Rocking A Purse for Learning and Helping Others

I started off today chatting with two folks whose commitment to their fellow human beings is unwavering and inspirational, Mark Bertrand and Robin Dalton. Bright and early this morning they were organizing the Giving Circle's collection of items to help hurricane victims. It seems that whenever there's a need, in Saratoga, nationally or globally, the Giving Circle is doing what they can to help.
Today and tomorrow they're continuing to collect items to send 2 trucks of basic needs assistance to folks whose homes, lives and supports have been decimated by these natural disasters.  I feel blessed to go home to my family and my modest home... and can't imagine what it's like to see a whole community ravaged by a hurricane. My small gift card by itself isn't much, perhaps only enough for a couple of sheets of plywood to repair a tiny section of a roof, but together our impact can be significant. Want to help?

Here's what they need... and below hear what Robin and I talked about.

Robin made my day a few a couple of months after our Changemakers fundraiser last year. At that event we condensed several of our prevention ed programs into 90 second snippets  to show participants what we cover in the programs (not an easy feat to take a 1-2 hour program and shrink it to 90 seconds!) She said that a few weeks after the event, she'd been watching the HBO series Big Little Lies and suddenly what she'd learned at our tabling exercise came back to her and she had a much better understanding of the challenges faced by a domestic violence survivor.. and the more she's learned about relationship abuse, the more she's attuned to subtle cures and how to be supportive, "when someone is leaving abuse, there can be so few options... we need to look to our friends and our community for support." Robin's words inspired me to do more outreach, because I saw that just 90 seconds can make a difference; click here for more of what she had to say.

We had a fun time talking about Big Little Lies. The women in our group said we need more opportunities like this to talk about relationship abuse... well we've got just that. On Sunday October 15th at 4 pm, Northshire Books is having a community book discussion about the  Big Little Lies. So whether you've read the book or watched the TV series, join us for a spirited discussion. Together we can end relationship and sexual abuse... and that starts with increased awareness.