Jump ropes for Kenya students

This past week Balanced Life Skills students made 117 jump ropes for children in Kenya who live at an orphanage.  Next week I will be spending the week at the orphanage seeing what we can do to help and provide hope to the students there.  The group will be traveling with martials artists from across the nation and will include singer / songwriters, artists and a full film crew as we will be filming a documentary, “Roots of Happiness”.

The trip was put together by Brian Williams and his Think Kindness organization.  The documentary and our goal is to determine what it is that makes these children so happy when they have so little from an American point of view.  When the film is completed, we will show it to high school students here in America to inspire them to find ways of serving others.

The film you see here is our jump rope making day at Balanced Life Skills.  If you would like to help fund the supply of school supplies, teacher supplies and the shipping of the jump ropes you can by going to http://rootsofhappiness.com/joe

Martial Arts school in Annapolis, Balanced Life Skills, Rain Barrel Project is underway

For the third year in a row now we will be holding our Where Does the Rain Go? awareness day and silent auction of decorated rain barrels.  This year is very special in that we have many schools and artist involved as well as our own Balanced Life Skills students sharing in the fun of decorating the rain barrels.
To see how the paint day went at our studio at Balanced Life Skills, here is the link Rain Barrel Paint day 09.
This is one of the most fun days.  Kids get to enjoy being creative and both parents and students learn about the need to get all of our storm water to infiltrate the earth.  Rain barrels are just one way.  This year our education program will take part in Earth Day celebrations at Quiet Water Park with some of the barrels on display.  The following week the barrels will be displayed around our area at various locations prior to the silent auction on May 15.
Follow our progress and visit us at Quiet Waters on April 18th for more information on rain barrels.