Spring Blooms Bring New Innovations!

After a few discouraging setbacks on locations for our after-school program and our summer camps, we are back with new ideas, connections, and options! Like any new endeavor, sometimes it's three steps forward, one step back.

By taking that step back and reviewing our vision, we were able to expand our ideas to include some very exciting new innovations and twists. We are shooting for our after-school program to begin in the Fall.

In order to fine tune our new plan, we are hosting a family gathering/pizza party for all donors, volunteers, potential board members and community partners on Friday, May 5th @ 6 pm. If you fall into one of those categories or feel passionate about the direction all our youth is going in this educational and political climate, please feel free to join us.

Our plan is to serve ALL high school youth and help them discover their strengths and passions so they may be successful when they leave school. We believe in this day and age, our kids will need leadership, entrepreneur, and self-starting skills to achieve that goal. This combined with a connection to our environment and our community is what One Shared Root is all about.

Come join THE ROOT! We need you!

It's all about the Canaries

I read this great story about the coal miners in Pennsylvania from one of my favorite writers, Glennon Doyle Melton. As we all know, the mines are very dangerous because they are full of invisible deadly toxins. The Miner’s bodies weren’t sensitive enough to register the levels of poison so they often brought a Canary down with them. The Canaries body is specifically built to be very sensitive to the toxins in the mine so when the toxin level rose too high, the Canary stopped singing. If the Miner’s didn’t leave when the singing stopped, the Canary would die and shortly thereafter, so would the Miner’s. The Canary became the Miner’s lifeline.

I believe many of our kids are Canaries.

When a child has sensory integration issues due to a disability such as Autistic spectrum disorder, Seizure Disorder, Bipolar, Depression, Hearing Impairment, ADHD (which is just one huge sensory challenge), etc. the world can be very painful and overwhelming. Everything from sounds, lights, energy, and speech coming at them can be very difficult to sort though. Some kids are more efficient at adapting so on the outside they may follow the rules better, however sometimes there is still a constant underlying uncomfortableness they can’t put into words.

I don’t believe this makes them weak. I don’t believe it makes them so broken they need to be fixed. In fact, it’s possible they are the bravest of us all. It seems no matter how painful it feels, they just keep putting themselves out there over and over in the course of their everyday life. And what we all perceive as inappropriate behaviors could quite possibly be that canary losing its song and trying to let others know there is trouble. I guess the question is, are we listening? Or are we consumed with the fixing?

When you have a plant or a flower that isn’t growing, do we keep forcing it while we watch it continue to die a little death over and over hoping it will eventually adapt? Or do we change the environment so it can take root and flourish?

We as parents all want our children to be able to fit in and function in our community because we believe that will make them happy. We all want our children to feel loved and accepted. And I do believe we do need to help them learn to adapt to a certain extent so their attempts aren’t so painful. And when they finally uncover their passions, the path is open. However, if we are extreme and solely focused on making them acceptable, we may miss the gifts they are here to give us.

As both a parent and a canary, I struggle with this balance every single day.

Perhaps One Shared Root will be that special place where Canaries are safe to sing, a place where others are encouraged to listen. Who knows… it may just be the lifeline we didn’t even know we needed. 

Let Love Bloom

Last week was a painful time for our DMD community. Over five days, we lost five beautiful young men ending it with the loss one of our most well-known warriors, Darius.  For those of us parents who grapple with anticipatory grief on a regular basis, the search for our own answers or at least a believable spin becomes paramount for our survival. Or at least for mine.

After spending some time being still, this is what I heard…. perhaps the purpose of the great loves of our life are not so we will have them forever but simply so we will continue to grow from them. In looking for our farm for the lessons, I see annual plants which are so abundant when they impact the garden so richly, we wonder why they aren't meant to last. Unlike the perineal, they are only here for a too short season of our life. But when they do die off, they go back into the soil and create a richer more bountiful source for the next love to bloom. Maybe that’s love too.  Maybe love isn’t meant to stay the same, maybe it’s meant to elevate us, change us and make us richer for the next time.

