A reminder, don’t forget to check out My Sidekick And Me for the story about how Ajax found his forever home and how you can help other animals like him….and other pet related stories.

Please Support This Petition For The Appalachian Festival

A really good thing for Greater Cincinnati is its most popular outdoor spring family festival, the Appalachian Festival at Coney Island Mother’s Day weekend. It re-creates authentic mountain life with down-home music, heel-to-toe dancing, storytelling, food, and crafts.

For those who know me, you know I’ve been working on the Appalachian Festival for over 20 years (started as a baby). I look forward to it. Last year REALLY hurt organizers when it had to be cancelled for the first time ever due to rain. So, I’ve created this petition asking for sunshine. Please help us keep Cincinnati’s popular spring family festival around by adding your name or liking the petition that is on the Appalachian Festival Facebook page.

Here is a link.

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Welcome To My All New Good Things

Hi and thank you for visiting my all new Good Things Going Around blog.  This has been a project of I’ve been working on for awhile and am so excited to be finally able to share it. It is my hope that it will be a place to inspire more good things.

I owe a HUGE thanks to a very special supporter and very talented graphic artist and illustrator, Linda Mitchell, who created all of the beautiful header illustrations that are carried through the blog.  When I shared with Linda, a fan of my Good Things Going Around page on Facebook,  my wishes for a new blog she was eager to help. The day I opened up my email and saw her illustration of me with my birds, I was so touched. I never expected it and that thoughtfulness meant so much to me. That was just the beginning. Soon she got to work on the rest of the header art and it was absolutely perfect. She captured the essence of what my Good Things is all about so beautifully.

Then I needed to somehow put her artwork into a wordpress theme, and I wanted the layout to be as special as Linda’s art. That’s when I found Revka at Berries and Cream Blog Design. Revka was so professional and so eager to help me make my blog all that I wanted it to be.

And now, thanks to both of them, I’m finally able to share it with you. It’s my turn to pay it forward by using Good Things as a platform for sharing inspiration.  Please visit often, share comments, and join me at my Facebook page.

Thanks!

Lisa

P.S.  If you’re looking for an extremely talented graphic designer/illustrator for your next project and want to hire someone who really listens and then comes back with just the art that you’re looking for, I highly recommend Linda. You can reach her at mitchellodesign@gmail.com

Inclusion Starts With Me (And You)

The United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Cincinnati brought to my attention an essay contest they held for children. The purpose? To encourage expression of the students’ own or observed feelings toward those who have disabilities, and the impact of those thoughts, with the goal that insight will foster togetherness.

Wow did that bring back memories. For eight years, my favorite annual project was helping to produce the Inclusion Leadership Awards Event – an event aimed at encouraging people to think outside the box, break down communication barriers, notice AND appreciate skills that had been under the radar. Our main communication goal was to inspire a world where people with and without disabilities work and play together not because they have to, but because they want to.

I was charged with developing those messages through the speaker, the script, the acceptance speeches and the videos so that guests would leave with a real sense of vision. In 2 ½ hours, attendees were to learn a lesson that would somehow change the world as they knew it. They heard stories of organizations that instinctively knew how to uncover talent, and of people whose abilities were no longer obscurities. Acceptance, we wanted them to realize, was not an abstract. Inclusion was not so much about ‘them’ but rather it was about ‘me’.

About ME. That’s a concept. Norman Kunc, our 2001 keynote speaker, had this to share. “In our society, we have already figured out that achievement and mastery lead to self-esteem. Where we have gone wrong is that we have forgotten that self-esteem can only come out of a context of belonging…we have idolized this ideal of independence and self-sufficiency. And what we have forgotten is that human beings need to belong…in the words of the music of Cheers, ‘where everyone knows our name and everyone’s glad we came.’ “

Actor Danny Woodburn, who normally makes a living provoking laughter, briefly left Hollywood in 2004 to remind our guests of a message from Mother Theresa, “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible tragedy,” he said.

Danny told us his story – the story of an actor, comedian and activist whose talents were born in the hardships of a world unaccepting of a medical condition. All too well, he pointed out; he knows the sting of rejection and ridicule because he has lived it his entire life. He still gets scripts that refer to him as a ‘midget.’

But, he said, he is lucky. Through his work he has had the ability to influence attitudes. Offensive words, he’s found, are generally rooted in misunderstanding and he unabashedly corrects producers, directors and other actors. Of his character on the NBC hit Seinfeld, he said, “All it took for the success of my character was an intelligent exchange of ideas and sensitivity to the issues of little people. As a result, both Jerry (Seinfeld) and I felt included.”

Danny’s candor has bridged cultural and generational gaps, and altered misguided perceptions. (Please stay with me, I’m getting to the connection with the essay contest.) He continued to tell us about his job after college teaching drama to 20 kids between eight and ten years old.

That first day he devoted to talking about himself. Most of the questions were pretty typical. “How old are you? How tall are you? Why are you that way?,” they asked.
Then it came. The comment that would open the door behind which acceptance stood poised and waiting. An indignant girl told Danny in front of the class what her father thought of him.
“To my daddy, you are just a midget,” she said.

Danny looked at her and politely replied, “Well your daddy is wrong. Nobody is just anything and that word to me is like a hate word. And we know hate words can affect people, how they can hurt people and how it is wrong to use them.”

After that day, Danny told us, his students wanted to have their acting class – with Mr. Dan.

“I think back and I think all it took was that one day of communication, including them in who I am and nothing else needed to be said,” he went on.

Wow. That’s powerful stuff, and yet, it really is that simple.

And that is why I was so interested in the United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Cincinnati’s project aimed at opening minds and dialogue, and encouraging young people to think about the impact of their words and thoughts and actions.

“Changing the attitude of one school aged child has the ability to influence an entire generation.” said Susan S. Schiller, executive director.

UCP presented Nicole Roberts, a student from St. Mary’s School, with a family pass to Kings Island for her essay entitled ‘Inspiring Swimmers with Amazing Attitudes.’ Below is an excerpt.

For the most part, I am a typical teenage girl. Nothing scares me. I’m not afraid of the dark, I laugh at horror movies and I absolutely love to ride roller coasters, the higher the better. However, when my mom suggested I volunteer to help the Special Olympics Swim Team, I was a little nervous. It wasn’t that I was scared of people with disabilities; instead I was scared of how I would act around people with disabilities. What would I say? How would I interact with them? Would I stare?

Before I became acquainted with disabled people, I felt sorry for them. I was sad for them because they have to live with hardships that limit them for the rest of their lives. I thought they were completely different than I. Wow, was I wrong! Now I see that people with disabilities are just like everyone else. They love to watch the same television shows, they go to school, they go to the movies, and even have sleepovers with their friends. They have hopes and dreams for the future, just like we all do.

My work with these amazing people has taught me so much. However, the most important lesson I’ve learned is that people with disabilities have abilities too. It’s not about what they can’t do, but should be about what they can do, what they give to society and how they inspire others. I think of my fearless swimmers when I hear these words from Thomas Jefferson, ‘Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.’ They’ve showed me that attitude is the key as to whether you will succeed or fail. My new friends definitely have the right attitude!

Just as in Danny’s classroom, all it took for the word ‘disability’ to become transparent in Nicole’s eyes was for her to get to know others who do things differently.

Who have you gotten to know lately?

I feel truly blessed to be able to say I have gotten to know Danny, not just as an actor, speaker, comedian, and humanitarian, but as a friend. Such depth of human character is a true gift.

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