Our Feed the Hungry Event!!

For our March event, Burns & McDonnell together with Spaces Inc. partnered with City Union Mission (CU Mission) – Family Center to provide breakfast for about 100 women, men and children living at the center. City Union Mission provides shelter, food, and spiritual guidance for those in need. The Family Center is a sub-organization of CU Mission which provides a home feel residence for the families who need assistance for a short period of time to get back on their feet.

The breakfast menu included: breakfast burritos made of tortillas, scrambled eggs, sausage, cheese, salsa, potatoes; donuts, bagels, sweet bread, and orange juice. The day began at 6:00 a.m. when the team met to begin cooking the burritos. With the help of 24 volunteers, we made over 120 burritos for the residents who came in for breakfast in the morning of March 28th. Along with the burritos, we served 20 dozen donuts, 14 gallons of orange juice, and a variety of rolls, breads, and bagels. As the people came in for breakfast, our team handed out an information card with details on Kansas City’s various organizations dedicated to helping those in need. Overall the day was a great success and we were able to meet all our goals!

Our team was able to get food for the event by working with local businesses to donate the items we had planned for our menu. Our event could not have been as great a success as it was without generous donations from Panera, Krispy Kreme, LaMar’s, Mendolias Sausage, Silva Foods, and Target. Thank You to the CU Mission, businesses and volunteers!!!

Here are a few pictures:

Frank, Dave and Laura cracking three of the 120 eggs we used!

Kevin, Dong-Hyeon, Laura & Maria getting the 15 lbs of sausage ready for cooking donated by Mendolia's!

Cooking all those eggs and all the meat for the burritos.

Cutting all the bagles and breads donated by Panera.

Some of the donuts (Krispy Kream and LaMar's) waiting for breakfast to begin.

Some of the CU Mission Family Center residents who came by for some great breakfast!

Mission accomplished! Burns & Mac Together with Spaces completed their second event.

For more pictures please visit: http://lauractorres.shutterfly.com/projectchange

March – Feed the Hungry Update

The day of the event is finally set in stone; we will be making and serving breakfast for the Family Center at City Union Mission on Saturday the 28th of March. We expect to have around 100 client and we are all very excited.

The menu includes:

• Breakfast Burritos
• Krispy Kreme Donuts
• La Mars Donuts
• Bagels
• Sweet Rolls
• Cheese Rolls
• Bread
• Orange Juice

We will be getting donations from:

1. Krispy Kreme - 10 dozen fresh donuts
2. LaMars -10 dozen fresh donuts
3. Panera – Bagels, sweet rolls, chesse rolls, bread
4. Mendolia Sausage – 15lbs of breakfast sausage\
5. Silva Foods – 2 gallons of salsa, 150 10” tortillas, 5lbs of chips
6. Target - $50 in gift cards
7. B&M – Cups
8. Spaces – Info cards

We are VERY excited to get these donations and there might be one or two more before the date of the event.
During the event as each client is getting their breakfast we will also be handing out an informational card, which will have the same information that the blankets did.

The important dates for the Feed the Hungry Project are as follows:

Thursday 3/19/09 – Tentative deadline to volunteer
Wednesday 3/25/09 – Volunteer meeting
Saturday 3/28/09 – Day of the event

On the 28th of March our day will begin at 6:30AM when we will meet in the kitchen of the Family Center located at: 13th and Wabash. From there we will separate into people who want to set –up and those who want to cook. Breakfast will be served at 8AM and they will have 30min. to eat. We should be able to be done by around 9:30AM.

We need a total of 22 volunteers to cook, serve, set-up and clean-up. So far we have a few volunteers (mainly from Spaces) so if you are interested on helping that day please contact me (Laura Torres) at ltorres@burnsmcd.com) or Dave Sharpe at dsharpe@burnsmcd.com by March 19th. In the e-mail please put Feed the Hungry as a subject and let us know if you can be there for the whole three hours or if you would like to be a back-up. We will be meeting the 25th of March for a meeting to go over details of the day of. The meeting will be at noon and hosted by Spaces Inc.

