Connecting

PREPPING: While the world has seemingly changed so much in the last month, some things have not changed. One thing that remains the same is there are still homeless teens here in Seattle, and they need nutrition. Therefore, we are, of course, still heading up a monthly meal for Teen Feed.

I've started using Meal Train's potluck feature to publish the monthly meal asks. Here's what I published this month. ...

Message to Participants 

This go 'round is going to be quite a bit different, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We must take measures to protect ourselves, our guests, and the community. Service will be 'curbside' or to go this month. 

Because of the pandemic, only one family will be in kitchen, assembling the burritos into boxes, which will be distributed outside, in the alley, by Teen Feed staffers. 

Wonderful volunteers, please have all food to Teen Feed by 5:50 p.m., in a container you can leave behind. You will be dropping the food at the Teen Feed door. If you're bringing rice, beans or chicken, please bring them hot, to save the skeleton crew/inside team from more work having to heat it up. 

***I would advise you to buy your food earlier than usual because of the runs on grocery store inventory :( *** 

News straight from Teen Feed: "The kitchen crews will now have limited exposure to youth. Our youth will be temporarily served by staff and volunteers at doorways and eat outside in well-ventilated areas. We’re also suggesting simplifying your warm meals to allow for fewer cooks and social distancing. We have increased reverse ventilation, are bleaching and hand-washing, and we are confident we are limiting exposure in a responsible way."

I sent that notice out a couple of weeks ago, along with an itemized list of food wishes (you can see it here: https://mealtrain.com/4lw7k8 )

Today, still in containment in the basement, I managed to made some crispy rice dessert bars. (Awhile back we found strawberry Rice Krispies at Grocery Outlet and I bought them with Teen Feed desserts in mind.) Tomorrow we'll be making copious amounts of beans and chicken for the big burritos to go. 

We typically prep on site, stage a buffet line and serve our dine in guests, but tomorrow will be different. Here's hoping this delivery model goes well. I have to think next month will be to go, too. This virus isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

SING IT: This afternoon I got kind of a last minute notice about a distant Fridays @the 5th (Avenue Theater). The kids particpated last Friday, when the session features Broadway's Don Darryl Rivera (Disney's Aladdin; Sancho Panza in The 5th's Don Quixote). Rivera talked about the importance comic relief in uncertain times.

This week, the program featured Seattlite Sarah Rose Davis. She led a session called "Raise Your Voice: Powerful Music Calls for Powerful (healthy) Singing!" 

I could hear bits of the broadcast from upstairs, but don't have the kids' reviews yet. Stay tuned. 

COOL DEAL: This morning, a post to a Facebook group I follow let me know about writing workshops for teenagers from Seattle-based Clarion West, a nonprofit literary organization. 

Surprisingly, I'd never heard of them before. I followed the link and read up on the offerings. They included ... 

Writing Sprint: Writing Exercises - a series of four stand alone classes.
These weekly sessions are for writers who want to build a regular writing practice or find creative inspiration for generating new stories. Each session you’ll get a set of writing prompts based on The Picture Game. The first exercise we’ll do together and share the results (IF you want to). The rest are yours to do between sessions. All the exercises are designed to allow you to play around with craft and character and setting while planting story seeds in your brain. Even if you already have stories or novels in progress, you can use these exercises to kick your brain into creative gear without pressure and get into the habit of practicing regularly. In partnership with Writing the Other.

Also, she's signed up for a multi-session seminar, The First Time Teen Programming, with Elizabeth Hand

The act of writing is a powerful tool that can help us create a vision of a new and different world, and provide a sense of control when the real world suddenly seems unfamiliar. In this workshop, we’ll use material from out own lives as the basis for a short story. We’ll share and read aloud brief, written, non-fiction accounts of the first time we confronted something new and strange — it could be a relationship, a place, an emotion, a pet, anything at all. Then we will transform that piece of non-fiction into a short SF/F story, which we’ll read aloud and share. Participants will read aloud from their own work and use in-class writing prompts to create their own fiction.

We also signed her up for a one-time class, Building Better Monsters Teen Programming, with James Sutter

Whether magical beasts or intelligent aliens, monsters are at the heart of science fiction and fantasy. But how do you move beyond the classics and come up with your own unique creatures and alien cultures? In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn how to use evolutionary principles like natural selection and adaptation to jumpstart your creativity, fitting imagined creatures into your setting or creating fascinating new monsters in just minutes!

These sound like such wonderful opportunities - and it's free! How fantastic is that? 

(In case you're wondering, we didn't sign CJ up because he's got another full load of college classes starting soon.)