Tag Archive for: Family

You are here: Home / Family

Posts

Gift of Life

/0 Comments/in , /by

My game in the world is called “The Gift of Life” and it is a blood drive. This game is a gift that keeps giving. The blood drive has a special meaning for me and my family. From May 16, 2005, through May 27th, 2005, my daughter, Amanda (now 13) received transfusions totaling 21 pints of blood. Community Blood Center was the center in charge for Amanda to receive Directed/Designated donations from family and friends, and it was also the center in charge of providing blood transfusions from strangers. It was reassuring to know that my daughter was able to get her family and friends blood transfused into her and just as reassuring was to know that because of unselfish strangers who gave of themselves through blood donations, my daughter had all the blood she needed. I was there living in the hospital for over four weeks with my daughter, other patients and their family. I witnessed and experience how precious blood is.

I can remember vividly how much Amanda’s little body needed blood to survive surgery. I can remember when Amanda was the first time in intensive care and how much her little body needed blood to sustain and survive. I remember how every that blood that was in a bag hanging next to her was been transfused into her body and giving her body what she needed.

How important it is to have Blood Drives and get the community involved in them! I contacted one of the directors from Community Blood Centers. His name is Luis and I asked him to be on my team. Then we set a date, created our team, and played.

I said I wanted to contribute and assist in a way that I could give back to my community and the world. I wanted to say thank you to God, to life, to the world for all that was provided to Amanda to her friends and family. I wanted to say thank you to all the lives I saw that were saved by a pint of blood.

This pint of blood didn’t stop giving once transfused it kept giving and giving and it still is.
My Amanda is living proof that a blood donation is a “Gift of Life” and it continues to live on.
By unselfishly giving one pint of blood, one person assures another person or even three that they will get through.

So it’s a game that touches, moves, and inspires me and inspires me to play for the world!

— Maria Perez, Team Florico

Step by Step

/0 Comments/in /by

Becca Carr-Hopkins and Andrea Howe met by chance at a TMLP classroom in London. Andrea was visiting from Washington DC, and thought it would be fun to experience TMLP in a foreign country. Becca, one of 53 London TMLP participants, stood up at one point and shared about her Game in the World. In an instant, a global connection was created: both realized they were using technology to transform difficult step-family dynamics into experiences of relatedness and love. What followed was a blossoming friendship, as well as a shared commitment to make a difference for step-families all over the world.

Becca hatched the idea for Step by Step at her second TMLP weekend in November 2007. Her relationship with her soon-to-be step-daughters — Olivia, 13 and India, 9 — had taken a nose dive and Becca saw that weekend just how numb she was; in fact, she realized she’d given up on things being any different. The girls had decided they wouldn’t be coming to the wedding (Becca’s to their dad), and they were increasingly reluctant to come and visit on the weekends.

Standing in the possibility of Love and Communication, Step by Step was born. Becca and her partner each have two children from previous relationships. Becca’s ex-husband had already remarried, so her biological children had a step mum, step grandparents, and step aunts and uncles. In a conversation with her ex’s new wife, Becca saw a common ‘what’s so’ with being a step mum that just doesn’t get talked about. “Lecia had felt rejected by my kids, just like I had felt rejected by my partner’s kids,” Becca recalled.

Furthermore, Becca discovered that the children were facing common challenges. “It turns out that my kids had had the same stuff going on as my partner’s kids, my sister’s kids and my friend’s kids,” added
Becca.

With the childrens’ encouragement, Becca created Step by Step: an Internet-based resource for step-family members to share their experiences. “The kids decided they wanted to build a website so that other kids around the world could find out what being in a step family was like and be reassured if they were worried.”

The website www.stepbystepguide.co.uk was built by a family friend and went live on 15.2.08, and now needs to be developed further. It features stories and poems written by 15 kids and adults, all part of or connected to Becca’s family in some way. The site also includes a family tree that depicts the connectedness between all family members.

Becca says, “The best part of all of this was the extraordinary conversations we all had in our families about being in a step family. The things that were said were not always easy to hear, but all of the conversations took our relatedness to a whole new level and were absolutely magical to be part of. I was left feeling very proud of our kids, and present to how great they are and what an extraordinary family we have created.”

The kids have also gotten a huge amount from being part of the project and seeing their work live on the internet and could be heard exclaiming, “Yeah we did it”, when they looked the site up.

What’s possible in the world as a result of Step by Step? “Aside from Olivia and India choosing to come to our wedding – a miracle in itself — our kids got to experience themselves as young people that can and do make a difference, now.” says Becca.

