Blog Updates

In 2003, staff from Conscious Kitchen approached schools in the county with the idea of providing pure, yet kid friendly meals at lunchtime. Today, they are happy to provide hot organic school lunch options to 1,300 kids a day at 14 schools in Marin County, CA. (nine private and five public).
Good Earth makes kid-friendly foods from scratch each day, and avoids using individual packaging – instead, they use stainless steel serving pans. Four of the schools currently receiving this service have achieved zero lunch waste – that is 94% diversion from landfill.

Bayside Martin Luther King School [where we gave bikes/helmets away to 40 children]
In the Fall of 2013, Good Earth helped to launch “The Conscious Kitchen”; a project of Teens Turning Green, transforming the lunches offered to children at Bayside Martin Luther King School, in Marin City. The Marin City Schools, like many schools, had been heating and serving pre-packaged food in throw away containers to students (95% on free and reduced meals).

The Conscious Kitchen, a fresh, local, organic seasonal, sustainable and non-GMO school food program, is now on the campus of Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. School in Marin City. They are serving healthy, hot, organic school lunches to a 120 students. [See lunches in photo]

[Lexin Chen and Charlotte Kobayashi taking a break from serving food] ]\

It is their hope that the success of this project will continue and bring awareness to other schools in this county as well as to other school districts in other counties.
[By Charlotte Kobayashi]

I love wine, chocolate, building websites and doing some good. That’s why I feel so blessed to have been asked to to build the website for the David and Nancy Presti Foundation’s annual charity event, Taste For Life.

This event, in honor of David Presti, combines David’s passion for enjoying great wine shared with loved ones and giving back to the community. Guests will enjoy wine and craft beer tastings, delicious paired foods, fine artisan chocolates, live entertainment, raffles and a silent auction. If you’re planning to be in the Doylestown, PA area on April 12, 2015, I hope you’ll consider getting a ticket to attend this special day at the beautiful Aldie Mansion.

All proceeds are donated to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s, Abramson Cancer Center. The donation will fund a specific research program titled, 2-PREVENT Translational Center for Excellence, a research program dedicated to finding ways to prevent breast cancer recurrence.

To check out the new site or learn more about the event visit http://www.davidtasteforlife.org/
[By Jen Smith]

[Photo: left to right -Felecia Gaston, Executive Director of Performing Stars of Marin; Joe Terry, Chief Executive Officer of Corporate Visions; Marin County Sheriff Lt. Scott Anderson; and Lewis Jordan, Marin Housing Authority]

 

This story began in Napa, on January 28, 2015 when Robyn Bartkowski, Project Manager of Turning Wheels asked us to work in teams of 3, to create 40 teams to assemble the bicycles. First was a scavenger hunt of a 100 items to qualify receiving a tool kit to put the bikes together. Many of us had never put a bike together which made it an interesting adventure. In less than an hour, the teams put 40 bikes together.

Forty boxes of bicycles to be assembled by 40 teams:

Here is one team, clockwise: Steve Harris, Michelina Jones and Lisa Cummings, wracking their brains, arms, hands, fingers and collaborating to build the bikes:

Later in the afternoon, at 4 pm, we were asked to gather in the main courtyard of the hotel to wait for a visitor – we speculated it would be a motivational guest speaker. We waited, waited and waited.

Joe Terry, looking at his watch saying, “Almost here – just a few more minutes.”

Finally, a group of 9 children, ages 9-10 year old, walked into the courtyard with their leader, Felecia Gaston, Executive Director for Performing Stars of Marin. These 9 children were from Bayside Martin Luther King School of Marin City. They were selected to represent all the other 31 children who would be receiving bikes and helmets based on good conduct, good achievement and a letter each one had written explaining why he or she deserved to receive a bike.

[See photo below of the 125 CVI staff, Turning Wheels of San Jose, Shelley Walker, Event Planner, and 9 proud happy students from Bayside Martin Luther King school.]

