Tuesday, August 30, 2011

And it Shone Through a Banana...

It's always this way. It's always a mixed bag. We're always mixed bags. There are successes and failures, love and hate, virtue and vice, whizzing around us and out of us more quickly than we can label them.

Even though it was a day in which one of my 7th graders was pulled to the hallway so a dime bag could be pulled from his shoe. And even though the kid who had given him the dime bag begged the principal for mercy because he was earnestly trying to help his mom pay the bills. And even though another of my students is resisting school and guidance because she is worn out with her reading disability and appears more and more to be biding her time until she can  drop out, the virtue still shone through today. And it shone through a banana.

You see, there's this brother and sister at my school. The brother is about as rough as they come, and he and his little sister are late every day, which  means they miss the universal breakfast that the other kids get. And it means that the two kids stay hungry most days  'til their 12:00 lunchtime. Well, in between 1st and 2nd period, as the sister walked out of my Special Ed. room, and her brother walked in, the brother took out a banana that he'd gotten from who-knows-where, and split off half for his sister. And before I thought to ask the boy why he was eating contraband food in the hallway, the sister offered an answer to a more important question, "He's my brother, he takes care of me."

Monday, August 22, 2011

Safe Families needed

After the news of Dashiyah's death, we decided it was time to get back into Safe Families again. So last week we had two boys for five days. On Wednesday we will be taking a 2-year-old. Safe Families of Chicago is still looking for a place for his 3-year-old brother. The placement is for 6 weeks.

If you live near Chicago, you can get signed up to be a Safe Families host family for a child or a set of siblings. It's a pretty simple process, and you can dramatically impact a child's life. This video shows Katie Curic's take on the program.



Katie Couric on Safe Families for Children from John Norton on Vimeo.



Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Our Dashiyah

 Two years ago we helped a family by keeping their daughter, Dashiyah for about six weeks, while her parents found a home that was suitable for their large family. Our close friends, the Kimballs, took care of her brother, Joey, who was 3 at the time.


We found out on Sunday that Dashiyah, Joey and one other brother died in a house fire back in April.


We are all deeply grieved and rattled by this news.

Here are some picture of this sweet and playful little girl.

Man, we miss her.