I have certainly had some meaningful loss: my mother, my aunt, and several close friends. And with each heartbreaking loss, the love remained and made me able to love more deeply. I have no way to even begin to comprehend the loss of a child although I think of it often. All I can do is hope the love which has been so carefully cultivated, like the richest of soil, becomes so fertile the most precious of blooms are able to grow in its place. Hope doesn't promise, but maybe it's the fertilizer needed to attract the light. And we have to ask, why live in the dark when there’s an option of light? If we aren't planted in a space the light can reach, we extinguish all possibility for the perineal right below the surface, just waiting for permission to bloom once again.

Making Room for the Gifts

Thanks everyone for voting on the logo! Here is the final version we settled on. Thanks so much again to Jen Mileti at Vilocity! 

 After several meetings and no cooperation and avoidance from SUSD, we have moved on from the location we had our sights set on. Everything with this project has been this magical carpet ride with each opportunity presenting itself as we start to look for it. The Scottsdale Unified location was starting to feel like paddling upstream so we took it as a sign that it’s not meant to be. I could have done my usual advocating up the chain of command (I only had one rung to go), but I want this to be different. So many times in the past I made things happen rather than allowing them to happen. And I’ve begun to learn that the latter approach seems to have far more sustainability.

As soon as we let that go, some other options have presented themselves. We are investigating those leads and are confident we will find our home, one we are welcomed in with open arms.

I called in the troops Saturday. We still want to throw this modest fundraiser to get started with a small group of potential board members, partners and folks who have really shown interest. Our last window to have it before the holiday madness kicks in is November, which is coming fast. I was feeling very overwhelmed so I called some of my nearest, dearest lady bosses to come over and help. Once again, magic. That day we received an anonymous donation of $2500 to underwrite the event! 

That just blew us away. Speechless. Really.

We also got word that the fantastic caterer from Gertrude’s at Desert Botanical Gardens, who finds our project heartwarming, is donating her services and lovely faire. We are going to still have to scramble to host a warm farm to table dinner to launch our video & crowdfunding campaign but it will be so interesting to see the final result. 

Also, this week I’ll be cleaning up the final draft of a letter of intent for another big grant ($130K) due Friday. It’s been such a privilege to work on this project. I’m learning so much. And even though I’m donating all my time in the midst of 2 other jobs and kids, I still feel calm about how it’s coming together. Much like the experience in the Grand Canyon, this seems to be happening through me rather than because of me. I put in the hard work hard, do my best, but comfortably let go of the outcome. The results seem to have their own life.

When these ideas come clear, evidence is all around perhaps this a much more graceful way to navigate through the rest of my world as well….getting out of my own way. Making some room for the miracles and gifts. 

Unreasonable

I just finished writing our first big grant and got asked by the grantor to define what makes us unreasonable at #OneSharedRoot based on the quote below:

"The reasonable person adapts themselves to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to themselves. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable person." -George Bernard Shaw

Here was my answer:

One Shared Root is unreasonable because we look past what others consider reality and design our world with unlimited potential. This community venture began with our son, who in spite of a life limiting disorder, approaches each day as if his spirit will live forever. He continues to inspire us all to challenge limitations and bravely pursue liberation.

We also just got our logo choices presented by our dear talented friends at Velocity. They are all amazing!!! Go to this link if you want to vote on them. We are interested in your opinion.

https://pollev.com/multiple_choice_polls/G5UDN7YjqD1LaMc/web

Lastly, our dear friend Melissa Pullon introduced us to this amazing gal who works with another Non Profit named FT4C, Fruit Trees for Community. It’s a program to strengthen the local community with the benefits of a bulk-order wholesale discount on a great assortment of berry, grape, and fruit trees that were hand-picked to do well in our climate. With every order over 3 trees, they will donate 1 fruit tree and every order over 12, they will donate 5 fruit trees in your name to any of the local participating organization you choose (#OneSharedRoot)! Check out their website: https://ft4c.org

The root just keeps growing….

