Doing Some Good - Paulissa Update

Hello friends,

I have written here for awhile so I think an update is long overdue.

The Lenten and Passover season are upon us so things are busy with spiritual reflection, renewal, and tradition. Always a beautiful time of year and fun too since the Midwest tradition of church fish fries began last Friday.

For the unfamiliar, fish fries are usually done by the men in the Catholic church and are used as a fundraiser during the church year. Everyone seems to have their favorite church for these things, but the tradition involves standing in line with a few hundred of your neighbors, coolers full of your favorite beverage, free beer (if you're so inclined) with your dinner, usually a few prominent people sightings, bingo and a great sense of community. One of our personal favorites is St. Pius X, which has a pasta feed instead of a fish fry and beer cheese sauce!

The quarter ends this week and I have successfully completed another class, despite a few challenges. Mostly, the challenges involved plagiarism on the part of the professor and I turned her in for it. She was doing a horrible disservice to the students and possibly costing them their financial aid. All's well that ends well and she liked my paper "Do You Mind" which dealt with the positivity movement and its cookie cutter approach to affirmations, etc.

The nonprofit now has a registered tradename, Persons Becoming and the logo appears above. I've always been touched by the Heart in Hand icon symbol used by the Shakers. It is purported to mean charity, given from the heart. I have been comparing the needs that foster care alumni say they had upon ageout and making up a chart that shows which programs meet those needs, etc so that I can see where the gaps exist and begin crafting a response. I have been asked by the Foster Care Alumni of America to help craft research guidelines so that when someone makes a research request, the intention of the request is clear and doesn't cause emotional harm to alumni.

I've been sitting on the Empowerment Network foundation, which responds to the challenges facing our city by having law enforcement, elected officials, educational officials, hospitals, drs., gang interventionists, prison officials, etc work together to influence legislation and city ordinances. Right now, our city is facing very high rates of gang violence. I'm trying to make a difference. Very interesting stuff.

David is still very busy with his Masonic activities and will be even more so shortly since he sits on the maintainence committee (fundraising arm) of the Omaha Home For Boys.

So. . .that's what trouble we've been getting into. How about yourselves??