Change Becomes Change

Thinking about change

With the change in season last week, we've been thinking and talking about change around here.  Many different types of changes - changes in the color of leaves that we see on the drive to school, changes in our children now that they've been back in school a few weeks, and personal changes that we're working on like getting in shape and finding time for what's important.

There's another kind of change that we want to work on this fall as the weather starts to turn: we want to help those without the comforts we have. We're incredibly appreciative of our warm home, nutritious food, clean clothes, loving friends and family, and good health, but we recognize that we're fortunate. Very fortunate. Because there are families just like ours that don't know where their next meal might come from and don't have a cozy place to rest their head at night.

So, what can we do to help?

There are easy things like donating food to our local food bank, church and shelters, taking our unwanted clothes, toys and books to places like the Salvation Army or community places like the Neighborhood House here in Portland, and contacting some of these organizations to find out how we can help even more. Check with your church about opportunities to help at a soup kitchen or pack lunches. Meals on Wheels programs around the country are always in need of drivers.

Every city and community has resources for people in need and they're easy to find - so look them up and call them. We are a country with families in need. They need the extra help right now.

If you're making a difference in your community, we want to hear from you. We know that friends like Michelle Stern at What's Cooking in Northern California is helping address childhood hunger. Louise Ross helps people get quality food on a budget at her site Market to Mouth. Mike Lieberman shares one really simple "green" idea every day that helps us be kind to the earth, and our budgets, at his new blog 365 Ways to go Green. When we can save money with resources like these, we're in a better position to help others.

Corporations are stepping up each day. ConAgra will donate $10 to fight childhood hunger for every new fan on their Facebook page through October 10. Macy's wants all of us to help them provide 10 million meals for Feeding America.And there are many more. 

Need a place to start? Want a few new ideas? Check out Volunteer Match - they make it easy for good people to find a good cause to get involved in.

And don't forget that you can earn a free hotel night when you give just one day of your time. Get these simple details here.

Keeping our kids away from drugs by sharing dinner together.

Today is Family Day – a day to eat dinner with your children. Family Day was started a few years ago by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) to raise awareness around the positive impacts of coming around the table to enjoy a meal with your family.

Why? Well, Columbia University has over a decade of solid research indicating that the more often you have dinner with your children, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs.

Don’t we all want that for our children? I don’t know about you, but I’d do just about anything short of moving to a remote and desolate island to keep my kids away from drugs. This is way easier – have dinner together, stay off drugs. Yeah, we can do that.

The simple way we can encourage our kids to stay substance-free is to share a meal with them, talk to them about their day, friends and school, and listen to what they tell us. If we listen and observe carefully7, we can tell what’s going on in our children’s lives and be there to support them.

So, what keeps you from sharing dinners with your family more often? For us, it’s getting dinner on the table within minutes of getting home so that I have a little bit of time to enjoy my kids before their early bedtimes. We’re working on different solutions right now and I’ll share them with you soon.

I’d love to hear your challenges, how you solve them and new ideas – write a comment and share with us!

For those wondering why I didn’t write about this earlier so that you’d know about Family Day ahead of time, well, I really didn’t think we needed a special date to have dinner as a family. This shouldn’t be just one day a year.

And I was simply too busy having dinner with my own family. Enjoy!

 

Reusing Children's Art

If you have young children you probably also have a lot of art. I know some parents have wonderful systems for rotational displaying and organized storage of their children’s masterpieces, but we’re certainly not one of those. It was a little easier when there was one child, and he really didn’t like art so there was very little of it. But now it takes over our house. And the last thing I want is to break their little hearts by seeing their work in the recycle bin.

So, here’s a few ideas I’ve picked up over the past few months to capture the special memory of their work while giving it a second life.

Capture the memory by taking a picture of your child with their art. Looking at these photos years later will bring back so many wonderful memories of that age.

Scan it! If you have a scanner, you can scan any flat work and download it to a CD or print a book of their art at the end of the year. There are many convenient services out there that scan, print and bind it all into a book

Make it a wrap. Paintings on large craft or art paper make beautiful wrapping paper for family and friend’s gifts. Grandparents cherish the paper sometimes just as much as the gift.

