This morning I had the pleasure of meeting with Juan Hernandez, the President of the Santa Rosa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. We discussed ways to help each other help ‘our’ kids lead healthier lives. Health through nutrition education, culinary education, and so much more.

I told him about the five program areas that we are focusing on with Shine The Light On Kids, based on the answers to the 25 questions asked. Here they are, but remember that this is a very rough draft and will be refined many times after all the data is in from Sonoma State University:

1. Nutrition 101 The foundation (anatomy, body function)
2. Culinary Food preparation (food labeling, family unit traditions)
3. Environmental Earth/Body connection (food safety, Earth health)
4. Mental Health Body/Mind connection (stress, sleep)
5. Fitness Physical Fitness and its connection to health

If you have suggestions for catchy titles for each area, please let us know!

The next date for a STL event is October 22nd from 5:30 to 7:30, at Snake Oil Coffee, Elixirs and Frozen Mixers, located at 435 Santa Rosa Avenue in Santa Rosa. You’ll sample milkshakes, coffee and pastries while you hear stories from the road. We’ll have a blast. Please come and bring your friends!

We are tirelessly raising money for program development as well as organizing our big Gala next May. If you want to be on the steering committee, please let us know.

Rough Edge Productions is creating an amazing presentation movie for us. It will take hours and hours of their time to edit 15 and a half hours of videos to create a 30 minute movie explaining my road trip collecting the data and our vision for the future. I will let you know as soon as it’s ready, so you can know where and when I will be presenting it. We’re so excited!

Tanya Scott, our newest volunteer with Shine The Light has been an amazing asset connecting STL to so many people and organizations; Rough Edge Productions being just one of many things that she has accomplished. Sharon Wegner has agreed to be Guest Services Director for May’s big Gala; not a small job since we are expecting 400 guests! If you want to help in any way, we can use you!

Dan O’Connell, an incredible man with a seasoned and impressive resume, whom we like to refer to as our ‘idea-man’ has graciously agreed to join our Board of Directors. We are so fortunate to have him and we’ll have a formal introduction very soon.

Our immediate need is for someone to agree to sponsor our web site, so that we can keep it up to date and exciting with all the progress we are making. Currently it is not up to date as, frankly, our webmaster needs to be paid! Small detail, I know, but not everyone works for free. Jimmy has been a very gracious supporter to Shine The Light On Kids since the beginning and charged the bare minimum to upload all the videos as I was traveling this year interviewing kids. He is a huge supporter and I would hope you would all help support him. If you or someone or some business you know would sponsor our web site, then they will have not only our undying thanks, but, of course, their names and business logo on the web site.

There’s more, but that will do for today!