What happened here?

What a mess!!!
And that means that a great time was had by all…
We held our 2nd baby shower on Friday. All the ladies had a fabulous time and received lots of beautiful and really needed newborn items/supplies/goodies. Food, games, CAKE and gifts. WooooooHoooooo!

The Mets

The Mets Organization with Manager Terry Collins visited The River Fund last week. Terry and his team helped bag a whole pallet of carrots…in record time! Bruce Beck from Ch4 Sports was also here. What a nice group of people…
We all had a great time schmoozing with the sports crowd.
The Mets Organization is partnering with us on a few projects. This Thursday, team members will be delivering turkeys with all the fixins to 12 of our client families. So cool…

Swami and his mini-me

Akash is an 11 year old recent immigrant from Pakistan. He’s a volunteer and comes to The River Fund just about every day after school. I help him with his homework. Damn, some of the math is a bit beyond me. His parents do not speak English. We thought it would be a good thing to get the folks hooked up with an ESL class. The problem…they do not read and write in their own language. They speak Punjabi and Urdu.
I loooove networking. I looooove the Queens Fellowship. Veera (my QF cohort) had Bisma from her office at the South Asian Council for Social Services contact Shirley in our office. A plan is being formed as we speak. We DO make things happen.

Empty Bowls Event

This is one of my favorite events…
The artists from The Potters Wheel outdid themselves…again…the bowls were gorgeous. I bought 6 bowls! Some of you may be getting them as Christmas presents. What a deal…For $15 you get a bowl, soup, bread, water and a nice time. You then take the empty bowl home as a reminder that there are many folks out there who always have empty bowls. AND, that same $15 lands a turkey on the table of one of our clients. Hellooooo…that’s a no brainer. A win/win.
A big XOXOOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX to Carol Lacks, Grace Anker (The Potters Wheel, the artists at The Potters Wheel and the folks at The Homestead. You made it happen; thank you!!!!!

Mets Organization

We had a visit this morning from representatives of the Mets Organization. What a lovely group of ladies! So pleasant…so excited to offer ideas on how we can partner. The Mets are a very kind organization. They’ve donated tickets to our clients; and that’s a good thing. We’re all sooooo very excited about partnering with this wonderful organization.
OK…I know you’re thinking…but Kris, you’re a Yankee fan. How can you say nice things about the Mets? It’s easy. They’re an organization that’s interested in helping their community. And that makes them the winning team.
Anyway, I haven’t been much of a fan since Bernie left.

Just Say Yes…

Marlo, from the Food Bank, came by this week and gave a Just Say Yes to Fruits and Vegetables class to our clients. Marlo’s nutrition classes are always fun and really informative. This one really hit home for me. It was on beverages. I am the poster child for soda consumption. I loooove Coke, Pepsi, Root Beer…you name it and I’ll drink it. Oooo….just thought of a Manhattan Special espresso soda. And let’s not forget Dr. Brown’s cream and black cherry sodas. And…while we’re at it…a San Pellegrino blood orange soda would be quite nice about now. See what I mean… For me, laying off the soda means that I would be drinking sweet iced tea, lemonade or juice. All have flavor; all have sugar. I don’t like water. It has no flavor.
Marlo made a drink for us that infused water with cucumber, mint and limes. It was tasty. I took extra in my brand new Just Say Yes water bottle that Marlo gave us as a gift. That night I had two cokes.
Ok, I really am trying…I had water with lime today. There’s a bottle of coke on the kitchen counter. It’s calling to me – loud and clear…But, no. I’m giving healthy beverages a shot.

Halloween at The River Fund

We sure do know how to celebrate a holiday! A great time was had by all…even though it poured the whole time.

Fundraiser

Damn…I woke up soooo hung over this morning…This should surprise you since I don’t drink. Not a drop. Engaging in riotous living just isn’t my thing anymore; neither are high heels and makeup. I was a dirty stay out once…deep sigh. Now, I look forward to watching the Hallmark Channel. To show you how important our fundraiser was…I missed Criminal Minds to be there.
All the beautiful people attended. Proof above in the picture of the RF gals.
It really was a fabulous event with a fabulous cause…The Mary Tiedermann Scholarship Fund – named for our Board Chair’s mom. The evening’s highlight for me was hearing Mike speak about his mom and her influence on his life. Yes, I got all mush faced. I KNOW she’s in heaven smiling down and sooo very proud of him. I am; he’s a good man. No fancy adjectives necessary…just a good man.
The scholarship Fund will help so many of our kids with paying for gap expenses. We had 8 kids graduate from High School last spring. All but one are in College. The one who isn’t is working to help support his family. They all received merit scholarships. Wonderful, yes. But what about books? They cost hundreds of dollars. What about transportation? A monthly MetroCard costs $112. They were coming to our office to use our computers for class work. We won’t even discuss the many other misc. expenses. These are the same kids who couldn’t afford graduation fees, prom, etc. Hellooooo… Of course, we’re there to help but our funds, personal and organization, are not unlimited. The Gap Scholarship is so very exciting! We want our kids to get an education, be successful and help end that nasty cycle of poverty.

Shoe program

Yup, free shoes and a visit with the Podiatrist for our Seniors and folks on Medicare/Medicaid. The shoes are of excellent orthopedic quality and darn cute as well. Our shoe program happens twice per month with two batches per day. Can’t help but think of Ed Sullivan and the jokes made about him and “shoe” business.

Celebrity bowls

WoooooHooooo…Mr. Alisdair Nichol was kind enough to sign two bowls for our Empty Bowls event. He’s my favorite expert on Antiques Roadshow. After meeting him, he’s one of my favorite people anywhere…soooo kind. We have a silent auction for celebrity bowls. I’m sure we’ll get a few great bids for Mr. Nichol’s bowls.