Personal touch. We’ve made postcards by cutting up art into strips or larger pieces just smaller than postcard stock. Glue the art to one side of the card and write your message on the other. These turn thank you notes into something personal from your child.

Take note. Simply cut up the art into pieces for note paper. We haven’t bought notepads in years! Our special note paper is used for shopping lists, to-do lists, notes in lunchboxes (which they love since it’s their work!), etc.

Art-on-the-go. Cut the larger art into smaller pieces, pack some markers, stickers or felt and glue, put them in a large plastic bag or bin and you’ve got a simple art bag that’s ready to go for dining out, church or long lines in the post office. We have a variety of these bags with different contents in each so that we can mix it up for the kids.

Shred it. When you’ve taken full advantage of the paper, rather than toss it into the recycling bin, put it through a shredder. The colorful bits of paper can be used to pack gifts, keep fragile baked goods safe in transit, or cut up smaller for party confetti.

By then, you might be ready to hit the recycling bin. But you can feel better about it.

Any other ideas? What do you do with art?

Not getting Change Becomes Change updates delivered to your email inbox? SUBSCRIBE HERE

How I got my kids to eat spinach, broccoli and beets – without threats of harm.

I often get asked, “do your kids really eat that?” when I talk about the vegetables that we buy at the farmer’s market each week: zucchini, broccolini, beets, spinach, kale, carrots, and the like. Yes, my kids really do eat all of that (and more).

I also get, “what to you threaten them with to get them to eat that?”.

Nothing. I’d like to believe that my long family history of vegetable-loving genes were thankfully passed along to my children but I know way too many other veggie lovers that didn’t pass on the passion.

So, what is it?

I think it’s two things: 

We followed the advice of someone way smarter than us and started our then-toddlers off with vegetables before fruit, and, specifically, green veggies before orange (the sweeter ones). They simply didn’t know any better. The timing was right too – they were practically leaping at our food when we started on solids so we knew they were ready to enjoy it.

We expect them to eat it. It’s not an experiment to “see if they’ll eat it”. Attitude is everything. We’ve always had one family dinner – there’s no short-order cook in my house making personal meals – and the unspoken expectation is that we’ll all eat our food. And they do.

It’s pretty rare that I need to ask them to try something with just one bite, but if they absolutely protest, I’ll make the request.

And I don’t cover vegetables in butter or slather in sauce. Until recently, they actually preferred them simply lightly steamed. We’ve been doing a lot of creative cooking around our house lately and they’re enjoying the new tastes.

I really believe that starting out right with solids, and having the right attitude has made all the difference with our kids. Other little things have helped along the way like talking about vegetables, visiting local farms and growing some of our own.

It’s never too late to start. Find one that they like and try it many ways. Mix it with something new. Find a kid-friendly recipe with new vegetables that they can make. Raising kids that are good eaters and respect their bodies starts at home with a nutritious diet and movement.

Patrick would eat beets but didn’t really like them until he made this beet and apple salad at a farmer's market event for kids. Now he wants to make the dish to share with his grandparents when they visit this week. The recipe was pretty simple and almost sweet enough for dessert:

2 Beets peeled and shredded

2 Apples peeled & shredded

Currants (dried cranberries work too)

Dressing: apple cider vinegar, vegetable oil of choice, honey. Mix to taste. Toss it all together.

Enjoy.

Not getting Change Becomes Change updates delivered to your email inbox? SUBSCRIBE HERE

Fall TurnOff (Screens) Week - Sept 20

Did you participate in the spring by turning off your screens for a week?  Whether you did, or not, I hope you'll join us in the Fall TurnOff Week that kicks off Sunday, September 20. It's no easier for us than you, especially in the fall with college football and season premiers. But we're motivated and armed with our DVR. 

National TurnOff Week is about re-thinking how and why we use TV, looking at the impact TV has on our family life and determining what role we want it to play.

Here's a snapshot of the research that describes the consequences of too much screen time - for us and our children:

• a preschooler's risk of being overweight increased by 6% for every hour of TV watched per day

• for every hour of TV children watch each day, their risk of developing attention-related problems later increases by 10%.  So, a child who watches 3 hours of TV each day, is 30% more likely to develop ADD.