We hope to see a lot of you there!
Laura, Dave and the Feed the Hungry Team.

Blanket Distribution

The team gathered outside Hope Faith Ministries downtown

Organizing all 80 blankets by size!

Melissa McGee (Burns & McDonnell) handing out a blanket

Caitlin Boies and two new blanket owners!

Sewing Day Photos

Volunteers from two Olathe junior high schools helped our team complete almost 80 blankets!

It took several Saturdays...

...and lots of hard work!



Friends from Knoll turned out to help.

Amy Pierce (Spaces) and Melissa McGee (Burns & McDonnell)

Warming the Homeless Event

On a Saturday morning in February the Burns & McDonnell/Spaces team gathered downtown at Hope Faith Ministries, their mission underscored by the heavy snowstorm that had blanketed the ground and continued to fall. The team was here to distribute 80 handmade blankets, lovingly sewn by area school children and church groups from donated commercial fabrics. Bearing in mind the needs of those displaced by misfortune and fate, these blankets folded compactly into pillows that could be easily transported, and which bore a list of area homeless services and bus routes. Over a thousand needy Kansas Citians shuffled through the shelter that morning, looking for a hot meal, some warm clothes and a break from the cold. It is our hope that they found much more: a unique and beautiful item for them to own and cherish, stitched with the care of a community that surrounds and supports them.

Save the Planet Sub Committee Meeting and Update

The group has been working hard on brainstorming ideas for the Outdoor Classrooms. This past week, a design charrette was held at Operation Breakthrough which included nearly nine Operation Breakthrough staff members. The charrette covered the staff member’s vision of the outdoor classroom, areas of improvement, ideas, four top priorities, and sketches of the proposed site. Input from Operation Breakthrough staff was essential in moving forward with a design. The following are ideas that everyone has come up with for different activities for the children to engage in and bring the site together.

Fence – Vegetation – Native Plants – Focal Classroom Stage – Set Entrance - Rain Garden – Educational Displays – Sound Garden – Art Wall – Climbing Wall – Vegetable Garden – Composting / Recycling – Toddler Area – Bird House and Feeder Area – Rain Barrel – Willow Structures – Worm Farm – Yellow Brick Road – Tree House – Stumps – Benches – Fossil Area – Developing a Curriculum – Butterfly Garden – Naming Contest


There are so many great ideas that will give the children an amazing experience in their outdoor classroom. Although out group won’t be able to do all of them, we can sure begin to turn the space into an educational urban oasis. The Save the Planet Sub-Committee will be working on preparing three different designs of the Outdoor Classroom in the next couple weeks. We are looking for anyone and everyone to participate in our own design session from 12:00 - 1:00 PM Thursday February 12, 2009 in CR 298 of the 9400 Building at Burns & McDonnell. There will be a lot of trace paper and markers for everyone to help sketch how they envision the outdoor classroom.

Everyone is welcome to come and let their creativity run loose, so I hope to see many of you at 12:00 on February 12th in CR 298.

Nature Deficit Disorder…

This is a quote by Aileen Murphy-Swift, a director at Operation Breakthrough. She is using Richard Louv's book:

Last Child in the Woods

"Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder"

People need nature - really need nature, not merely enjoy nature or benefit from nature. Children need experiences with nature just as they need sleep or healthy food. Why? Richard Louv spends much of his book Last Child in the Woods explaining exactly what nature offers children:

• Emotional well being
• Spiritual sense of perspective
• Observation skills
• Cognitive abilities
• Creativity
• Healthy risk taking
• Observation skills
• Balanced sense of humility
• Stress management
• Increased attention
• Lowered depression

