Think Kindness

We've recently discovered a free community room at the local Raley's that we can use for talks and meetings!  So it was the perfect place to have Brian from Think Kindness give a talk to our Cadets about doing acts of kindness and charity. 

Think Kindness is an "organization that aims to inspire thousands from coast to coast to change the world through seemingly simple random acts of kindness." Brian told the Cadets all about how he worked at an orphanage in Africa and how a lot of the children there don't even have a pair of shoes to walk to school in.  It really inspired him to want to help out. That's why Think Kindness has partnered with Soles4Souls to collect gently-used shoes to send to kids who need them around the world. Project 33 has recently donated a lot of shoes to this amazing program.

This Saturday, Think Kindness is holding their first annual BE THE CHANGE - Barefoot Walk-A-Thon around the Sparks Marina. The goal is to gather hundreds of individuals to 'Take The Walk' barefoot for 2 miles.  Project 33 and the Cadets are going to be there!  If you are interested, please visit their website for more info!

Thanks Brian for giving some kindness inspiration to our Cadets and their parents!

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Easter Egg Hunt

The Seasons is an assisted living home that the Cadets love to pay visits to!  Around Christmas time we head over to sing carols and bring goodies to the residents.  Last Christmas their activities director, Pam, mentioned to us that they would love to have us come for an Easter Egg hunt in April.  Of course we were thrilled with the idea, and so yesterday we headed on over for a visit and a hunt!  

The residents themselves dyed the eggs, which were hidden in their little courtyard.  The residents sat on the porch as the Cadets looked for eggs:

After the hunt we were invited to come into the activity room where they generously made us Root Beer Floats!!  We also had a chance to check out the eggs we'd found!



The best part of visiting The Seasons is getting to interact with the residents!

Thank you Pam and the residents of The Seasons for a really wonderful afternoon!  We will see you next Christmas!

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Just Between Friends 2011

This past weekend Project 33 volunteers were out at "Just Between Friends" to lend a hand to this great event!  Just Between Friends is "the nation's largest children's and maternity consignment sale event" and it promotes reusing and recycling while also helping parents save money during these hard economic times. 

Here we are setting up for the sale on Thursday morning:

We were back on Sunday to help take things down.  Here's the clean-up crew!

Just Between Friends then gave us a huge and generous donation of leftover clothing and toys!!  We, in turn,  will be donating these items to various groups who need them in our community.  First stop, maternity and baby items to Casa Da Vida!  Second stop, toys to Ashley's Toy Closet! And on from there!

Here are some of the donations before being sorted:

And here they are in our storage unit after being sorted and bagged (a big thanks to EZ Storage of Reno for donating storage units to us!!):

Again, a huge thanks to Just Between Friends for the amazing donation, and to our great P33 volunteers who donated hours of their time to help out during this great event!

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Explore Our World: The Northern Nevada American Red Cross

On Friday, March 4th, the Cadets took a trip to the Northern Nevada Chapter of the American Red Cross.  We got to learn more about what exactly the Red Cross does, both locally and globally.  The Northern Nevada American Red Cross chapter area covers 87,000 square miles with a population of over 670,000 people. The chapter territory is from Tonopah north, with the main chapter in Reno and branch offices in Elko, Incline Village and Winnemucca.  We also learned that the Red Cross helps out victims of house fires, and that there are a lot every day, just here in Reno. In fact, house and apartment fires make up the majority of the Red Cross' work here in the US.  The Red Cross also helps out with major disasters, like Hurricane Katrina.  They do a lot of work in other countries, too.

Watching a video that explained all the Red Cross does.

The Cadets also received some goodies during the talk, including a coloring book and a little ambulance "First Aid and CPR for Everyone” kit.  The kit included a CPR compression practice tool, a hand placement diagram, an instructional DVD and other items.  It was very exciting for the Cadets!

Our coloring books

The kit

We would like to thank Mr. Casey for taking the time to give us this talk!  If you are interested in volunteering with the Northern Nevada Chapter of the American Red Cross, you can go here to find out more!

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Project 33 Adopts a Star!

There are many star adoption programs on the web, but Pale Blue Dot Project is the only one (that we know of) that actually donates all the proceeds to scientific research.   Project 33 now has their own star!  Check it out here, and here!

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Volunteering at the Food Bank of Northern Nevada

On February 10th, some of the gals of Project 33 headed out to the Food Bank of Northern Nevada for a Thursday evening sorting and packing up food.  This is a really fun outing that a lot of P33 volunteers look forward to taking part in!  Here's a couple of pictures of the ladies helping out!

Interested in volunteering the Food Bank of Northern Nevada?  Go here for more info!

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Explore Our World: "Nutrition" A Tour of Whole Foods

Our Explore Our World theme for January was "nutrition", so I arranged for the Cadets to take a tour of perhaps the healthiest grocery store in town, Whole Foods! 

Our tour guide was Ms. Heidi, who met us out front to go over a few rules for the tour.

Ms. Heidi took first took us to see the flower department.  She explained while these flowers weren't edible (though some are!), flowers are important for well-being and happiness.  "Who cries when they receive flowers?" she asked the Cadets!

We then headed over to the produce.  Ms. Heidi gave us some samples of pineapple and melon to eat!  It was interesting to learn how organic fruits and veggies are grown without chemicals, and how organic farmers take care of bad bugs by bringing in good bugs to eat them.  Ladybugs aren't just pretty, but useful!

Ms. Heidi showed us the eggs.  It was kind of cool how they weren't in all that packaging that normally comes with eggs!  And all the colors (and even duck eggs) were really cool to see!

By far our favorite section was seafood!  The Cadets were happily grossed out!  Mr. Fionn came out to show us some really cool (and big) fish that they sell!

My personal favorite part was the cheese!  And the samples were amazing!

Next came the meats, dairy section, and bakery!  All the wonderful samples we got along our tour were highly appreciated by the Cadets, and I know a few moms who went home with some of the divine breads they carry!

Last, but definitely not least, Ms. Heidi took us into the classroom they have at Whole Foods were you can take cooking lessons, among other things (check it out here).  Ms. Heidi gave us all samples of a yummy pizza and packets of cookies!  The Cadets were in heaven!

Thank you Ms. Heidi for giving us a great tour!  It was really great for learning all about nutrition!

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