Letter to a loved one

I miss you and I'm tired of thinking about you all the time.  I want to constantly be with you, hold you, and see your face.  Making love to you is the best thing in life and I swear I could do it all day long and night, if it would keep us together forever.  I'm wondering if you feel the same about me. 

 

...to be continued

How hard is it to run a non-profit

I am a 2006 graduate of UT's master's social work program. I thought I had what it takes to run a non-profit. I learned how to write a proposal, I learned how to do program evaluations, I learned how to work with advocates, work with policy issues, and even landed a job with a government nonprofit which has provided opportunity to use everything I learned in my 2-year social work program. I even used my assignments as an opportunity to test my non-profit agency design.

How then, am I having such a difficult time soliciting reliable volunteers and funds. Why am I still up in arms about writing the actual program design and evaluation tools for Youth Changes. I have no idea what I am doing wrong. I understand that I am not a charismatic person. I have little to no experience in attracting believers and idea followers. I'm not a people person. At least I wouldn't consider myself one since I am usually left to my own notoriety all by myself.

The number of board members needed depends on the organization and its goal and purpose. In creating my own nonprofit I now know that I would 1st establish a board of dedicated individuals before I try to activate my agency in its designed purpose. Without dedicated and dependable board members your agency is going to be stagnant forever.

More to come later. There are so many issues on this topic I need and want to cover.

TN PRE-K NEEDS YOU TODAY JUNE 16, 2009

Tennessee Alliance for Early Education: Legislative Updates June 16, 2009

On Tuesday, June 16, the state Senate will vote on a proposed budget alternative that shifts
$22 million in pre-K funding to "non-recurring" dollars. This means that after the 2009-2010 budget, a quarter of the pre-K funding is likely to go away. As a result, 250 pre-K classrooms serving 5,000 at-risk 4-year-olds would simply cease to exist in 2010-2011, if funding was not restored.

Pre-K in Tennessee has always enjoyed bipartisan support. But, if the Senate budget passes, it will open the door for pre-K critics to begin to dismantle the program during the next budget cycle. We need your help today to ensure that voluntary pre-K remains an option for our state's at-risk children.

Please take action TODAY :
• Call/contact your own senator and representative (click here to find your legislators).
• Call/contact any others legislators that you know.
• Call/contact all members of Senate and House Finance committees, as these individuals will most likely be appointed to the conference committee.
• Share this e-mail with your friends and ask them to help.

Pre-K works. Eighteen thousand of our state's children are benefiting from the nationally recognized, high-quality program. To lose a quarter of the classrooms would be tragic. That is why legislators must designate recurring funding for the pre-K program this year in order to ensure its future.

NEWS CONFERENCE – YOU'RE INVITED

The Department of Education will host a news conference about pre-K funding on Tuesday, June 16, at 1 p.m., in Room 30 of Legislative Plaza.
You are invited to attend and show your support for pre-K in Tennessee.
To join the Alliance, or for more information, please visit our Web site at www.prekfortn.comor e-mail us at prekalliance@mpf.com. We are also on Facebook.

WE NEED YOU TO HELP SAVE PRE-K FUNDING 6.16.09

Pre-K Leaders Need Support at Press Conference Tuesday June 16
Legislative Plaza

Dear TCSW and the ENTIRE COMMUNITY. WHOMEVER CARES ABOUT OUR YOUTH AND OUR FUTURE:

Below is an alert that went out this morning about the urgent need to support preservation of Pre-K funding. If you care about reducing poverty, make sure our children get the right start.

This email is in concern to the recent action of Senate Finance to dismantle pre-k by moving $22 million to a non-recurring funding source next year.

I am writing to advise you of a news conference to be held on Tuesday, June 16 (tomorrow) at 1:00 in Room 30 (tentative room number) of Legislative Plaza. We are requesting Pre-K leaders and advocates from across the state to join those legislators who are committed to fighting these cuts in this news conference. We especially would like the areas of Anderson, Knox and Rutherford Counties to be represented at the news conference.

Would you help us spread the word? We need LP 30 to be filled to capacity tomorrow with Pre-K supporters. We realize this is short notice but the budget is an urgent matter and will most likely be voted on this week.

The following is a message that needs to be diffused throughout the Pre-K community and state:

We've spent years trying to educate legislators about the value of early childhood education. Unfortunately, some of them continue to work to dismantle pre-K. Most recently, the Senate Republican Caucus is proposing to move $22M in pre-K funding to a dwindling source of non-recurring funds. In doing so, they are clearly setting up pre-K for future cuts. This move would jeopardize future funding for as many as 250 pre-K classrooms.