And what could you build with that?! A new Team Game of course…

— Becca Carr-Hopkins, Team London

To read about what Andrea Howe created around step-families out of her partnership with Becca, check out this previous Team Leadership story.

Families in Step

/0 Comments/in /by

Andrea Howe and Becca Carr-Hopkins met by chance at a TMLP classroom in London. Andrea was visiting from Washington DC, and thought it would be fun to experience doing the program in a foreign country. Becca, one of 53 London TMLP participants, stood up at one point and shared about her Game in the World. In an instant, a global connection was created: both realized they were using technology to transform difficult step-family dynamics into experiences of relatedness and love. What followed was a blossoming friendship, as well as a shared commitment to make a difference for step-families all over the world. This is the story of Andrea’s project–To read about Becca’s project, check out this story on Step by Step.

Andrea’s inspiration for Families in Step came while she was Team One incoming at the TMLP weekend in Orlando, Florida, USA. For the first time in her life, she was seriously dating a man who came to the relationship with a divorce, two children, and a contentious relationship with his ex-wife. Searching for a focus for her Game In the World, she decided to create something to benefit step-families.

“While I had no experience whatsoever with these kinds of complex family dynamics as a ‘girlfriend,’ I am a step-daughter and I understand first-hand how challenging expanded family life can be,” says Andrea.

So, in September of 2007, Andrea created an amazing team that included a therapist, a divorced couple with children, and a married couple with children and step-children. Inside the possibility of generous listening and loving partnership, they rallied around one simple goal: to help members of step-families transform their communication such that family is no longer an experience of frustration, stress, and conflict, but instead an experience of love.

Andrea learned about the work of Dr. Jeff Schlichter, a Forensic and Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Family Mediator, and Collaborative Divorce Coach, and through a series of phone conversations, enrolled him in leading the project.

“We view step-families as expanded families, not broken families. And these expanded families have remarkable opportunities to help their children become exceptional adults,” says Dr. Schlichter.

By January 2008 the Families in Step web site went live (www.familiesinstep.com) and beginning April 2008, the first Step Talk call series will be piloted. Over the course of six weeks, step-family members from anywhere in the world will spend an hour a week on the phone with each other to learn valuable tips and tools from their facilitators, and also share common concerns, difficulties, solutions, and victories by communicating with members of other step-families.

Families in Step has already had an “others to others” kind of impact. “Here’s the irony of all this,” says Andrea. “Not long after the project was created, Dennis and I decided to end our romantic relationship. He never officially participated in the Families in Step project, and I haven’t yet met his children. But he and his ex-wife have completely transformed their relationship, and their children are thriving.”

Now that’s loving partnership in action, and an experience of love worth celebrating.
— Andrea Howe, Team Washington DC

The Fun House

/0 Comments/in /by

The very first Fun House experience got underway in Brent with children and adults alike having a fabulous home from home day out.

The fun house aims to create an environment for families to share happiness, positive energy, and achieve a place where families unite and engage in true values. Here family bonding is paramount – all members will be encouraged to participate in various activities with a view to develop greater relationships with each other.

The house was the brainchild of Tamy Finkelstein and Mark Roblett. They both saw the need to put the fun element back into family life in the face of a challenging society and set about gathering a group of volunteers to make fun happen for families. The Brent council offered the use of a venue for the day.

Tamy and mark and their team moved to furnish it fit for family fun.

The fun day included most of the activities the fun house team would like to see in all fun houses – the plan is for a fun house to be available to families in every borough and a special resort built by the coast by 2012. during the fun-day, visiting families have the chance of a family photo session and the timetable continued with drumming, shake and bake fun in the kitchen, storytelling, face painting and even well organized graffiti. Tamy said “Fun houses will be spaces where families can get related and get to know each other for the great people we are. Children will be able to express themselves and parents will be able to re-live their childhood moments.”

— Tamy de Pelayo Team 1, Quarter 4, Team London

“Sing, Express!”

/0 Comments/in /by

What would my game in the world be? I knew quickly it would be a singing or musical event among senior citizens and residents from nursing homes and skilled facilities. Their children and grandchildren will be watching their loved ones perform in a “recital”, a great term my committed colleague, Sean Peterson, offered.

