a new driver's license and plans to go back to work over the summer.

Life can be good. You just have to see the good in it.

BlogHers Act to Save Womens' Lives

I am continually amazed by the accomplishments of the women of BlogHer. In three short years, they have built an amazing community for women who blog. They have raised consciousness about the omission of female voices from the tech conversation, they have fought for opportunities for their sisters, they have created income (by hiring bloggers to work for them and by creating an advertising network)...

... and they have looked beyond our little insular online world to see what they could do for women globally. BlogHers Act is the organization's "initiative to improve the world by harnessing the power of women online." This year, the women of BlogHer are "blogging to save women's lives by improving maternal health."

That's why BlogHer has teamed with Global Giving on several campaigns that will save women's lives around the world.

These include:

* Mother and Child Clinic in Nepal: $10 - 2 days' operating costs for the Clinic OR a year's worth of care for 5 women and children

* Help Afghan Women Deliver Healthy Babies Safely: $25 - 20 women will have improved quality of life through reproductive healthcare and education

* Ensure Healthcare for 40,000+ Displaced Darfurians: $25 - Trains 2 Traditional Birthing Attendants (includes 3 training sessions and training materials)

* Empower Women to End HIV/AIDS Stigma, South Africa: $50 - 2 women living with HIV/AIDS can receive counseling

* Noon Meal Improves Girls' Learning in Burkina Faso: $15 - Provides a noon meal for 50 students for one day. 

Please help. Click on the widget at the side of this blog to donate to the cause of your choice. Grab the widget yourself to help spread the word. Blog it.

When Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort and Jory des Jardines announced the first BlogHer conference back in 2005, lots of people thought it was a novelty. It turned out to be a force to be reckoned with. Let's show the world just what a force we really are.

Why You Need to Get Your Babies' Eyes Checked

I got back on Friday night from my wild three-day, all-expenses paid blogger junket in New Jersey, where we were all treated like queens. Then I spent Saturday cleaning the house. What a comedown, no? (Fortunatly, I did have help from the hub and my niece, who showed up to supervise Megan's birthday slumber party festivities.)

You can read my account of "Camp Baby" here. Today, I want to share with you one of the things I learned there. It has nothing to do with baby products or skin care or personal lubricants. You see,one of the things the big, multi-national company wanted the bloggers to know about was a program they fund, which does a lot to keep our infants healthy.

Dr. Scott Jens is an optometrist (you know, a medical doctor who specializes in eyes) who is chairman of InfantSEE, a program devoted to providing free eye exams to babies in their first year of life. Now, if you are like me and your children haven't exhibited any problems in that area, you have probably relied on the quick exam they get at their annual pediatrician visits. After listening to Dr. Jens, I am thankful that my 12-year-old hasn't had any major medical issues. I had NO IDEA that a thorough eye exam was necessary for such young children -- after all, it was not included in our health plan, and don't health plans include EVERYTHING that is NECESSARY for our kids? (Yeah. I am that naive.)

Dr. Jens showed us some videos featuring case studies of children whose lives were saved because their parents were prescient enough to get their eyes examined. In some cases, the babies had conditions that could have led to blindness... in others, they had life-threatening tumors that could only be discovered with the kind of instruments used by doctors trained to examine eyes (most pediatric offices do not have this equipment).

The beautiful thing about the InfantSEE program is that it is offered nationwide, and it is FREE. If you are the parent of an infant between 6 and 12 months old, I urge you to visit here for a listing of optometrists who participate in the program.

In the meantime, I'm making my 12-year-old daughter an appointment for her first REAL eye exam. Because you never know...

Bad News at Christmastime

I received the following email from Jamie Walker, a PR person I've become friendly with:

Hi Donna -

I hope you don't mind but I just sent you an invite to a group I created on behalf of Spark's co-founder, Chris Hempel on Education.com's website and was hoping you could spread the word within your own parent network...

Jamie's boss, Chris Hempel, learned 3 weeks ago that her 3-year old twin girls Addi and Cassi have a rare, devastating illness called NP-C, which is also known as "Childhood Alzheimer's".

To help save the twins from this lethal disease, the twins need you to send this on to everyone you know. They hope to get 1 million well wishes on their website by Xmas and raise enough contributions to get the medical attention they require. The twins also need products donated for silent auctions and /or having time and services donated too.

I really appreciate you doing everything you can to spread the word to your communities about Addi & Cassi. 

Best,

Jamie

The thought of having my precious baby diagnosed with a rare and fatal disease breaks my heart. I cannot imagine how devastated the Hempels must have felt when they were given this bad news at Christmas.

So I did join Jamie's group at Education.com and then moved on to the website the Hempels have set up to raise awareness -- and research money -- to combat this rare condition where cholesterol is building up in their babies' bodies and hurting their brains, livers and spleens.

I don't know the Hempels, but am already impessed by them. If I had received this kind of news at the beginning of December, I would be paralyzed by it for a number of weeks.  I'd probably be crying to God, asking why He chose to do this to us. And I would most likely make a dramatic show of tragedy marring my Christmas.

Instead, this couple has created a website with an amazing array of information about this little-known illness and an ambitious agenda for raising funds to find cures for this and other devastating childhood diseases and conditions.

There's a lot to digest there -- more than I, for one, am able to tackle at this very moment. But the very least thing I could do was to add my thoughts to the Guest Book the Hempels have established for Addi and Cassi. Their goal is to collect a million good wishes from people around the world -- by Christmas -- so when the girls are old enough to read, they can show them how much people care to help them battle this. And to reach that goal, they are asking for folks to spread the word.

It only takes a few minutes and doesn't cost a thing -- and you will help a courageous family remember this Christmas as the one when the world showed its love for two little girls.

MOTHERS Act

  I've been so caught up in the fire coverage over the last few days that I forgot that today was Blog Day for Mothers Act - which is part of the overall BlogHers Act 2007-2008 initiative to improve maternal health.

The issue is PostPartum Depression, and a bill in the Senate that would address the needs of the estimated 800,000 American women per year who suffer from it. Sadly, only 15% of these women ever receive the treatment they need, which can lead to tragic results  (suicide or infanticide in the most extreme cases -- months of debilitating depression in others).

And it's so avoidable -- if only enough new mothers were educated so they could see the warning signs; if only they were routinely screened.

This is a subject that strikes close to home. I have family members who have had to deal with PPD. It's so hard for everyone involved: the new mother and her family and friends, who all feel helpless to deal with the condition. Some people eventually "snap out of it" -- others need the help of counseling and medication.

The Moms Opportunity to Access Help, Education, Research and Support for Postpartum Depression Act, or MOTHERS Act (S. 3529), will ensure that new mothers and their families are educated about postpartum depression, screened for symptoms and provided with essential services.  In addition, it will increase research into the causes, diagnoses and treatments for postpartum depression.  The bill is sponsored by Senators Menendez and Durbin.

PLEASE take a moment today to call your Senators and urge them to support S.3529. A complete list of US Senators and their phone numbers can be found at PostPartum Support International. And if you are a blogger, spread the word. Write a post and tag it Blog Day for the MOTHERS Act, BlogHer, BlogHers Act, postpartum depression, Postpartum Progress, Postpartum Support International. Pick up a nifty BlogHers Act button here, so everyone knows you support this vital bill. While you're there, leave the URL of your post -- then visit event co-sponsor Katherine Stone at PostPartum Progress and leave her the same information.

It may seem like a small thing, but small things gather force in numbers. Together, we can do something positive for women's health in our country.