Thursday, June 23, 2011
Can a pencil be inappropriate?
The answer is yes! Sadly, if a pencil has been sharpened or the eraser is used, it is not appropriate for the pencil project. Even ones that seem appropriate to the 5-year-old eye, with eraser in tact and all, may actually not pass the test. For instance: "Sex Week 1996, It will blow you away," is not going in the donation pile. My daughter can read, but thankfully had no clue what it meant. It was from our univeristy's student health and safety group as a part of a safety campaign. Why have I carried this around for 15 years???!!!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Thanks so much!
The pencil project counters (Naomi, 5, and Annabelle, 3) have counted 351 pencils so far. Not bad too shabby--both in numbers of pencils and the mini's math skills! The pencil project sends a big thank you to the Clarkes, the Acrees, the Flotkens, Mrs. Chapie's 2nd grade, and the Rochesters for your donations. If you have pencils to donate, I would be thrilled to come get them from you. Please let me know where I acn pick them up.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
What is the Back to School store anyhow?
The Back-To-School! Store™ is a one-day event set up like a department store sponsored by National Council of Jewish Women's St. Louis Section. Children in need are assigned an adult volunteers to help them shop for clothing and supplies in their favorite colors and styles! Of course, that's why they need so many pencils. The Pencil Project is a grass-roots effort to donate to NCJW and not an official program of NCJW........You know you have a lot of random pencils; send them over!
Post One: The Pencil is Mightier than the Sword!
I have never left an apartment or house, or cleaned a particularly messy room for that matter, without staring at the last pile of odds and ends with which I have no idea what to do. Prominently featured in this pile are, without fail, pencils. Sometimes I admit I just throw them away, but I usually can’t. It just felt wrong to let go of that Cotton States BBYO pencil when college tests would certainly require a #2, wouldn’t they? How could I discard all those bright-UT-orange beauties when law school and my masters still stretched ahead of me? By the time I finished grad school, I had acquired the admittedly bizarre habit of needing fresh, new pencils for exam time. Of course, I needed lots of new ones for that ultimate exam; there would be cross-word puzzles later on.
I got married and found my husband had the same pencil predicament. We actually have an unopened pack of Looney Tunes pencils that I imagine an eight-year-old David just had to have. And our kids? Don’t even get me started! Pencils as a healthy Halloween alternative! Pencils in the goody bags! Special small ones that help your pencil grip! Chanukah pencils simply because they exist! A giant pack of personalized pencils for my eldest from friends (okay, those were by request and are really cool). And ones from the zoo with lions and tigers and bears—oh my!
I started to think that if we still have so many childhood pencils that we may actually never need to buy a pencil ever. But I will. Just as their father before them, my girls will stand in a Target aisle and beg me to purchase some. It won’t be Looney Tunes, but perhaps Justin Beiber? If we are lucky enough to miss that craze, it will be something else. Of course, I will say yes. It is such a small thing and, after all, their mother understands the magical power of a fresh pencil for an important occasion! I will also send them to the school store with a quarter so they can know the joy of not only a new pencil, but one they were responsible enough to buy without help. And sure, I will probably stuff some in a goody bag or two and then wonder how I got so many and what to do with them all.
So, I started to wonder about the children for whom there are no trips to Target, no goody bags to open, and not even a solitary pencil to feel burdened by. What happens when you don’t have a giant bag of pencils with your name in gold letters and you don’t even have one to call your own at all? How can you learn to write? It sort of hit me that my “problem” could be the answer to someone’s real problem (or at the least help them solve a math problem).
So I asked a friend at NCJW if the back to school store (more on that in the next post) could take pencils outside of the package (unsharpened, of course). She said that they need 12,000 for the back-to-school store. So, I am gathering up a bunch and thought I would see if you have some too. This is not an official NCJW event, its just my personal pencil project. If you would like to join me, have your kids gather up their new (but extra) pencils and I will get them to NCJW who will get them to a good home. Don’t buy any: I think it would be fun to see how many we can collect just from all those goody bags! Please e-mail me at s.e.lang@sbcglobal.net to arrange a time I can pick up your pencils!
XOXO!
Suzanne
I got married and found my husband had the same pencil predicament. We actually have an unopened pack of Looney Tunes pencils that I imagine an eight-year-old David just had to have. And our kids? Don’t even get me started! Pencils as a healthy Halloween alternative! Pencils in the goody bags! Special small ones that help your pencil grip! Chanukah pencils simply because they exist! A giant pack of personalized pencils for my eldest from friends (okay, those were by request and are really cool). And ones from the zoo with lions and tigers and bears—oh my!
I started to think that if we still have so many childhood pencils that we may actually never need to buy a pencil ever. But I will. Just as their father before them, my girls will stand in a Target aisle and beg me to purchase some. It won’t be Looney Tunes, but perhaps Justin Beiber? If we are lucky enough to miss that craze, it will be something else. Of course, I will say yes. It is such a small thing and, after all, their mother understands the magical power of a fresh pencil for an important occasion! I will also send them to the school store with a quarter so they can know the joy of not only a new pencil, but one they were responsible enough to buy without help. And sure, I will probably stuff some in a goody bag or two and then wonder how I got so many and what to do with them all.
So, I started to wonder about the children for whom there are no trips to Target, no goody bags to open, and not even a solitary pencil to feel burdened by. What happens when you don’t have a giant bag of pencils with your name in gold letters and you don’t even have one to call your own at all? How can you learn to write? It sort of hit me that my “problem” could be the answer to someone’s real problem (or at the least help them solve a math problem).
So I asked a friend at NCJW if the back to school store (more on that in the next post) could take pencils outside of the package (unsharpened, of course). She said that they need 12,000 for the back-to-school store. So, I am gathering up a bunch and thought I would see if you have some too. This is not an official NCJW event, its just my personal pencil project. If you would like to join me, have your kids gather up their new (but extra) pencils and I will get them to NCJW who will get them to a good home. Don’t buy any: I think it would be fun to see how many we can collect just from all those goody bags! Please e-mail me at s.e.lang@sbcglobal.net to arrange a time I can pick up your pencils!
XOXO!
Suzanne
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