Creating milestones was the hardest thing to do, especially starting from the end. I learned that “just doing it” in the face of not knowing whether it made sense, caused several possibilities – unimagined – to come true (miracles, in short). Standing in the possibility of the game of being alive, inspired, whole and complete made sharing the vision easy and clear. Conversation with Grace Lengkeek, Activity Director of Artesia Christian Home, went natural and free flowing. She expressed that she had been thinking of the same game for her residents. When she took it on and owned the game, I was elated. Seeing her fulfilled, fulfilled me! It’s like watching a little girl run off with my toy that I shared, she kept it, and I didn’t cry. This game showed a true leader, obliviously loving, caring, generous, her participants would ask her “what were they singing again?” and she’d whisper…then they sang and sang…who says they have dementia? Some played the piano, accompanied another to sing, a legally blind woman showed her knit work and ceramic pottery.

I had a hunch that singing causes relaxation, who disagrees? But my bigger hunch was it relaxes the mind of the elderly to a degree that they start sharing their life stories. During the enrollment stage of this game, I shared this vision with Salermo. He left the room quickly when I asked if he sang. He came back with a dusty guitar and started serenading me, then told of courtship days with beautiful Nellie. In the week prior to the event, Salermo was admitted to an emergency room (he was a frequent visitor). On his first day back at home, coming from nothing, I invited him again…he said he would take the bus if he had to. I proposed that his children give him a ride (Unity among family was my underlying commitment).

That didn’t happen (I meant the ride), but, I know opportunity had opened for this family. I, Carmelita, learned generosity quickly and provided the ride. Salermo was an astounding entertainer. He sang three serenade songs in his own language and entertained us with his life stories. Stories we would not hear of if he did not participate.

At the break, I have witnessed what Power to Create did. I was clueless, but, I declared that this Game will show the three generations honoring and celebrating each other, there’s magic in singing, the family experience of love, contribution, fun, relatedness, generosity. They were singing — Row, Row, Row Your Boat, or whatever. This one mom was singing an unfamiliar song with her operatic voice, and her son was lip syncing, enjoying her.

I hid when confronted by something “gigantic” which was not so big after all. I was about to quit when the other home could not deliver one day before the event, and Meg, my coach, supported me to be with what is so…no matter how small the crowd could be, it still made a big difference to the lives of who were there last night, and those who were there spiritually. Thank you for your stand. My report came in late, I chose to sit, watch an old favorite movie, instead of sharing my experience and excitement with you – and that’s what I give up, being stingy in sharing my wins!

I have not experienced so much love and generosity. It’s like a miracle for me! Giving up being right created the miracle of partnership – people took care of themselves and came up with other ideas. (Arlin, the back-up lady, will give this idea to a lot of homes to have more people invited.)

I have seen three generations singing to each other, honoring each other through music. One guest couple said, “This is a great idea!” when I declared this is going to be statewide. I am waiting to have an appointment with a congresswoman, Linda Sanchez. I say it will be a contest in different categories, one resident said “That’s silly!’ and her children said “Nope!”

I think the win is: the message was delivered – HOLDING THE SPACE FOR LOVE IN THE WORLD, LOVE COME HOME!

— Carmelita Tiongson-Manzanares, Team 1, Quarter 2, Team Los Angeles

Help for aids orphans struggling against the odds

/0 Comments/in /by

Sweet Waters is a South African community dying of AIDS. Currently 196 homes housing in excess of 500 children are parentless and without adult supervision. These orphaned children live in a culture being shredded by AIDS.

Love Is All We Need is a charity committed to diverting what will be a catastrophic outcome for children, communities, a country.

The Hope Centre is a haven that houses children affected by and infected with AIDS and reaches out into the Sweet Waters community taking measures to care for these children.

Presently children in the community are being raped and robbed, living in homes ill-equipped to meet their needs and struggling to survive against insurmountable odds. They are unable to attend school due to lack of funds for fees and uniforms putting their futures in jeopardy.

At present The Hope Centre has set up a mobile mother scheme where 8 local women between them visit 90 homes a day. They earn a box of food and the equivalent of £10 a month. This is a positive step to making a difference.

Sponsor-a-mother is a project being set up to fund the existing mobile mothers and 12 more in the next 2 months. The aim is for these mothers to be earning the equivalent of £70 a month to honour them with a decent wage.

Other immediate projects that Love Is All We Need is taking on for this community include a campaign to have 500 children to start a new school year in January 2008 and to provide each home with a small, safe cooker.

Ultimately we are in the process of working towards building a village inside the community that we believe is a long term solution for restoring hope, love and security.

This describes one community.

THE VISION:

To utilize resources locally from the community eg. People in the community making bricks and being employed to build.

