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Bay Babies In Need: Understanding Poverty in Anne Arundel County

I wanted to share with everyone a great service project that has been created by a student at South River High School.  It is a much needed service and one that all of us could help out with.  Please support Siena and Food Link  by supplying essential items to struggling families with newborns through Food Link’s Emergency Baby Pantry program.   At the same time, increasing awareness of poverty in Anne Arundel County.   Siena says, “My hope is to change the face of poverty so that we may be more tolerant and understanding of those in need.” 

Check out Siena’s video:

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Grants 4 Teachers: Balanced Life Skills Community Project

The winter cycle for grant applications is now complete and we will be meeting on Tuesday March 1, with the Advisory Board to award grants for applicants.  We are looking forward to being able to meet some of the needs of our dedicated teachers in Anne Arundel County along with Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County.

If you are a teacher that would like a grant to accomplish something special in your classroom be sure to make application.  If you are a person or business that would like to support and build the morale of teachers in our county please investigate what we are doing and consider contributing to the Grants 4 Teachers Fund.

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Foster children in Anne Arundel County will have a Christmas

Last night we completed the gift wrapping for the foster children and loaded the bus.  There was no more room in the bus.  It was completely full.  While that was going on our older students and staff were working on giving each of the teens gift cards to department stores, restaurants and other stores that I am sure they are all going to enjoy.  Over 50 volunteers from Indian Creek School and Balanced Life Skills took part in this service project.

There was a great deal of joy in the room as our 9 year old students and some of their parents helped to do the wrapping, and so many parents and companies stepped up with gift cards totaling $4600.00 split among the 109 foster teens in the County at this time.  On Sunday there will be a Christmas party for all the foster children and their families at the Boys and Girls Club in Annapolis.

This is one of my personal favorite projects that we do during the year.  If anyone would like to be a part of our planning for next year please feel free to contact us.  I would like to wish everyone a Happy Holiday season this year.

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Gift Wrapping is this evening

Today we are making last minute preparations for the gift wrapping of gifts for the foster children of Anne Arundel County this evening. Ms. Adrian has separated the gift cards into categories, gotten the list of children put into order, and is ready to put that part of the program together. The students of Indian Creek School are ready to come and gift wrap the toys and clothes for the younger children.

To make it a bit more festive, we have cookies and hot chocolate for all the families wrapping this evening. It is going to be a wonderful evening and we have a lot of families and individuals to thank for the time, effort and money contributed to making the holiday the best it can be for the foster children of Anne Arundel County.

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A call for help this Christmas

Each year for the past four years we at Balanced Life Skills have had the honor to assist the foster children in Anne Arundel County.  We have done that by providing a space for gift wrapping and our students have shown up in force to wrap the gifts, completing the job in about an hour.  That is really impressive when you think that we wrapped about 3-400 gifts in one hour.

This year though things have changed.  The group that sponsored this project will not be doing so this year.  On hearing about this Balanced Life Skills has linked up with Indian Creek School to provide a Christmas for the 160 or so foster children in the county.  Indian Creek is going to provide all the toys for the younger children and Balanced Life Skills is working on providing some gift cards for the 13 – 20 year olds.

Along with that both group of students will meet at BLS studio to wrap the gifts and deliver them to DHS offices on December 8th and on December 12 we have arranged for a party for the foster children and families at the Boys and Girls Club right here in Annapolis.

Here is what we need help on though.  We need help with providing the Gift Cards.  It has been suggested that gift cards to movies, restaurants, and department / clothing stores would be the best for the teens.  If you would like to help us please call as soon as possible.  We have 110 teens to take of this year, and without your help they may go without a real Christmas.  You may either choose a name to provide for or just provide some gift cards and we will match them up to a child.

We would like to see if anyone could help approach stores to see if they would provide any of these.  Otherwise Key School is selling gift cards this year and we could help them out and the foster children too.  Thank you for considering doing this act of kindness for these children.

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Special award for Balanced Life Skills

On April 23, 2009 Joe Van Deuren, Owner of Balanced Life Skills, was selected as Business Partner of the Year by the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Education. The award was made at a special dinner held at the BWI Marriott Hotel.
Joe was nominated by Linda Lamon, Signature Program Facilitator of South River High School where he…Read More