5 Minutes Of My Day - Thank you United Way

Today backpacks arrived from the United Way, donation dollars in action.

We with much should never underestimate the equalizing power of starting school with a new backpack filled with new school supplies. 

Come September the children who receive these backpacks will all start school on an equal footing as far as backpacks and supplies are concerned.  

The first impressions of their teachers will not be of poverty and want and we all know how important first impressions are, how they influence advancement, expectations.

2017 Wondering what this antique piece of farm equipment is?

2016 Out walking and enjoying the beauty of old fashion rosebush

2015 Amazed by the fragrance of a field of alfalfa 

2014 Raspberries and ice cream for supper

Grandma Snyder

©twosnydergirls 2018

We all need to dream

Good coffee, warm October air, sitting outdoors, relaxed, on a mini-vacation, living the dream. 

On route to the Saint Lawrence Market, they were there on the periphery of my awareness, silent, dark, over dressed for the weather, always one of us looking away before eye contact could be made, their cardboard sign for help propped up on crossed legs, or held up by a can hoping for money.

He approaches from behind me, softly, tentatively “Do you have any change you might not need?”  I resent the intrusion on my moment of perfect contentment, “No”.  He walks away to approach others on the street.

Privileged by skin colour, and the country of my birth, I am have excellent health because of Canada's health care system and I am well educated because I have had access to free and good educated system.  All of this has supported me in getting and holding down a well-paying job with benefits - to afford this vacation time.

The unfairness of my privilege pulls at me as I looked at the fading back of the racialized man seeking change from strangers. 

I do have change I have two two dollar coins that were so insignificant to me that I tossed them in my pocket instead of my wallet.

I get up and followed after him.  I find him a few blocks away, I apologize because I do have change I do not need and I hand him four dollars.

My conscious now appeased I go back to my friend and coffee without another thought to those who live at the periphery of my life.

More coffee and a couple of chapters in my book we get up to leave and go to the closest Variety Store and there I find him again scratching lottery tickets. 

My first reaction is outrage and this is just as quickly replaced with compassion. 

We all need to dream, to believe there is an escape from our lives when times are bleak and so does he. 

Too often those of us in positions of privilege believe we have the right to dictate how our charity is used when in fact we have not right to say what another human being needs or wants are.

They know their needs and wants and ultimately they live with the consequences of their choices.  

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully[a] will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver" 2 Corinthians 9:6

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Sisters in Spirit 2014 Vigil

Aboriginal women in 2005 came together creating the “Sisters in Spirit” initiative to draw attention to a criminal an epidemic, the alarming and increasing number of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada.  And so on October 4^th each year women, men, boys and girls gather together for the Sisters in Spirit Vigil.

The Owen Sound Ontario CA vigil open with traditional drumming.

Chief Vernon Roote of the Saugeen First Nation spoke to us of his granddaughter Maisy Odjick and the pain he has lived with since September 2008 when Maisy went missing.  

Maaisy Odjick is one of over 1,181 Indigenous women and girls missing or murdered between 1980-2012, this number has increased of the intervening two years.  Chief Roote asked a courageous and socially challenging question.  

Where are the grandmother circles, parenting circles, where have community circles of support gone?  How are we as families, communities and a nation protecting our children from predators, when our children have become prey?  How are we helping our children make it through the difficult years of adolescence where they struggle to understand who they are and what they will be come?  

“We live in a country that should be reasonably safe?”  

Gladys Radek passed out pictures of missing and murdered women and girls.  We then stood one by one and called out the name on our card.  

Gladys then from the front of the room told us the woman’s story and too often it ended with “she remains missing” or “her murder remains unsolved”.  

Gladys’s spoke of Tamara Chipman her beloved niece who went missing in 2005 of highway 16 in northern British Columbia, a stretch of highway that has been named The Highway of Tears because of the number of Aboriginal women and girls that have been murdered or gone missing on it.

An epidemic of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and children

Genocide where Indigenous people have become prey.  

Take the time to visit these links, become informed and then decide what you will do next.

1. Native Women's Association of Canada
2. Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview
3. Highway of Tears

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls

International Day of Peace

Peace Sunday

September 21, 2014

In the days leading up to today the news has been full of professional football players, how violence plays out in their homes and our response has been outrage.  Yet should it be when the same types of violence play out every day all around us?

Violence in our homes!

Our homes are to be places of safety, comfort, support, refuge, acceptance, fun, play and rest yet for many it is the last place they want to be.  It is where they encountered violence for the first time and where violence become normalized and even accepted as necessary.

