A Generous Family

The holiday season is a time of giving.  Today we met a family who decided to forgo presents and instead give donations to a family that needs it more.  We went with the family to the home of Ceu and Van Par.  Ceu is a Kindergarten student in Diana's class and Van Par is his sister in Caitlin's third grade class.  They gave Ceu and Van Par's family gift cards to various stores so that they may by food and clothing.  The siblings' father, Hay Thang, was overwhelmed with the graciousness and kindness.  Before leaving the home, Hay Thang wanted to take a picture of the this generous family to send home to Burma so that he could show them the people who were so kind to his family.  

Brown Bag------>Bountiful Bags

We are changing the name of the program from Brown Bag to Bountiful Bags.  We have made it thus far with Rev. George's guidance and he suggested that we needed a more catchy name.  The new name is more whimsical and upbeat but has the same purpose! 

Shallowford Presbyterian

We attended Sunday service at 11am today at Shallowford Presbyterian.  The church is very bright and cheery.  The children who played the bells did a beautiful job!

After service, we went with Dave, who has been absolutely awesome in helping us, to meet the mission group.  We were given the opportunity to speak to the group and give them the story behind our purpose and who we were.   Everyone was so nice and interested in our program.  We were really encouraged after the presentation! :) We are looking forward to the partnership of Shallowford with our program. 

Barbara, who is also an amazing woman, gave us a couple of huge bags of shoes for our students.  These shoes will definitely come in handy during the cold, winter months here in Georgia.  Thank you, Barbara!

Georgia Aquarium

We both applied for the SEA grant from the Georgia Aquarium.  This grant would give our students free admission to the aquarium and the only cost to the students would be the bus fare.  Because most of our students do not get to leave the Clarkston area, we thought this would be a great opportunity for our students.  It would be an experience that many would not ever forget.

Caitlin got the grant for her third grade team and would be going in January 2012.  Diana got the grant for her Kindergarten team and would be going today.  Rev. Sara Hayden joined Diana and her class as a chaperone.  On the way to the aquarium, we passed many big buildings and a couple of art sculptures.  One of the students said, "Wow, we must be in New York!"  This just shows how much the students have not seen outside of Clarkston.  They associate what they see from what they probably saw on television.  They were so chatty and excited!

As part of the grant, the students got to see the 4D Deepo Movie.  To see the students wear the 3D glasses and try to touch the fish as they were swimming was so precious!  Some of the students were scared because of how life-like the characters were so they had their hands over their eyes.  Overall, the students had an absolutely amazing time.  The looks on their faces when they saw the fish in the tanks was priceless.  On the way back to school, they were so exhausted and most of them ended up falling asleep.  It was a tiring, exciting, and awesome day!  Thank you to the Georgia Aquarium for accepting our application and thank you to all the chaperones!