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Letters
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- Written by: Camille Schraeder and Willow Anderson
Redwood Children’s Services Inc. would like to thank our community for the generous outpouring of support this past holiday season.
With more than 100 children and youth in our care throughout Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma counties we had a daunting task of making the holidays special for each and every one of our kids.
With your support we were able to give to each and every child and youth at least one specific gift they had asked for.
This may not seem such a big deal to most families but for our kids in care it shows that someone took the time and energy to get what they asked for. It showed them how much they matter and how much people care for them.
Our kids felt special. This is what we strive for at Redwood. Normalcy is difficult to obtain in foster care but with the help of our dedicated foster parents, staff and you these kids were able to experience the “normal” feeling that someone cares about them even if things in their life may be in turmoil.
The holiday season is a time filled with tradition. The gathering of family, the sharing of gifts and the expression of love are important parts of a child and youth’s life.
Thank you for making it possible for our children and youth to experience it. They were able to experience something as normal as tearing open beautifully wrapped boxes. Small things matter and these small things have made all the difference.
In addition to supporting our children and youth in care we were able to give to eight families accessing our services a holiday meal and gifts. These are families that didn’t ask for help but were identified as the most in need of our clients. To have a real holiday meal and gifts that the parents couldn’t otherwise afford meant the world to these families.
Our youth resource centers were open Christmas morning to welcome in community youth. These are teens and young adults that may otherwise have no family to celebrate with. The dedication of our staff to include these youth is a true testament to the values of Redwood.
Our donors have come from local businesses, church groups, former foster youth, staff, service clubs, young and old.
This is a great example of “it takes a village to raise a child.” Without your support we couldn’t have reached so many children, youth and families.
We are humbled by your generosity, time and commitment to our community. Redwood wishes each and every one great love and fulfillment to you and yours.
“A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.” – Steve Maraboli, “Life, the Truth, and Being Free”
Camille Schraeder is executive director and Willow Anderson is communications officer for Redwood Children’s Services Inc., based in Ukiah, Calif.
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- Written by: Sue Williams
I was recently disturbed to see an excerpt from the Maury show where a 7 year old boy was bragging about smoking, drinking and swearing.
Seven years old, people! Gee, do you think the video games, movies, TV shows and adult behavior has contributed to this 7-year-old lifestyle?
Almost if not every day we hear about school shootings, murders, drugs and in general poor role modeling on the part of adults. How could we not think these negative messages are not filtering down to our children?
Our children are not born smoking drinking and swearing. I am mindful of a parent who once complained to me her child was using “bad” words. She tried to blame the daycare center children but here is the thing in the end she said, “I don’t know where in the hell he got this from.”
No amount of legislation, emails, editorials or news articles are going to change what our children are being taught by adults.
When is the last time you sat down with a child and just talked about life, life without violence, drinking, smoking or swearing?
And when is the last time you examined how you interact with children, what kind of role modeling are you demonstrating in your life?
Childhood has such a short window and yet what happens to a child is what they bring to their adulthood.
Think about what it is you could do each day to save a child. We see the commercials about feeding children and of course this is important. But what about saving children from a life of crime?
Remember each effort we make to save a child can make this world a better place.
As Americans we spend more money on jails, police and drug prevention than we do on early child development and education from kindergarten to 12th grade.
Sue Williams lives in Kelseyville, Calif.
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- Written by: Ruth Suski
Lakeport Christian Center Preschool students, staff and families would like to thank Doris Perry of Lakeport for making and donating the beautiful and precisely detailed costumes the students were honored to wear in our Preschool Christmas Program last month.
Thank you Doris – you're the best!
Ruth Suski and her husband, Mike, are pastors at Lakeport Christian Center in Lakeport, Calif.
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- Written by: Connel Murray
Mark Twain once famously said that everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.
This holds doubly true for sunny California and the Pacific Southwest where we’ve known for at least 75 years that at some point there would simply not be enough water to support the millions of people moving into these semi-temperate, often semi-arid lands.
We have attempted to solve the water shortage with ever-increasing storage capacity, but sheer population numbers eventually deplete those resources, since water can’t be stored unless and until it falls from the skies.
During the 1977 drought Walter Hickel, a former governor of Alaska and Secretary of the Interior, proposed sending water south from Alaska, which has one-sixth of the nation’s fresh water, and even won keen expressions of interest from Southern California water users, but these discussions ended when the rains came, although the influx of people into the Southwest continued.
Since that time our water managers have been busily rearranging the Titanic’s deck chairs, while our water supplies continue to shrink.
Although Hickel’s plan may have been a little too grandiose and costly to succeed, the basic idea was sound: Namely, get fresh water from where it’s plentiful and ship it to where it’s needed.
This would be from Canada, which has the bulk of the continent’s supply, much of it draining without significant benefit, into the Arctic Ocean.
And it might not be as expensive as one would think. Since many of the rivers of the West flow from north to south, natural waterways could be used to transport much of the water, coupled with pipelines and pumping stations.
As an example, with appropriate dams, the water of huge Great Slave Lake alone might be enough to recharge the aquifer of the Colorado River.
Of course Canadians have shown no interest in exporting this valuable commodity, but then nobody’s made them a serious offer.
It seems to me that the governors of our drought-threatened Western states – led by California – might organize a task force to explore this or other possibilities of getting the fresh water we need before our wells run completely dry.
Connel Murray lives in Kelseyville, Calif.