Growing Healthy and Happy Youth
Reading aloud to children is an activity that produces stellar results. Many studies have been done with irrefutable findings of this activity’s value upon a child’s literacy and security.
Reading books aloud to children stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of the world. It helps them develop language and listening skills and prepares them to understand the written word.
Even after children learn to read by themselves, it’s still important to read aloud together. Children who are read to, enjoy great fun with expanding their imagination and sense of adventure.
At CES we love to go to our local Community Learning Center (CLC) to read to the CLC Academy kids each month. We always do a craft or fun project too. This month we wanted to get an early jump on spring, so we decorated planter cups and planted wild flower seeds to bring home and to have at the school too.
Growing Organically at the Clearwater Community Gardens
The mild winter in Florida has really been a blessing when it comes to organic gardening.
Plenty of rain, plenty of sun and plenty of gardening help is available at our local Clearwater Community Gardens (CCG) across the street from our CES office.
Just as if growing before my eyes, my lettuces and herbs became towering beauties of deliciousness. If you could have seen this property before the Gardens took over the location! Just a barren, unattractive place, waiting for a buyer.
The city of Clearwater accepted the plan and now, 4 years later, we have over 50 garden boxes thriving with vegetables and herbs and flowers. We have a thriving bee colony which produced its first honey this year and we have many fruit trees too.
Organically grown is the way to do it, and we are really setting a great example for many others to join in. If you’d like to stop by and check us out, please do so. We have a great community day planned for April 27th. Please visit us. I’d be happy to personally give you a tour of the gardens.
Visit CCG’s website: www.clearwatercommunitygardens.org
Supporting Healthy Minds and Human Rights
A watch-dog committee is one that looks out for the rights of people who need it, while defending and protecting the rights of any who may not even know their rights could be infringed upon. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is the watch-dog organization that works diligently to protect the rights of every human being to live without dangerous psychiatric drugs and violent treatments being forced upon them in the name of mental health.
The annual fund-raising golf tournament for CCHR Florida was recently held at the beautiful Belleair Country Club. For five years we have been a proud sponsor of this event and we are a strong supporter of CCHR.
We had two teams from CES playing in the tournament and one of them came in 2nd place! Other CES staff volunteered and made the event very successful. The weather was perfect and so were a few golf games!
Be sure to check out CCHR Florida’s website: www.CCHRFLORIDA.org
Assisting Others to Live Drug-Free
Helping with drug prevention education is one of the most important ways we can contribute to a thriving society. Since drugs do not discriminate and can latch onto the lives of anyone from any walk of life, we believe it is our responsibility to provide the true facts about drugs in any way that we can to keep our youth away from harmful drugs.
Each year we join many hard-working drug preventionists, drug rehab specialists, drug treatment experts and those in law enforcement and coalitions around the state, at a special conference in Tampa hosted by the Drug Free America Foundation.
The Drug Free America Foundation is a group that works on a national level to keep effective drug prevention and drug policy current. Tracking drug policies that effect our nation is a crucial step in prevention and drug use. Our friends at Drug Free America and Save our Society from Drugs work year-round in these areas and we are so happy to help by being a sponsor of their event for the last 8 years. Many great speakers came and presented incredible data over the course of 3 days. It is a sincere pleasure to come and provide the effective materials from the Foundation for a Drug Free World’s Truth about Drugs program to all the good people attending the summit.
Should you wish to get any copies of these materials, please contact me any time. Lposyton@gmail.com
Spreading the Seeds for a Drug-Free Life!
CES was very happy to be part of a fantastic event in our downtown. A family-fun Drug-Free Youth Festival sponsored by the Foundation for a Drug Free World Florida Chapter brought many like-minded non-profit groups together to provide fun facts and activities to all the families and youth that attended.
Our Concerned Businessmen’s Association had a booth, providing a creative CRAFT of planting and decorating. The kids came to create a personal planter cup with stickers and markers and all the creative imagination they could muster, then they went over to the planting station where they filled their planter cups with wildflower seeds and planting soil!
The message, “Grow a happy life, without drugs!”
Any time that we can show up and help spread the message that a Drug-Free Life is the way to live, we are there!
For effective drug-education and to watch a full-length documentary, The Truth About Drugs…Real People Real Stories, or to request free materials for your drug education efforts, please visit: www.DrugFreeWorld.org
Should you wish for us to help you in your efforts, we would be happy to!
Just contact us: moreinfo@cesstaff.com