Up Next.....

Lots going on…

·         Currently writing two grants to the tune of $100K

o   Perhaps a long shot but doing it for the practice as well as the miracle

·         Meeting with SUSD on the location

·         Researching smaller project based grants to pursue

·         Creating a video for our crowdfunding campaign kick off

o   Thanks to our huge hearted friends at WIREBUZZ

·         Planning a small fundraiser/ board recruitment dinner (NOV)

o   Introducing the idea to our closet members of our community who are interested enough to help support the start up  

o   Need Volunteers and donations for the dinner

·         Reserving space for our summer camps

·         Organizing resources

·         Taking the DDD class to become a provider

·         Creating our branding and marketing pieces

o   Thanks to our creatively gifted friends at VILOCITY INTERACTIVE

·         Gathering lists of potential candidates

·         Creating the program curriculum

Anyone who wants to help with the fundraising dinner, please let me know!

We have over 2,500 hits on this blog and so many people who have expressed a need to be involved. That's how we know we have to keep on keeping on, one day at a time. 

Unexpected Catalyst!

When we decided to go for it, we reached out to our dear friend Alisa Chatinsky from NPO Success. She is an amazing woman who helped get Daring Adventures to a new level. I knew from all our work with Anthony’s Adventure and her personal love for our family’s story she would really appreciate what we were trying to do.

Alisa in turn introduced us to some folks over at Vitalyst health Foundation (formerly St. Luke’s Health initiative). Upon her direction, we went to them and told our story and shared our vision.

Those of you who know the process, starting a non-profit can be very time consuming. You have to file your incorporation papers, file for tax exempt status, draw up your articles and bylaws, and organize a board of directors. This process can take 8 months to a year and then two years or more before you are eligible to apply for any grants. One solution to expedite things is to find a fiscal sponsorship.

Fiscal Sponsorships are 501© (3) charitable corporations who give unincorporated organizations starting out (who have similar missions), a place to park while they are building capacity. The sponsor provides accounting, human resources, grant reviews, and other very important services behind the scenes. They give a new organization some credibility and fulfill requirements certain grants demand.

TAP/AZ (Technical Assistance Partnership of Arizona), an affiliate of Vitalyst, offered applications for a fiscal sponsorship and we decided to apply. This would allow us to get started now with some significant backing. Not just fiduciary oversight, but also a large prestigious organization saying our idea had merit.

Filling out the application was a little daunting and took days. Alisa reviewed it for us and helped us fine tune our mission, plan and budget. We were introduced to a very kind man named George from TAP/AZ   who guided us and helped clarify what the organization was looking for in its candidates.  We submitted the application and waited with our fingers crossed.

We are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude as we tell you, today we have signed the legal agreement with TAP/AZ as our official fiscal sponsor!!! We can now accept donations, apply for grants, and have the leadership, experience and support we need to do this NOW!

DeeDee and I went to lunch and sat and stared at each other with tears in our eyes. This is happening. It feels so divinely inspired. All my early years of the journey with AC felt like I was paddling up Niagara Falls. Everything was so hard. Getting him services, getting him healthcare, delivering interventions, getting friends, keeping friends, working, relationships, discipline, perseverance.…. But over the last couple years, I’ve started to slow down. Some of it I’m certain is simply sheer exhaustion but much of it feels more like a “letting go” of some sorts. At first it felt awkward and uncomfortable. I wondered if I was giving up the fight.

Over time, I slowly shifted my philosophy from “making it” happen, to “allowing it” to happen.  Instead of fighting for what we needed all the time it became more about collaboration, support and asking for help. I can’t help but feel everything is unfolding, opening up and standing to reason. When I look at all the dots effortlessly being connected with #OneSharedRoot, I can’t help but wonder how amazing and limitless the potential seems….. Now that something so much bigger (and wiser) seems to be running the show.

I can’t wait to see what happens.