Too many of our children approach the front doors of their homes with trepidation and fear, watchful for the signs of stress, frustration, and anger from the people who love them.    Alert for that moment when their home becomes a war zone, a private personal war that they cannot escape.  

That moment when hands that gently wipe away tears from a nightmare turn into weapon of pain.

If we cannot create spaces of peace within our own four walls we will never do it on a global scale!

I vividly remember a friend at school telling the story of how an elderly neighbour would wait at her front door to beckon my friend over as she passed.  The elderly neighbour would then tell her that there had been a great deal of yelling from her home and might my friend want to wait with the neighbour until her father got home.  She never took the invitation but said she would walk around the block building up enough courage to cross the threshold because it was her home - it was her personal war zone.

As neighbours, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends we must find our voices and challenge the privacy the violence of the home.  It can no longer be a space where private and deadly wars are fought.  

The United Nations has designated today as the International Day of Peace let us start by bringing peace to the family home.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls

Jane Addams a Woman of History

Jane was born September 6, 1860 the youngest of nine children.  Her childhood was marked by death and disease.  Her mother died when she was two years old, four of her siblings by her eighth birthday and at four Jane was diagnosed with Pott’s disease, tuberculosis which left her spine disfigured, she grew up believing herself to be ugly.

Influenced by the writing of Charles Dickens, Tolstoy, Mazzini’s Duties of Man, the stories of her mother’s work with poor of Cedarville and fathers political views, Jane grew-up with a strong belief that society did not have to stay the same that social change was possible if people care and Jane Addam did care.

She graduated from Rockford Female Seminary, in Rockford Illinois only to have tragedy visited Jane once again, her father died.  Her inheritance allowed Jane to realize her dream.

Jane traveled to in England where she experienced firsthand the benefits of the Settlement movement and upon her return to the United States she started the Settlement Hull house in Chicago.

Jane moved into the Hull house and lived there until her death on May 21, 1935.  Within this enlightened, socially conscious community Jane found the opportunity to put her ideas for social change and social advocacy to paper, writing eleven books and many articles.

A pacifist Jane wrote and advocated loudly for peace and the human treatment of all people during and after WWI chairing the Women’s Conference for Peace in the Hague and founded the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

In 1931 Jane was the second woman and the first American woman to receive the Noble Peace Prize.  Jane worked for social reform for immigrants, women and children assisting in the development of:

• Immigrants Protective League
• Juvenile Protective Association
• the separation of adult and juvenile courts
• Legislation for women and children
• is considered a founding agent in the field of Social Work
• and so much more

Jane Addams is a woman who while living a financially privileged life she used her intelligence and inheritance to make social change happen.  

As parents and grandparents let’s tell Jane Addams’ story to our children and encourage them to explore literature that challenges our current social norms and encourage independent thought and boldness in the face of social injustice.  

Finally is not enough to acknowledge the problems in our society.  Jane was also influenced by her parents behaviors - their action.  

We the parents and grandparents of today have within us the power to do something about the social injustice we see – we need to volunteer, walk, bake, stalk shelves to become active in changing the social injustice that we see around us.

Please learn more about Jane Addams explore the links below:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Addams
• http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/_learn/_aboutjane/aboutjane.html
• http://www.biography.com/people/jane-addams-9176298#other-roles
• http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1931/addams-facts.html

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls

Donate your voice to young girls silenced by sexual slavery

To stop the sexual enslavement and trafficking of young girls 

Here is the give my voice official promotional video

Please go to http://givemyvoice.com/ and donate your voice.  

This is a Canadian Women’s Foundation project to give voice to the young girls who have had their voices silenced by the people who abuse and enslave them through the sexual trafficking for their bodies.

It takes less than 10 minutes to read a young girls story and add your voice and face.  This is a small thing that we can for to change our world.

And  I gave my voice 

Grandma Snyder

Good Food Box

June 2014

June will be our last Good Food Box until the program starts back up again in September 2014.  

This is a win win program, we have received delicious fruits and vegetables each month for $15.00 while at the same time we are supporting working poor family to receive the same box we have at a reduced price.

The Good Food Box is a community program supported by the Public Health Units in Ontario CA.   The Good Food Box program was established 20 years ago as a way to provide low income families with fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the year and is available in most major centers through out Canada.  