What about the remaining 30 bicycles? February 14, 2015 was another huge day. The remaining bicycles and helmets were given out at Bayside Martin Luther King School in Marin City where Joe Terry, CEO of Corporate Visions, Lynn Zambrano, and Charlotte Kobayashi attended. Additionally, the Principal of the MLK, Jonnette Newton, Marin County Sheriff, the Marin Housing Authority, Robyn Bartkowski, from Turning Wheels, and parents with their children came to receive bikes, helmets, locks plus, safety training.

Let the photos tell the rest of the story…

Helmets must be fastened!

Bike Safety training…

It takes more than a village; it takes communities united in purpose and vision. Thank you to everyone who took part in making this happen!

Sponsors:

[By Charlotte Kobayashi]

Melissa Hereford and her 10 year old Simon volunteered at the Mill Street Center on February 11, 2015 in San Rafael, serving a homemade meal. The Mill Street Center is one of two shelter programs run by Homeward Bound of Marin. “The Mill Street Center is the “front door” of their Adult Services Program, the 55-bed shelter is the county’s only night-to-night emergency shelter for homeless individuals. It serves both men and women in separate dormitory-style rooms. A network of volunteers from three dozen churches and community groups shares a monthly rotation to provide a home-cooked hot meal to Mill Street residents. This significant gift has endured since the center opened more than 25 years ago.

As space becomes available, committed residents “graduate” to New Beginnings Center, where they can stay up to six months.”

The adults in the shelter really enjoy chatting with the volunteers who serve dinners there. Melissa and Simon have served food several times, and they especially seem to like chatting with Simon. He has commented every time that he can’t believe some of these people are homeless because “they look like you and me. You’d never know that they were homeless by looking at them.” This connection to the real homeless people in our own community has sparked some interesting conversations and reflections of gratitude for the fortunate lives we lead.

[Simon admiring the entrée he helped prepare…]
[By Melissa Hereford]

[Doylestown Office Team above]

For the past several years Corporate Visions has participated in the Salvation Army Annual Christmas Angel Tree gift-giving program in each of the respective cities where company offices are located.

In 2014, employees from 6 offices – Incline Village, Nevada; Pleasanton, California; Seattle, Washington; Larkspur, California; Darien, Connecticut; and Doylestown, Pennsylvania, donated a total of 100 gifts for children whose families are challenged with their day-to-day financial demands of life.

Employees voluntarily selected a gift tag or two, purchased gifts according to the requests of the children identified on each tag, and brought them into the office to be picked up on a designated date by the Salvation Army Angel Tree project staff.

Every child deserves to experience the joy of Christmas morning. And thanks to everyone who generously donated gifts, this great CVI tradition is being kept alive to support this positive experience for children who, otherwise, would not have had a gift under their tree.

Thank you especially to those who helped coordinate this project at each of the CVI offices: Laura Vollbrecht in Doylestown, Diane Frate in Darien, Christine Horvath in Seattle, Jaime Farrar in Pleasanton, Sarah McMahan in Incline Village, and Charlotte Kobayashi in Larkspur.

Photo at the very top shows the highly motivated, enthusiastic CVI Doylestown Team; they purchased gifts for 20 children who could use a little sparkle and magic in their Christmas this year. This was the first year the Doylestown office participated in the Salvation Army Angel Tree project, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed shopping for that something special. Popular gifts were basically anything related to the movie Frozen, Ninja Turtles, or Barbie. Everyone is looking forward to participating again next year!         by Laura Vollbrecht

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[Pleasanton Office Team below] “We successfully distributed all the tags, 15 tags total. There seemed to be a lot of thought that went into the gift purchases, and the team took great pride in helping out such a wonderful cause. We’re excited to do it again next year!”    by Jaime Farrar

[Pleasanton Office Tree and Gifts below…]

Guess who is watching over us?

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[Larkspur Office Team below…]

[Lynn, Melissa with gifts and Charlotte below…] L

Larkspur Office Tree and Gifts below…

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Seattle Office …

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Darien Office…

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[Incline Village Team…]

Thank you everyone for your wonderful contribution and a highly successful Angel Tree Gift-Giving for 2014!