• the more TV preschoolers watch, the more their academic performance will suffer in first grade

• Children in households where the TV is on "always" or "most of the time" are less likely to read than are children in other homes

• Children six and under spend an average of two hours a day using screen media, about the same amount of time they spend playing outside, and well over the amount they spend reading or being read to (39 minutes)

• For adults, too much screen time is the leading cause of obesity, and leads to a sedentary and lonely lifestyle that isn't healthy from a physical, emotional or mental perspective

We've all plopped our kiddos in front of Sesame Street or Dora, justifying that it's educational for them, while we clean house, get dinner ready or simply relax. And there's no need to feel bad. Instead, take this opportunity to think about the topic and decide if you want to make a change for your family.

Here's a few ideas to fill the time in ways that are fun for the whole family.

• Read! Go to the library to find new books and stock up! Have a book exchange with friends or neighbors so everyone gets "new" books.

• Get outside. Bike, hike, walk, run, scoot, explore - just get some fresh fall air.

• Socialize. Plan potluck dinners with friends, neighbors and family. Fall is a great time to get out the slow cooker and share a warm bowl of soup or stew.

• Can. Stock up on peaches, pears or tomatoes at the farmer's market this weekend and spend a cool night in the kitchen preserving the late summer harvest.

• Play. Get out the board games and cards to have some fun. Don't have any? See if your local library or pizza joint do. Go bowling.

• Write. Teach your child the joy of recording special moments from their day by "journaling" (we draw or scribble special moments in a spiral notebook). Write letters or notes to family or friends.

• Create. Find projects that your children will enjoy, discover a new hobby or reconnect with activities you used to enjoy.

• Bake. Make some cookies or cupcakes with your kids and deliver them to the neighborhood.

• Help. Find organizations that you have passion behind and see what you can do to help them this week. If nothing else, clean out your pantry and donate the unwanted items to your local food shelter or bank. Write letters or draw pictures to elderly. Clean your closet and find clothes that don't fit to donate.

For us parents, we need to set a good example, which means turning off the cell phone, laptop and other screens to enjoy those special moments with our kids while they're young. And still want us around. If you don't think setting a good example is important, maybe this little video will serve as a good reminder.

USDA Launches "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" Initiative

The US Department of Agriculture today announced a new program called Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.

Why? Here's one good reason: "Americans are more interested in food and agriculture than at any other time since most families left the farm," said Agriculture Deputy, Kathleen Merrigan. "'Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food' seeks to focus that conversation on supporting local and regional food systems to strengthen American agriculture by promoting sustainable agricultural practices and spurring economic opportunity in rural communities."

If you attend your local farmer's market, buy locally grown produce or have a backyard vegetable garden of your own, you're already part of the conversation. But...there are still many communities without a true farmer's market or any opportunity to buy food grown or packaged within 150 miles of their home (most food still travels 1,500 miles to reach your plate). There are still school children who don't know that milk comes from cows (it's not "made" by the store). There are still families serving canned veggies (or none) because it's the only option they have.

It's time for change.

This initiative means that funds will be allocated to important programs that help move this conversation off a wish list and into reality. Where it needs to be. We need to be putting pencil to paper, discussing programs in our various community meetings and supporting our local growers by asking our grocery store, favorite restaurants and friends where their food comes from.

We can do this. Believe me. You can also believe Tom Vilsak, USDA Secretary. Check out the USDA's YouTube site for his new video talking about the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative.

So, tell me, do you know a local farmer? Do you know where your food comes from? If not, find a farmer's market near you and and find out this weekend. Then tell us about it.

Not getting Change Becomes Change updates delivered to your email inbox? SUBSCRIBE HERE

To enjoy more on buying local, sustainable food, check out:

Visit Your Farmer's Market This Weekend, And Buy Local

Vote For Real Food

How Do You Think About Food?

charity: water

I've been writing a story to tell you all about a wonderful grassroots charity that has been raising funds to give clean drinking water to those without it. It was a good story. But then I came across this video and realized that this is even better. It says it all.