 Spinach and Orange Salad (4 servings)

Ingredients:

• ½ lb fresh spinach, torn in to bite-size pieces
• 2 medium oranges
• 2/3 medium red onion
• ¼ cup French salad dressing

Directions:

1. Wash spinach thoroughly and allow to dry.  Tear into bite-size pieces.
2. Peel oranges, then section and remove any seeds.  Slice onion and separate into rings.
3. Combine spinach, orange sections, and onion in a large salad bowl, tossing well.
4. Drizzle dressing over salad, toss gently.

Spinach, Ham and Cheese Omelet (1 serving)

 Ingredients

•  2 eggs
• 2 Tablespoon water
• 1 teaspoon butter
• ¼ cup shredded cheese of your choice
• ¼ cup spinach
• ¼ cup finely chopped ham
• Salt and pepper to taste.

Directions:

1.  Beat eggs and water in small bowl until blended
2. Heat butter in a non-stick pan or skillet over medium-high heat until hot.  Tilt pan to coat bottom.  Pour in egg mixture.  Mixture should set immediately at edges.
3. Gently push cooked portions from edges toward the centre so that uncooked eggs can reach the hot pan surface.  Continue cooking, tilting pan and gently moving cooked portions as needed.
4. When top surface of eggs is thickened and no visible liquid egg remains, season with salt and pepper.  Place cheese on one side of omelet.  Top with spinach and ham.  Fold omelet in half.

From insert in June 2014 Good Food Box

2013/2014 Good Food Box Posts

• May 2014 Potatoes
• April  2014 Mushrooms
•  January 2014 Glazed Carrots
• December  2013 we explored Foodlink Grey Bruce
• November  2013 Sweet Potatoes Fact
• October  2013 Pumpkin Fact
• September 2013 Kale Potatoe Soup

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls

Josh White Black History Month

Joshua Daniel White 

February 11, 1914 to September 5, 1969

Source

Josh was born on February 11, 1914 in Greenville, South Carolina, into a family where church music played an important role in family life.  Josh’s father was a minister and his mother played the autoharp.  Josh sang in the choir.  In the You Tube video you will hear Josh describe his parents as very formal with each.  Referring to each other Mr. and Mrs. White in front of their children.

Josh’s father died in 1930 nine years after a savage beating at the hands of white law enforcement.  His crime was to have forcible removed a white bill collector who spit on the family floor in front of his wife.  His physical and emotional injuries were such that he spent those nine years in a mental institution. (Harold & Stone, 2014).  This event launched Josh’s musical career when at the age of eight Josh took his first job as a musician busking with a blind minstrel.  It is here that he learned to play guitar and perform in front of a crowd.

At the age of fourteen he made his first recording in Chicago.  His talent was recognized and his career in music took off.  For a period Josh was supported to return home and attend school all in preparations for his more formal musical career. (Harold & Stone, 2014)

Source

Josh was the first black singer to give a Command Performance at the White House (1941) (Wikipedia, 2014) and the first to make a solo musical tour of the United States.


Josh’s talent was such that he was among the first black blues performer to attract a large white middle class audience.  At the height of his career Josh White also acted appearing in films, live theater and television.

Growing up Josh witnessed firsthand the violence that racism and segregationist laws created.  He wrote his worry and hope for a better future into the lyrics of music following a long tradition of African American political music. 

His friendship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt was not enough to keep him out of the line of fire though and he was caught up in the anti-communist scare of the late 1940s through to the early 1960s.  Josh was blacklisted and had to defend himself against lies of communist activities.  Like his father who never recovered from the beating and humiliation at the hands of racist, Josh's career has a headlining entertainer started to fail - he would never recover the support of the middle class audience.

Josh is credited with breaking through the black musical barrier and establishing the blues within the context of main stream music.  He forged a path that other black blues performers would travel.

 

Source

Josh died at the age of 60 of complications from a heart attack and in June 1998 the United States issued a postage stamp commemorating him.

Please visit the references used in preparing this post as this is just a brief summary of the life of a most amazing man and musician.

Josh White Cultural equity 

Life and Music of Josh White Belk Library 

Josh White Wikipedia 

 Grandma Snyder

Harold, E., & Stone, P. (2014). Josh White. Retrieved from Cultural equity: http://www.culturalequity.org/alanlomax/ce_alanlomax_profile_josh_white.php

McWilliams, T. (2012). Life and Music of Josh White. Retrieved from Special Collections at Belk Library: http://collections.library.appstate.edu/research-aids/life-and-music-josh-white

Wikipedia. (2014). Josh White. Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_White

Zowieso. (2013). Josh White. Retrieved from Zowieso: http://members.home.nl/zowieso/blues/joshwhite.html

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls