SPECIAL HOLIDAY EDITION: Extending hope and gifts during a difficult holiday season

December 19, 2010 at around 6:30 p.m. probably seemed like just any other Sunday evening in the New Jersey town of Perth Amboy.

Little did 38 families know how much events that would happen in their Harbortown Development that evening would instantly change the course of their lives.

A horrific fire blazed for hours, destroying the homes of those 38 families; displacing them and rendering them homeless right before the Winter Holiday Season.

On Christmas Day, local businesses, private donors, and the organizations Eventfully Yours, Inc., Dortch-Wright Communications, The David's Touch Foundation,  Lifeline Foundation, Inc., and the Raritan Bay YMCA in Perth Amboy, combined their charitable efforts and donations to provide the fire victims with a complete Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings, and gifts for the children.

The YMCA allowed the event to take place in their beautiful new facility on New Brunswick Avenue in Perth Amboy, at no cost to the event coordinators, Lisa Hall and Devvan Dowdy, co-owners and co-founders of Eventfully Yours, Inc.

Carole Dortch-Wright of Dortch-Wright Communications emceed the event, inspiring the audience; and inviting audience members to sing Christmas songs, Karaoke-style.

In addition to tables overflowing with holiday dinner and desserts, Santa Claus visited the site and handed out toys, hats, scarves, gloves, and other items to the children and teens victimized by the December 19^th fire.

The David’s Touch Foundation of Perth Amboy, New Jersey donated a large amount of toys for Santa Claus to give to the children.

Another non-profit donor, Lifeline Foundation, Inc. of Princeton, New Jersey, donated close to 250 holiday ribbon-wrapped children’s books, along with toys and outerwear items for children ages one through the early teen years to enjoy.

In addition to the gifts handed out to the children, gift cards to local grocery stores were donated to the adults.

The families were encouraged by the event coordinators and volunteers to take food and desserts with them to enjoy after the Christmas Day outreach event at the YMCA.

A community of givers extended hope and gifts to 38 families facing a difficult holiday season, and put smiles on the faces of the children, teens, and their parents.

Readers ~ If you’d like to make a donation to the families of the December 19^th Harbortown Fire contact: 

Lisa Richardson-Hall

Eventfully Yours
25 Brenner Street
Newark, New Jersey 07108
973-297-0909
Direct: 908-244-9000
Eventfullyyours1@aol.com

Sharon M. Biggs, M.A., is a wife, mother, and 21st Century educational leader & school district administrator who serves as Co-Chair & President of Lifeline Foundation, Inc.  This 24-year educator is also Founder, Editor, and Chief Writer of LifelineExtensions.blog.  View other published works at http://www.examiner.com/.  Contact Sharon directly for more information: smbiggs@mylifelinefoundation.org. "Children are the globe's most precious commodity." (Terence H. Biggs, Jr. ~ 2009)

Giving excess baggage a final eviction notice



Photo from: rickandsarah.com



When a property owner determines a tenant is damaging his or her rental business operations the owner will likely serve the tenant with a final eviction notice.

That tenant may appear to be a very nice person and decent citizen to other people, and perhaps even to the landlord; but some of the behaviors of the tenant reinforce in the mind of the landlord the fact that the tenant must go.

Room has to be made in the owner’s facility for tenants who will consistently demonstrate positive, helpful, and favorable behaviors.

The negative behaviors of the undesirable tenant are bad for business and bad for the peace of mind, success, and sanity of the property owner.

A new season and a new year gives us all a chance to make a clean break from the negative people, places, positions, behaviors, and thoughts we may still be allowing to hold us back.

That negativity weighs us down like excess baggage, slowing our forward movement and forward thinking.

The time has come to serve the negativity with a FINAL EVICTION NOTICE.

We have to do this so we can successfully think clearly and move forward to reach our full potential in 2011 and beyond.

There can be one problem, though.  Excess baggage can be cunning and slick. 