The project is child-led!! Children here funding the project there are leading it in conjunction with the children in the Sweet Waters community eg. The children decide what shape they want their houses to be.

While the village is being built there are skills around building that are being taught. Mark who will oversee the project is an experienced construction worker and has built in Africa before.

A real sense of community is restored inside of hope and possibility for the future.

The homes are safe dispelling childrens fears of what will come in to them from the night under ill fitting doors and through cracks in the walls.

Bridging Communities Transforming Poverty in Honduras

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

honduras-bridge.jpgWhen I took on my project, my intent was to enhance the life of a community outside of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, by putting in a bridge. My project transformed this quarter, to a partnership with the government which is committed to changing a counhonduras-b-june-2007-145.jpgtry with extreme poverty to a country of prosperity – RIGHT NOW!

At the end of June, I went to Honduras for my game and what I saw was a beautiful country that is on the edge of going under. It is a country of 7 million people – 70% are under the age of 14 and 60% live in extreme poverty – and they are demanding a change. The key government people I met with on my trip are looking for a different way of doing things because what has been done in the past hasn’t worked. The money has gone where the votes are and not where it’s needed. They asked me to partner with them in turning around poverty in their country.

My original team was Rafael, a pastor in Honduras, Pastor Don Miller who is head of our international missions here and the University of Wisconsin, Madison chapter of Engineers Without Boarders. I am now in the process of forming 45 teams that will address specific issues such as health, sanitation, disease control, infrastructure, clean water education and many more. I created the possibility and outcome and I have an idea of what I want to accomplish and it is from this, that I get calls and emails from people who I don’t know me but they have the expertise to do what’s needed are want to help. People are contacting me daily. My teams now consist of some of the following groups: Volvo Construction, Rotary International, the Minnesota National Guard, the South African Embassy, a local structural engineering firm, Doctors and Dentists Without Boarders, Dole Fruit, Cargill, Sea Foam and many more. A strong team player that has shown up unexpectedly is the government of South Africa. We have started conversations about what is possible through an alliance between the two governments.

I have watched the growth of Rafael. In just the past month alone, Rafael has been given a new office in the municipality building including admin support, he has been added to the city board, he is working daily with the mayor on the community, weekly meetings with top government officials and today, August 3rd, he met with the President and the First Lady to review our ideas and vision for the country. It’s not what you would expect to see for a pastor in a poverty community. This is only the beginning for him.

Ingiero Cesar Salgado is head of the Fund for Social Inversion in Honduras (FHIS) and second-in-command in Honduras. He knows the information on the extreme poverty in Honduras inside and out. I got to see his heart for the people of his country. Ingiero Salgado is not a bureaucrat, but someone who wants to make a difference in this country before it is too late.
In Honduras I experienced communication at whole new level. It wasn’t the words that were spoken but the love I saw these leaders have for the people of their country. It radiated from their souls. It was the unspoken communication of the children who lived in extreme poverty but their spirits had not been broken. It was in all of the single mothers who despite everything they face, love their children more than I can express in words.

I envision a country that will not be the same in three years. They are demanding it and there is a sense of urgency. It will not be because of what is specifically done but it will be a change in thinking that will push this country to its tipping point that will send a ripple affect across Honduras and through Central America in what’s possible.

Who I am is leadership, love and generosity.
— Kathy Powell-Larson, Team Minneapolis

Parachute jump raises £3,300 for homeless

/0 Comments/in /by

YIPPEE !!! I have won my game, with freedom, ease and barely a drama in sight!!

I got a team of 6 people together to do a parachute jump, raising money for a brighton based homeless charity. The original goal was 20 people jumping to raise £2,000 all together. We ended up raising £3,300!!! between just 6 of us!!! A Game well and truely won.

The money is providing the homeless service users to do activities they have never had the chance to do, and self development workshops and life skill seminars. This game has been sooo much fun, I got to throw myself out of a plane, at 12,000 ft, with my husband and some of my best friends and raise a great sum of money, creating opportunities for others.

What had my game happen with complete freedom and ease was enrollment from the very beginning and then the whole team being accountable and causing each other. Thankyou to the whole team for who you all are, I acknowledge you all, my life continues to suprise me how amazing it is and you are all a big part of that now and always will..LARA.

Creating a 'Habitat for Humanity' home

/in , /by

Suzanne Perrin and Denise Inskip-Seale created a project to beautify a ‘Habitat for Humanity’ home. They used exclusively donated material, labor and furnishings. Their concept was simple: many of the families that work with Habitat for Humanity in building a home, do not have the resources to furnish them after they move in.

