Twice Blessed Life

So what is the Global Peace Festival? 

It’s a world-wide festival taking place in many countries this summer which

Check out this link to the Global Peace Festival:

http://gpfusa.org/

This year for Halloween, Zanna was a ladybug and Halle was a bumblebee.  They both, however, detested their antennae, and Zanna felt quite strongly that she shouldn’t wear wings.

After dressing them, we tucked them into their stroller, and proceeded around our apartment complex collecting…..donations for hurricane victims in Haiti.

None of that high-fructose corn syrup, melamine-tainted %*#)( for us!

The night before, I leaflet-ed a couple of buildings in our complex with a note in English/Spanish (my best friend Liz did the translation - thanks so much!) letting people know we’d be by the next night with the girls to collect.

Then on Halloween, when we knocked on doors, people were right there to meet us with little ziplock baggies stuffed full of coins.  We also got a few donation of paper currency, too!    They oo-d and ah-ed over the girls, who cutely waved back.  There were a few curmudgeonly types that initially didn’t want to donate, but in the face of Zanna and Halle peering up at them with big adorable eyes and innocently sucking on thumb and pacifier, respectively, they caved.

All in all, we collected $70.29!

This has gone to a great charity called IRFF - International Relief Friendship Foundation www.irff.org .

We’re thinking of doing this every year, and then having a victory party afterwards for the girls, so they can still get (healthy) treats like their friends, but it’ll be positive reinforcement of socially-consious behavior, too. 

We mama’s have to multi-task.

With all of our economic woes recently, and the hoopla about the Beijing Games, and the whole McCain/Obama shootin’ match, I’ve noticed that the Myanmar Cyclone has sorta slipped beneath the media radar lately.

 Cyclone-hit Myanmar struggling to find its feet

If you feel like donating, try this website:

 They seem to be getting the aid where it has to go and circumventing the military junta that’s gumming up the works.

Bye for now,

Lara

Woo hoo!  A huge mega-festival is coming to Wash. D.C. on Aug. 9th!  They’re having these Global Peace Festivals in different countries - the one in Paraguay had about 25,000 attendees!  Check out the link in the Beautiful World section of our website!