Nashville MAUmas to participate in the Great American Bake Sale

Following is a letter from Sarah Flowers Braswell, one of our local Mothers Acting Up:

Hello everyone! I am heading up a team for Share Our Strength's Great American Bake Sale, called Nashville Mamas, to participate in a nation wide campaign to help END childhood hunger in America by holding a bake sale in our community. Since 2003, this grassroots campaign has raised over $3 million and engaged more than 1 million people in baking, selling, or buying baked goods. 91% of proceeds from Nashville Mamas bake sale will help children in OUR community, either going towards local food banks, school programs to provide a healthy breakfast, etc. Making a difference in the lives of our children can be Piece Of Cake!

I have high hopes for the sweet mamas in Nashville, and know that if we put on our aprons and tie our strings together we can make this a huge, wonderful event! And what a fun way to include our children in community outreach :) I am hoping to book a date and location very soon, but have mid-August in mind for 1-2 weekend days. More than 12 million children in America are at risk of hunger.... this just shouldn't be. I need a team to help make this all that it can be. Whether you would like to bake, donate your time for the bake sale, make a financial contribution, or anything at all, please let me know. My contact info is below. Please, even if nothing else is possible for you right now, encourage your friends, family and colleagues to stop by the bake sale or website and make a contribution.

Visit the website for more info:

www.greatamericanbakesale.org

Nashville Mamas team info:

Bake Sale ID # 31139

YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUoKaLq4UY4

Did You Know...

To date, grants from Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale helped:

• Serve more than 5.3 million nutritious meals and snacks to children.
• Establish an additional 926 sites where children can get meals.
• Reach more than 97,000 low-income children with after-school and summer feeding programs.

Because of hunger, there are children in America not growing as they should be. They are underweight, and often neurologically and developmentally delayed and impaired. Of everyone who is hungry in America, children are most vulnerable and most at risk.

Thank you,

Sarah Flowers Braswell

I know lots of us MAUmas love to bake, and I know we all care about children, so this is the perfect marriage of the two. Contact Kate (kzwingate@yahoo.com) or Sarah (ilysmama@yahoo.com) if you are interested in participating, and stay tuned for more details...

Story Time is Saved!!

Story Time is Saved!!

Public Library Budget Cuts Threaten Children's Programming.

Please share widely!!

There are severe—to the tune of $800 K!! -- budgetary cuts proposed for the Nashville Metro libraries. These cuts would deeply affect the Main downtown library including our superb story time and children’s programming, but also other branch days & hours of operation as well as staffing. These cuts go up for vote beginning Tuesday. One of the great equalizers and community builders, the PUBLIC library brings art, literature, culture and a haven to all walks of life in our city. Keep it so!

*Even IF you’ve already written to your council person, the budget committee needs to hear from its constituents—I am told that this is the only way to have your voice heard and to possibly STOP these cuts.* A simple email in support of the library and in opposition of the proposed cuts will do the trick. Please send your email here: MetroCouncilBudgetAndFinanceCommittee@nashville.gov

(Need a template for an email? Holler.)

Here’s WSMV’s piece from last weekfeaturing Nashville MAU Deanna Pilkenton.

And here, Suburban Turmoil in yesterday’s Nashville Scene gives the issue some ink.

Mothers Acting Up: MAU on Mothering Mag's Mommy Chats This Week!!

Mothers Acting Up: MAU on Mothering Mag's Mommy Chats This Week!!

Please lend your support to our Main Branch public library!!

At storytime today we learned that there has been a highly *unpublicized* campaign to cut the downtown public library (main branch) budget!! This goes to vote soon, and should the move pass, the main library will reduce its hours, opening at 10, and thereby reducing children's programming by *at least* 2 storytimes per week.

I spoke with Mary Mary and the director of the children's programming after the storytime, asking what could be done in support of them and to whom we should address our concerns. They asked that all who do NOT support these budget cuts contact their district council person and let them know your thoughts. If you don't know what district you live in, who your council person is, or the contact information for said person, please look here.

I share with you the letter I wrote to my district 6 councilman, Mike Jameson. It is heartfelt and comes from a real mama's hope for her son and her husband and her community at large, not from a slick professional, even though I can be that when necessary. Feel free to use it as a template, crib from it, or whatever might be helpful.

Dear Councilman Jameson, I write to you today to ask for your support of Nashville’s downtown public library, its main branch, and a central part of my --and many other-- families’ lives. As we do near weekly, my 20 month old son and I headed to the public library downtown this morning—it is such a rich and wonderful community resource for all of Nashville Metro as well as our city’s visitors. We generally go to storytime, have snacks and play in the courtyard by the fountain, and spend plenty of time finding just the right books and sometimes DVDs to bring home for our family’s enjoyment. The theatre where storytime and the puppet shows are held is magnificent and the children’s programming has been an absolute delight. Our son adores Mary Mary, The Professor and Library Pete, their songs, and the puppets. If you haven’t spent time witnessing these activities yourself, I highly encourage a little library storytime; we’d be glad to share a morning with you there anytime. In addition to being exposed to literature and arts (the library shows films!, hosts fine art shows!, puts on lectures and programs of all stripes!), my husband and I love that our family is part of the fabric of our community—that the public library is just that: public. We also regularly visit Representative Cooper’s office to share our hopes for our community as well, now that his office is located at the main library. As National Outreach Coordinator and Community Organizer of our local Mothers Acting Up community (www.mothersactingup.org) I followed the request of other community mothers to choose our beloved downtown public library as our alternate gathering place when the public parks aren’t weather amenable for our weekly Mobilize the Mamas play and action group. As mothers leading our families and our communities, we want to support the institution that our tax dollars pay for, and joyfully inhabit the space that we feel so fortunate to access, along with all kinds of folks from our greater community. For these reasons, I was heartbroken to learn at this morning’s storytime that there are budgetary cuts that may compel the main branch of the public library to reduce their hours, and to cut back on children’s programming next month. I ask for your vote in support of maintaining the library’s current hours and programming. More than anyone, our city’s children would be done a great disservice should the funding (and thereby magic!) for our main library be diminished. I look forward to hearing from you on this matter. In public & peaceful parenting, Paige La Grone Babcock, for [MBM & Ziggy], too

Kindred Spirits

This just in from our friends at MomsRising.org! Last month, several members of our Nashville MAU community painted onesies for MomsRising's Power of ONEsie campaign. This campaign champions paid maternity and paternity leave, and was a big part of why Washington state is now the second state in the US with paid family leave.

The idea behind the campaign: "Imagine a beautifully presented long chain of decorated baby onesies stretching all around your state capital as a visual representation of the real people who need the policies being debated inside the imposing buildings. Each onesie signifies one person--mother, father, child, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, or other--who cares deeply about building a family-friendly America, but can't take the time off work, or away from kids, to actually be at the capital. You."

"One by ONEsie," says MomsRising, "working together, we can show the nation that we are a creative and powerful force for good family policy, as well as help our politicians to pay attention to issues which have long been ignored." If they're not Mothers Acting Up, I don't know who is! Check out the ONEsie photo gallery for a peek at some of the fabulous onesies sent in from folks like us, all across the country. My "Children deserve a bigger piece of the pie" onesie even made it onto the gallery!