On December 10th, Laura Lewers, Lynn Zambrano, and Charlotte Kobayashi from the Larkspur Office volunteered for 3 hours at The Redwoods Assisted Living Center in Mill Valley, California. Two lovely Christmas trees were decorated with ornaments donated by community residents over several years.

A choral group sang holiday songs while the trio decorated the large tree in the auditorium. Residents and staff of The Redwoods were so appreciative and sent us a thank you note with a beautiful drawing…

Click on Tree and Message to see the card and message:
Tree and message

Here is the photo of the smaller tree in the library room:

[By Charlotte Kobayashi]

Santa’s helpers, (Diane Frate and Lisa Slen), from the Darien CVI Team spent the morning of December 10th helping to create the Person-to-Person Toy Store. This is a festive event where volunteers come together and transform their community center into a Christmas Toy Store. This year P2P will be serving more than 2200 children and their families (totaling 1050) in Stamford, Darien, Norwalk, and New Canaan, CT.

Lisa helped create the toy area for the 12-15 year olds, while Diane assisted in moving the toys from their attic and basement to the community center.

P2P clients shop for their children’s holiday gifts, while the children are watching a Christmas movie in another area of the center. Each child will receive a toy, book and a family board game. Gifts are wrapped by volunteers. The Toy Store is open for three days in December.

This is a very festive event where people from other companies come together to lend a helping hand.

December, 2014 – P2P Toy Store Fun Facts:
• 100 volunteers set up in 7 hours
• 350 volunteers helped over 28 hours for 2.5 days
• More than 1050 families visited Toy Store
• More than 2500 new toys and new books were given to families
• More than 1000 new board games were given to families
• More than 30 pizzas were consumed by our tireless volunteers
• Most of our families were from Norwalk or Stamford; with a few from Darien, New Canaan, Wilton, Westport and Weston
• Monopoly was the most popular board game

[By Diane Frate]

[Photo above: Simon Hereford with calculator]

“The 4th graders at Mark Day School participated in a fund raising and gift buying project through Adopt-A-Family in Marin County, CA. Each 4th grader was asked to raise money to contribute to the project. My son, Simon, made rainbow loom bracelets and action figures to sell to our family members over the Thanksgiving holiday.

We took the opportunity to teach him how to make a fundraising pitch, including what the funds were going toward and how to say, “the recommended donation is $10, but you can feel free to donate more.” He made a great pitch and raised $90 from 6 family members!

Here’s the rainbow loom ballerina that Simon made for his Aunt for a $20 donation.

The class raised over $3400 from 42 kids. They split the proceeds amongst 4 families, with 17 people total. The kids then were put into groups of 3 shoppers and assigned a family member with a budget of $200 per person. Our group had the father of the family, $200 to spend and his wish list. Off we went to buy gifts!

Melissa, Simon, and friends shopping at Target

The kids were asked to keep track of each item on a list, to be sure they stayed within their $200 budget.

The itemized gift list

Simon with the calculator, staying within their $200 budget

The kids were thoughtful about the gifts. Our recipient asked for work clothes: collared polo shirts, button-down shirts, a belt and wallet, cologne and such. The kids were careful to choose items that they thought were dressy enough for work.

They still had time for fun!

After our shopping trip, the kids wrapped all their gifts, made cards and delivered everything to Adopt-A-Family. It was truly lovely to see the kids thoughtfully raising money and then shopping for families in need.”
[Melissa Hereford]

On December 11th, 2014, Jake Zimmer volunteered for his wife’s fundraiser which takes place each year.

Through combined efforts of many volunteers, Jake and the group helped raise $2000 this year which will be distributed amongst three charities: Save the Children, World Protection of Animals, and the local dance school scholarship fund.

Additionally, Jake offered his special artistic/creative talents by doing the graphic design for t-shirts, posters, and program, as well as, the photography, and music editing for the kids.

For more information on the fundraising, please click on attached link: http://www.worldanimalprotection.us.org/news/thank-you-tahoe-dance-company-protecting-animals

[By Jake Zimmer]