Suzanne and Denise involved as many people from the local community as possible to donate their time talent and resources to fully furnish the new Habitat home.

The project, developed while they were both on the Landmark Education program was a big success. This video chronicles the development of the project. It also features moving coverage of the day the family who helped build the house got to see it finished for the first time.

New Home

Team Managment and Leadership Program participants use their wedding as an opportunity to raise money for charity

/0 Comments/in /by

frarys1.jpgRichard Frary is a participant in the Team Managment and Leadership Program

 

On most bridal registries you will find things like coffee makers, china, linens and other household goods.

 

If you were on the guest list of Linda and Richard Frary’s wedding last spring, you would have found goats, pigs and trees; all items that they were asking be purchased through Heifer International in order to benefit children and families in rural villages around the world.


Richard and Linda were both participating at Landmark Education when they met. They say that as they began to plan their wedding they wanted to make sure that it made a difference in the world. Instead of having people give customary gifts they requested that people make donations to Heifer International.

Heifer International is a global non-profit that provides farm animals and trees to families in developing countries so that they can create economic self-reliance. Each donation pays for at least one animal that goes to a family in need and to date the Frary wedding has resulted in 55 donations.

Both retired from previous careers, Linda and Richard are dedicated to helping others fulfill their dreams. Said Richard, “You get nothing if you don’t give something away.”

You can read more about Richard and Linda’s wedding in this story from the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

Couple proves it’s never too late to find true love


BY AIMEE CHOUINARD CORRESPONDENT

The Frarys are new homeowners in Beneva Pines. Married just a few weeks ago, Richard, 66, and Linda, 59, are a testament that finding love late in life is possible. In two weeks, they will embark on a three-week honeymoon toBora Bora. The Frarys dated for two years before they married. One year into the relationship, Richard Frary asked Linda to marry him.”I asked her, and she said, ‘No,'” Richard said with a laugh. “I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to get married again,” Linda explained. “And that was OK,” Richard said. “A couple months later, we were at the beach, looking out at the ocean, and I asked her again.”

 

They were married on Turtle Beach on Siesta Key, surrounded by family and friends, including Linda’s newly found birth family, whom Linda, who was adopted, never knew.Instead of registering for gifts at a department store, the Frarys registered with an organization called Heifer International, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to help end world hunger and poverty through self-reliance and sustainability. More than 60 guests visited the Web site beforehand to donate goats, pigs and trees to help children and families around the world become self-reliant. Richard Frary has been retired for 10 years from his Miami wholesale air-conditioning and heating products company. Linda Frary owned a picture-framing store in Connecticut and opened the same business here in Sarasota. She recently closed Sarasota Framing and Design to retire.” We’re getting younger, so we need more time to play,” Richard Frary joked. The Frarys both have children from previous marriages, Linda has a daughter and Richard has a son and a daughter.Richard Frary recently moved from Miami to Englewood, leaving his Englewood beach home to live with Linda in Sarasota.

Some of their best memories are of hours they spent engrossed in long conversations about their lives, their families and their dreams at the beach house.” It was during those intimate conversations that I realized Richard was such a special guy,” Linda said.

Intimate conversations have been a part of the Frarys’ relationship since they both participated in personal development work with a company called Landmark Education.” Landmark has had a lot to do with the incredible relationship we have created. When I did the Landmark Forum, I got over my past. Linda was a huge support during that time. That’s when I fell in love with her,” Richard said. The Frays are committed to making a difference in their community and the world. “We have great friends,” Linda said. “We meet people everywhere we go and just start talking.

“We love to meet people when we travel and are looking for ways we can contribute in other countries. We strive to be an example of a loving relationship in the world.”

The Frarys say they love Sarasota because of the arts, the entertainment and the creative spiritual community with so many organizations to be a part of. They plan to keep Sarasota as their home while traveling the world. Linda volunteers with Girls Inc., assisting with classes and programs. She says she loves being with the kids. She plans to also continue her already established involvement with the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce.” We have an easygoing life,” Linda said. “We’re always running somewhere and always have something to do.”

In addition to traveling, the Frarys garden together and especially enjoy growing orchids. They kayak, snorkel and go boating together. Richard’s passion is windsurfing.“People ask, “How can I have what you and Linda have?” says Richard.

In unison, the Frarys say, “We just choose it!”

See More in the Video Gallery

Connect With Team & Beyond

November 2018 TMLP Weekend Video

August 2018 TMLP Weekend Video

Prior TMLP Weekend Videos

PAGE TOP