If you're getting Change Becomes Change by email, you might want to click here if the video won't start up. There's more information at the site that I wouldn't want you to miss.

Visit charity: water for even more. And to find out how you can help bring clean drinking water to those without it.

Not getting Change Becomes Change updates delivered to your email inbox? SUBSCRIBE HERE

Time For Lunch Eat-In Events

This past Monday, Slow Food USA held Eat-In events across the country to gather over 20,000 parents and community members together to support their Time For Lunch campaign bringing Real Food to school lunches. They surpassed their goal for Child Nutrition Act petition signatures and are still accepting them on their site (hint, hint) before Congress votes this fall.

Patrick and I went to our local Portland Eat-In. We had an early, light lunch with the family so I assembled snacks for us: grapes, carrots and a salad with tomatoes from our garden, chick peas, parmesan cheese tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (I didn't realize how much Patrick would enjoy this as he left about two bites for me). We sat on the lawn among other families with the shared interest of better food choices in our schools. While it was a very casual event, you could feel this incredibly strong sense of community.

We visited with some of the participants with literature to share, like Slow Food Portland and Oregon Environmental Council who had a Healthy Lunch Box Recipes brochure that quickly found it's way to Patrick's hands. After reading about each recipe, he decided that he wanted to try the Roasted Turkey Roll-Ups this week. We used a spelt tortilla and I'm pleased to say that he loved it! He's a good eater but if there's not enough time for everything in his lunch, he'll start with the fruit or veggies and end with the sandwich or main dish - not today. The Roasted Turkey Roll-Up was gone, while five grapes made their way home.

There's still a lot of work to be done in order to get Real Food in our schools. If you haven't signed the petition, that's the easiest thing you can do. There's even more ways to help if you have a few more minutes - I hope you do!

Patrick and the product bean bag toss - not sure what that is he's preparing to toss.

More on Healthy School Lunches:

Solution for Healthy School Lunches: Chef Ann Cooper and Whole Foods 

Not getting Change Becomes Change updates delivered to your email inbox? SUBSCRIBE HERE

SOLV Fall Beach Cleanup Saturday September 19

Join us and the thousands of Oregonians heading to our beautiful coast line next Saturday, September 19th to clean up our beaches. Over the busy summer, the beach has accumulated more than memories of vacationing families and out-of-town visitors; it's now littered with cans, paper, bottles and other remnants from the good times had. Just like we'd clean up our own yard or neighborhood, it's time for us Oregonians to protect our beaches and do a little clean up.

Last year over SOLV 3,700 volunteers picked up about 40,000 pounds of trash along the Oregon coast - let's rock that record this year! You can get all the details, including how to register to volunteer and sign up for a carpool, right here.

Sounds like a lot of work, right? It's really not. It's actually fun. Really.

My 5 year old, Patrick and I have done a few SOLV clean up days and he's enjoyed each one. SOLV provides everything from gloves to collection bags and there's a role for everyone. Cheerleaders are welcome too. It's a family-friendly event where even the littlest ones can have the critical job of spotting the trash for mom, dad or a grandparent to pick up.

This year, we're going to clean up the beach in the morning, then enjoy it with a picnic lunch and our favorite sand toys as our reward. Let us know if you're going so we can work and play together.

Not getting Change Becomes Change updates delivered to your email inbox? SUBSCRIBE HERE

  

Labor Day: Day of Appreciation

Times are tough for many folks right now, no doubt. For some, it may be a challenge to put together a meaningful list of things they're grateful for.

Even still, let's turn this Labor Day into a day of giving thanks.

A day for giving thanks to our employer for the opportunity to have work - because so many people don't. 

A day of showing appreciation to the workers who show up with a smile at our favorite coffee shop, grocery store or gas station.

A day to acknowledge the village it takes to raise our children: teachers, doctors, nurses, neighbors, friends and family.

A day to thank the volunteer workers who give so much of themselves at the food pantry, shelter or hospital.

A day to be grateful for the organizations who work hard to take care of our sick, hungry and homeless.

How can you show your appreciation today?