Cincinnati Bengals Toys For Tots Collects Record Donations
Thanks Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers fans who attended last Sunday’s game at Paul Brown Stadium!! I just heard
the Toys for Tots Collection hit an ALL TIME HIGH with 6,635 new toys and $53,400 in cash donations. Think about all of the children who the Marines will be able to help because of your generosity. (And thank you to the Bengals, Steelers, Bonnie White and everyone else involved in organizing it)
#goodthingscincy #kindness
CINspirational People: Caden Elrod
Howard Thurman once said, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” It is one of my favorite quotes, and it very much reminds me of a third grade student I recently met, who attends Hyde Park Elementary School.
Caden Elrod with Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune
In November, nine-year-old Caden Elrod became the youngest recipient of the Student Recycler of the Year Award from the Hamilton County Recycling and Solid Waste District.
Let there be no mistake. Caden has found his calling, what makes him come alive and inspires him to lead by example.
Caden told me he has been recycling his whole life except for when he was a baby. But I think his spark was really ignited when he saw trash in the Ohio River and all along its shores. Then, in about the first grade he started looking into it and found information on a massive patch of literally billions of plastic pieces that have accumulated hundreds of miles into the Atlantic Ocean, known as the Island of Trash.
“It kills animals, and plants won’t be able to grow because stuff may get stuck in the plants,” he told me.
And that, Caden thinks, is just unacceptable. So, in his own way he set out to be a change maker.
Caden has been encouraging his school and his fellow students to recycle more. He made a cake that looked like a recycling truck for his Boy Scouts annual cake auction. He has shared photos of garbage along the Ohio River and elsewhere to get people’s attention. He and his dad drop off used electronics to Cohen R
ecycling. He will talk to anyone who will listen about the importance of doing their part. And he has applied to participate in the Hamilton County Recycling Policy Committee, although he won’t be old enough to join for a few more years.
At home, he has inspired his whole family to recycle (with the exception of his sister and that, he told me, is just because she is still a baby). They have recycling bins throughout their house.
“He will hold us accountable. He will always say to us, ‘I want you to do a little more’, Tonia Elrod, Caden’s mother said. “I am always conscious of it now. Even today I went to lunch and had a plastic cup but they couldn’t recycle there so I brought the cup home.”
Caden wants people to be aware that there are a lot of ways we can reuse products. Here are a few examples he pointed out.
- He has turned worn shoes into flower pots (a boot is easier to put a flower inside)
- You can make tunnels out of used plastic bottles by cutting off the top and bottom (he is not sure what you would use these for)
- You can make shelves from leftover wood
- He once made a giant thing out of cardboard that he rode on with his dad
- He once made a chair from a stick and a piece of wood
- He once made a game out of cardboard pieces
He has also learned there are some things you cannot recycle like foam things and packaging peanuts.
“I am trying to be an example for the whole world and my family,” he told me.
Here are a few more questions I asked him.
Lisa: How does it make you feel to recycle and encourage others to do the same?
Caden: It makes me feel good and like I am doing something that will help other people to live in a better place.
Lisa: What advice do you have for others about recycling?
Caden: Everyone should recycle as much as they can. There are like 33% of communities in the United States where you have to subscribe to recycle and that is not good. If you have contact with one of the leaders, you should tell them that you want to stop that so more people can recycle.
Lisa: When you grow up, what are some ways you can do more?
Caden: After school, I want to learn how to recycle electronics and foam.
#CINspiration #GoodThingsCincy
Cincinnati Children Received The Gift Of Bikes
The smiles on these faces speaks volumes for what is means to the children who are recipients of the 2015 Cinci Holiday Bike Drive, a project of Cincinnati nonprofit, Queen City 
Bike. This year, with generosity from the community, the organization was able to give bikes to 64 local kids. All children also received a new helmet and some bike safety education.
Queen City Bikes takes donations throughout the year and volunteer mechanics refurbish them. Smaller pedal brake bicycles are given to children referred by social service agencies and assistance centers while larger bicycles are refurbished and sold at reasonable prices, with proceeds going toward helmets, bike parts and bike education.
How can you help?