It can creep up on us before we can say, “What happened?”  Once it latches onto us, it can be a beast to get rid of.

The extra baggage can weigh us down, slow us down, stamp early wrinkles on our foreheads, make us miss opportunities, and trick us into behaving anti-socially, and politically incorrectly.

It can also trip us up so that we say or do things that are unfriendly or downright mean – leading our behavior to become just like the excess baggage:  negative.

If we are not careful, the extra baggage can even ruin our health and steal years away from our lives.

So, let’s all make a 2011 vow to:

ü  Admit that we have made mistakes in the past.

ü  Forgive ourselves and forgive others for situations that have gone sour – harboring guilt and resentment will not change what happened, but it will change our health for the worse.

ü  Accept that we live in the present, and not in the past.

ü  Commit to learn from the past mistakes we have made.

ü  Decide not to make the same mistakes twice.

ü  Teach other people how not to make the mistakes we made by being transparent about our experiences when we coach them into their success.

ü  Understand that as humans we are prone to make mistakes from time to time.

ü  Stop scapegoating, blaming, resenting, and hating people because of our own individual and personal deficits and deficiencies.

ü  Determine to leave all 2010 and prior excess baggage behind so we are not weighted down by the people, places, positions, behaviors, and thoughts that will do us more harm than good.

Happy New Year, LifelineExtensions.blog Readers!  We can and will move forward without any unnecessary and excess baggage! 

Sharon M. Biggs, M.A., is a wife, mother, and 21st Century educational leader & school district administrator who serves as Co-Chair & President of Lifeline Foundation, Inc. This 24-year educator is also Founder, Editor, and Chief Writer of LifelineExtensions.blog. View other published works at http://www.examiner.com/. Contact Sharon directly for more information: smbiggs@mylifelinefoundation.org. "Children are the globe's most precious commodity." (Terence H. Biggs, Jr. ~ 2009)

Love really does have something to do with it…

Some of us were young adults during the era when the fabulous Tina Turner exploded with the classic song, “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”

We may even have danced and sang along to the rockin’ beat and radical lyrics; all the while celebrating with and loving Mrs. Turner for her fortitude and courage to end a long-time abusive relationship with her former spouse.

Years later with several life experiences behind us, some of us started to listen to the words of the song a little differently.

We started saying things like: Well, maybe love has something to do with it…maybe something…

Unconditional and no-strings-attached love can and will outlive us all. 

Now, this does not include, nor should it be confused with the control that is evident in the kinds of abusive relationships Mrs. Turner teaches the world about because of her personal experience.

The unconditional and freely given love we are talking about is the kind of love that is ever understanding even when we do not fully understand every bit of a situation or circumstance.

It is ever forgiving when people have mistreated us more than we ever thought we would or could handle; ever appreciating and grateful when we think we got the short end of the stick.

Ever welcoming when we feel physically or mentally exhausted and do not seem to have one bit of energy left to entertain or pay attention to someone or something; ever kind when the face we see in the reflection of a mirror looks grumpy and irritable.

Forever patient when things do not occur when or how we believe they should have occurred; ever-building up and not tearing down even though the build-up requires more of our time, talent, and focus.

We still adore Mrs. Tina Turner, and we are grateful she triumphed through tremendously difficult experiences we wouldn't wish on anyone.

But by the looks of things, unconditional love has everything to do with it when that same love is built up and worked on to last forever.

Sharon M. Biggs, M.A., is a wife, mother, and 21st Century educational leader & school district administrator who serves as Co-Chair & President of Lifeline Foundation, Inc.  This 24-year educator is also Founder, Editor, and Chief Writer of LifelineExtensions.blog.  View other published works at http://www.examiner.com/.  Contact Sharon directly for more information: smbiggs@mylifelinefoundation.org.

"Children are the globe's most precious commodity." (Terence H. Biggs, Jr. ~ 2009)