Bottom line: It's not just disappointing and ill-advised; it's reckless and short-sighted.

We hoped lawmakers would be statesmen this year. Instead, some seem intent on dismantling a nationally recognized pre-K program and undermining local efforts in some of the most forward-thinking education communities in our state -- places like Anderson County (which has perhaps the longest history of pre-K in Tennessee); Rutherford County (which now has the highest pre-K demand in the state); and Knox County (which plays a perennially pivotal role in advancing sound policies, partly because of UT but also because it's an intellectual capital that takes pride in its thoughtful approaches to education).

Thank you for your support of our state's youngest learners!

Bobbi Lussier

Executive Director

Office of Early Learning

TN Dept. of Education

9th Floor Andrew Johnson Tower

710 James Robertson ParkwayNashville, TN 37243ph.

615-253-3167 fax: 615-532-4989

Thank you for acting on your values.

Please contact Carol Westlake (carol_w@tndisability.org) or TCSW (shelby.tabeling@tcsw.org) if you have any questions.

With all good hope - TCSW
TN Conference on Social Welfare
2008 8th Ave. S
Nashville, Tennessee 37204
615.313.9980

Be Still And Know

Living on the verge of disaster waiting for a calling of rescue

Count on yourself as a woman of virtue

Drowning in self recluse help me out of this slum of doubt

Catch my brain's inactivity

Douse my sorrows's full of shame and place me in less hostility

I'm a recovering lose one who shares no pain

I know no one above me he bares my claim to fame.

I'm lonely, scared, tired, frustrated, and blue.

Make me smoke some L's to distance me from you.

Not now cried the wolf

Not now cried the pig

I'm living day to day only at times wishing I were dead.

 Don't say that she says Right after she's uttered the words.

Careless talk is cheap but damaging through and through.

Shut him down and cast out these sounds. Revive thyself from thyself

And make way for a new found clown.

HA! You say. I knew she wouldn't get off so easy.

Making words scream against this fallow herb.

Those tracks are killing me, makes noise I've never heard.

Lay it down don't delay the message your needing is coming your way.

Quick step! Quick Step!

No wait. I don't really feel like it. I'm tired, beat, frustrated, and blue

Maybe it's just not for me to do.

Maybe I've missed my time and the gifts been passed on.

Not my time anymore. I've missed the options & exhausted all of my resource.

Too late too late they say, we've found somebody new.

Okay I say I know it must be true because all I keep seeing is no one staring at me.

 

HELP THE YOUNG HELP THEMSELVES

Working in social service allows you the opportunity to see a lot of scenarios you would not expect to see someone go through in their lifetime. Because I am graduate school educated I think I have all the answers. It is easy to think that if you just did x then y and z would happen. Or if you just did not do x then y and z would not have happened and you would not be in that predicament.

I mentor a young lady who has grown to mean the world to me. I'm not wanting to take her mother's place, but I am wanting to adopt her and raise her as my own. I think she could do so much better than what she's doing. Then again I think that about everyone including myself. In my eyes all the opportunities are there. It's the acceptance of these opportunities that she's not taking advantage of that exhaust me.

I admit I had a very boring childhood. When I graduated high school I was so ready to leave that small town there was not a bus, car, train, or plane that could get me out of there fast enough. I did not have the exposure and comradery my little girl has with her classmates, fashion, entertainment, or even after school activities. So in my eyes being involved in organizations and after school programs was my only way out of the house. Sad to say my only opportunity to dress up and go somewhere was going to church on Sunday. Personally, I think that is why I stay away from the house so much now. I hate to me at home even though I live by myself and can do what I want, I refuse to sit still cooped up in a house doing nothing.

This leads me to not understanding why youth in a metropolitan area so full of opportunity have nothing to show for it except poverty, crime, truancy, in-school suspension, and boredom, not to mention a lack of interest in educational adventure such as learning to cook, sew, rock climb, website design, etc.

I have to continually pull myself back and realize that not everyone is as easily entertained as I am with opportunity to learn something new or grow beyond the present state of boys and music. So, to my little girl and those out there like her full of love for drama, the undaunted necessity to talk back, and an relentless subjection to disobey authority please forgive me for not understanding why my way does not work all the time and I have to beg and plead over and over again to make you see it my way.

I'm only trying to save you from success-less-ness.