How can nature offer all of these advantages? Primarily because it involves all of the senses. He contrasts it with television and computers which are mainly dual-sensory, appealing only to the eyes and ears. And what if we lack this time with nature? Louv calls the result nature deficit disorder. Unfortunately, our culture has created this disorder with a criminalization of natural play. An irrational fear of the woods and the things that go on there, a general mistrust of strangers, a sense of panic over crime, and a fear of litigation all work against children's delight in the outdoors. Parents simply are afraid to let their children play, unfettered in nature which is exactly what Louv says they need. Free, unstructured time to explore, pretend, and create outdoors is the antidote to nature deficit disorder. And today's families are far too fearful, too busy or are lacking access to spaces in which to provide this freedom.

The remedy? Read Louv's book, and you will realize that we truly need nature as we need water and shelter. When it is no longer a leisure pastime but a life's necessity, most parents will make time to enjoy nature alongside their children. There is no substitute for direct experiences in nature. No books, online course, website, or lecture can take the place of touching, seeing, smelling for yourself. Those indirect methods of learning about nature, versus experiencing nature, lead to a "know it all" state of mind. But time spent entranced by nature's spell generates a sense of wonder, awe, and humble perspective.

Call for Volunteers!

The Warming the Homeless team has two SEWING EVENTS coming up! Two Olathe middle schools have opened their sewing rooms to us, and volunteered the help of their Family & Consumer Sciences (FACS) students. We can use your help, even if you can't sew! There will be cutting, pinning, ironing and other general tasks to perform. Please email me at jjecker@burnsmcd.com for the Outlook invite with more details.

Saturday, January 31st at Prairie Trails

Saturday, February 7th at Frontier Trail

When are the next round of meetings?

Warm the Homeless: Monday, January 26th: 11:45am - 12:45pm, location: TBA
Feed the Hungry: Wednesday, January 28th: 12:00 - 1:00pm, lcoation: SCR 2528
Save the Planet: Wedneday, February 4th: 12:00 - 1:00pm, SR 3525
Nurture the Children: TBA

Feed the Hungry Update

At the meeting on January 14th we got many things accomplished. We were able to finalize the menu, make a list of everything we needed and came up with names of companies we thought might be willing to donate them.

The Event

The tentative dates we have are March 4th or 11th, 2009. That day we will be getting together at around 3am to cook the meal. Once it's all done, packed and ready to go we will divide into two or three groups and go to various locations to hand everything out. I created a map with the locations that we are looking at for now visit this link to view the map: http://www.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=112052920669081083431.000460eb2d292f16df67b&ll=39.104755,-94.575119&spn=0.199545,0.307617&z=12&iwloc=000460ebff0656a5202e8.

The Menu

1. Breakfast burritos
2. Bread
3. Donuts
4. Coffee
5. Orange juice

Donations

1. Tortillas and Salsa by Lil' Guys.
2. Sausage, eggs, potatoes and cheese, orange juice, aluminum foil - will be asking Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and Costco.
3. Bread by Panera/Einstein Bros.
4. Donuts - will be asking Krispy Kream.
5. Coffee
6. Coolers - will borrow from our members!
7. Thermos and plastic cups - will be asking B&M.
8. Business cards by Spaces Inc.

Our next meeting will be Wednesday January 28th, noon - 1pm. Location TBA.

That's all for now, if anybody has any ideas of places to check out to hand out the food or stores who might be able to help us with donations please make a comment on this post!

Save the World - Pictures of the Site

The following pictures are from the site where we will be making the green classroom for Operation Breakthrough.

The 2009 Burns & McDonnell/Spaces Project Change Team...well, some of them anyway.

April - Save the World Subcommittee

Please come join the April subcommittee working on the “Save the Planet” project! The project involves, making additions to an existing an urban nature park for the children of Operation Breakthrough. We will be meeting in Conference Room SR 3525 (Raptor) on the 3rd floor of the Burns & McDonnell State Line Building Wednesday January 21st from 12:00 – 1:00 PM. Bring your lunch, ideas, and excitement for this great project with Operation Breakthrough! Please email snorton@burnsmcd.com if you plan on attending.