There are several ways. The Cinci Holiday Bike Drive is looking for a home to store its bicycles and teach bicycle repair to adults and teens, preferably on the west side of Cincinnati. It also is continuing to seek bike donations. Additionally, a $35 donation purchases one child’s helmet and the parts needed to refurbish one bike. To learn more and/or to donate, please reach out to them at holidaybikedrive@gmail.com
YWCA Accepting Scholarship Applications
The YWCA of Greater Cincinnati is offering a scholarship opportunity for African American female high school seniors who have overcome significant obstacles. Ten local, female, African American female students will be selected to receive the YWCA Mamie Earl Sells Scholarship. The scholarship recognizes young African-American women who have been successful despite having to overcome significant hardships. The YWCA not only offers
YWCA of Greater Cincinnati 2015 scholarship recipient, Lily-Michelle Arthur from Norwood High School, is with YWCA Career Women of Achievement Keynote Speaker Geena Davis
financial support to the students, but also an opportunity to meet and learn from some of Greater Cincinnati’s most successful, empowered career women, as the young women are invited to attend the 37th Annual YWCA Career Women of Achievement Luncheon on Wednesday, May 11, 2016.
The YWCA Mamie Earl Sells Scholarship Fund was established in 1993 to provide financial assistance and support to an outstanding African-American female high school senior entering a post-secondary institution. There is 1 winner who receives $3,000, 2 Runners-Up receive $1000 each, 7 Honorable Mentions receive $250 each.
The application deadline is Thursday, January 21, 2016. Applications are available at www.ywcacincinnati.org/mes
Meet the 2015 Scholarship Winner
Lily-Michelle Arthur’s family’s hopes for a better life in Cincinnati crumbled soon after they arrived from their native Ghana. Her parents divorced, and the then Norwood High School teenager began handling household duties and caring for her siblings while her mother worked at a minimum-wage job. That experience was Lily-Michelle’s lesson in adaptation. She vowed to strive for high academic grades and success in whatever she did. Last year when she won the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati’s Mamie Earls Sells Scholarship presented by Kroger, she was ranked first in her class with a GPA of 3.9, wass Norwood High School’s senior class president, founder of the school’s Key Club and a member of the National Honor Society and Academic Team. She also volunteered at Good Samaritan and Christ Hospitals.
Lily-Michelle attends Emory University and is studying pre-med. She wants to be a pediatric neurologist and dreams of serving in humanitarian medical missions around the world.
“I want to leave behind a legacy that success is attainable despite personal or social challenges,” she said.
CINspirational People: Leila Kubesch
There are people in this world who live their life with purpose, who push beyond their comfort zone because the power of what they are fighting for is much stronger than any insecurity inside themselves. They are courageous and they are leaders, and they are making this world better in their own way.
Leila Kubesch is one of those people. She is the founder of a Cincinnati nonprofit organization called Parents 2 Partners that educates and empowers vulnerable families including those with limited English, aged out and homeless youth from foster care.
Her website describes what she does this way, ”We use the language they understand and go at pace they can handle. First, we move them from a victim to victor mind-set and let them soar. We train parents, youth, and educators because maximum impact does not occur in isolation. Our aspiration is to promote cohesive informed families that support each other for the success of all.”
She and I walked through Sharon Woods one day when she shared some of her story. It began in Africa where she grew up never having owned or played with a toy. She didn’t know she was poor. “Even without a book to call mine,” she told me, “I loved possibilities. My grandmother sat me down and taught me to dream big. I believed in her words, kept the faith and am achieving my dreams.”
A year ago Leila volunteered as a court appointed youth advocate, a role that changed her path. She discovered the difficult fork in the road for foster care youth, who, at 18, find themselves alone.
“Somehow we think they can make it on their own. One child died in my own community for not getting his medication,” Leila said. “When I asked some of these children what they wanted more than anything, they said simply…a mentor.”
Think about that for a minute. These young adults trying to find their way in this complicated world just trying to get their most basic needs like food, clothing and housing met, are telling Leila what they want more than anything is an adult role model who cares.
It is their stories, their hearts and their potential that has given this soft spoken woman a strong voice. Leila has driven to Washington to meet with a Senator. She developed a web app so that foster care children can be found according to school district. She has applied for program grants and gotten them. She has educated and empowered parents, families and young people through camps, workshops, a Parent Academy.
On March 5, she told her story to a small crowd and was selected to speak at a sell out TEDxCincinnati event this year.
“A year ago, I could not speak in front of people but when I stood there looking into the crowd, I was fearless like I have never known myself to be,” she told me. “It was because I was not speaking with my mind. I was speaking with my heart and I knew I had a purpose. I knew at that moment I did not want to fail.”
Please watch Leila’s TEDxCincinnati talk below.
What is Leila’s advice to other’s? “My advice to anyone who wants to start something is not feel trapped or bound by what you are good at. Follow where your heart is and amazing things will happen.”
Learn more about Parents 2 Partners here.