We will begin with a thorough background of the project and site which will lead us into a discussion of the vision that Operation Breakthrough has given us on the project. We will describe the various components of the project that we will be focusing on and initial plans for those areas.

The second half of the meeting, we will be discussing various ways to obtain donations for the main components of the project:

· Securing the site (fencing)
· Beautifying the site (plants)
· Controlling Storm Water on the Site (rain garden)
· Using Recycled Materials on the Site (tire planters, seating, etc.)

This meeting will really focus on using our contacts and resources to find donated and recycled materials. Please come with a list of contacts, resources, and ideas of getting materials donated for the main components mentioned above.

This project has the opportunity to be very creative and touch the lives of tens to hundreds of children who participate with Operation Breakthrough. This project will to be very exciting, challenging, and fun so we hope to see many of you on the 21st!!!

- Stephen Norton and Greg Stark

Feeding the Hungry Subcommittee Meeting

If you would like to help with the March event of "Feeding the Hungry" please join us! We will be meeting in conference room SCR1548 on the first floor of the Burns & Mac State Line building Wednesday January 14th 12:00 - 1:00. Feel free to bring your lunch.

At this meeting we hope to get some details figured out, such as:

• What food do we want to give
• Where can we get donations
• Where can we cook
• How to keep the food warm through the morning
• and more..

I have come up with a temporary menu which includes:

• Cinnamon Rolls
• Hard boiled eggs
• Coffee/Orange juice/hot cocoa
• Breakfast Burritos : Eggs, Sausage, Salsa, Cheese, Potatoes, Tortillas, Muffins, Bread
• Non-food needs: Aluminum Foil, Cups

We will be taking a break during the meeting to join the rest of the group and taking the group picture for the Project Change website.

Come join us with some ideas and hopefully we will have things narrowed down more by the end of the meeting. Hope to see you there!

Logistics...

Thanks to all who attended a very productive and enthusiastic Team Meeting #5 yesterday. Great to have each of you onboard for this exciting 4 month experience. In the short-term, I want to let everybody know some things we need to take care of.

At next week's Warm the Homeless meeting (Wednesday 1/14), we will be taking a team photo, posed with the patchwork blankets. This photo will be posted on the Project Change website!

We also need to come up with a team name, so please offer any suggestions...

Here are our 4 monthly project ideas:
February = patchwork blankets for the homeless
March = on-site hot breakfast for the hungry
April = sustainable rain garden for the planet
May = outdoor adventure classroom for the children

For each project, we are asked to submit 10 pictures and a project narrative to be publicized and judged by Project Change.

Here are the contest categories on which we'll be judged:
-Largest number of participants at service events
-Best challenge submission
-Most innovative project
-Greatest opportunity for sustainability (continuing work)
-Greatest impact
-People's choice award

This is the first and last time that I will mention these judging categories. Our projects will be organized and executed with only the following criterion: to focus and amplify the efforts of our peers and coworkers on behalf of the people that we aspire to serve.

Thanks everyone, let's get busy!

Warming the Homeless Subcommittee Meeting

Anyone interested in serving on the subcommittee for February's Project Change activity, "Warming the Homeless", is invited to attend.

Truman conference room (SCR1562), first floor of State Line office
Wednesday, January 14th
11:45 - 12:45.

Feel free to bring your lunch, along with the following:

-patterns or examples of dual-purpose blankets (keeping in mind they must be easy to assemble, durable and portable)
-your agenda/planner so we can nail down some sewing dates
-any additional sources for batting/thread/material donation

A few people mentioned they had contacts in area schools. Please call the teachers that may be interested before our meeting. Be ready to give us a report on how many blankets they estimate they could contribute, whether we would need to supervise an activity outside of classtime, and what documentation we need to provide for tracking student volunteer hours.

See you there!