All I Want for Christmas…

The greatest lesson I learned this year was that I don’t need great power or money to make a difference in the world. I can use my talents to help others. I got a much greater reward than any award or sum of money simply by learning how children in the third world have benefited from the donations I’ve been able to offer Unicef and Grace Educational Trust School.

Thanks to your interest in my poetry collection, I’ve surpassed my goal of being able to give a child in the third world the Gift of Education for a year. In addition to that Gift, I recently donated money from the proceeds of my book sales to buy bed nets to help children avoid malaria, and just bought a child the Gift of Play. A lot of children have never seen art supplies or a jump rope. Shouldn’t every child in this world know what it is to create and to play?

Earlier this year, thanks to an interview I did with Neelima Pratap for one of my magazine articles, I discovered a wonderful school in Goa, India that is in its beginning stages and needs financial help so the children can have supplies, desks (they currently sit on the soil to study) and a larger room to serve as their classroom. After I donated to Unicef,  I was able to donate proceeds from WTBG to Grace Educational Trust School to help them out a bit with the construction costs for the chairs and desks. I hope with Christmas sales and throughout 2009 I can continue to donate to both Unicef and Grace Educational Trust School.

I am still committed to donating half the proceeds from sales of Where the Butterflies Go to third world educational projects, even though I initially said I’d just try to fund one child’s education for a year. I didn’t want to stop at that once I realized how many lives could be touched with the small donation each book sale offers. I want to keep going, and I hope you’ll help me by buying the book for Christmas gifts this year; Mother’s Day gifts next year, or just for yourself. That’s all I want for Christmas!

People of all ages and backgrounds enjoy my poems – there really is something in this collection for everyone, so it makes a great gift for that person who seems to have everything. You can read the reviews here: Reviews of Heather’s poetry collection. This is also the spot where I’d prefer you buy the book, as Amazon takes a heftier royalty, leaving less for me to donate to Unicef. Just a request 🙂

Autographed copies are available by emailing me at writer@hgrace.com. I can ship the signed book to you once I receive payment via Paypal. Unsigned copies are easily bought via lulu.com as well as amazon sites internationally.

It’s been such a joy to receive notices from Grace School updating me on the school’s progress. Recently, the school’s small staff organized a Children’s Day at the school. The children had never seen party hats or favours before, and were so excited to receive the simplest things most of us take for granted, like pencils and erasers.

Pencils and erasers. I’ve learned through my involvement with Unicef and Grace Educational Trust School this year that the simplest, most seemingly insignificant gifts can give children in third world countries a sense of well-being, self-worth and pride. Those are the gifts I can’t wait to give this Christmas.

Children's Day at GET: Their faces say it all!

Order unsigned copies of my book here and receive them in time for Christmas: Where the Butterflies Go

Signed copies ordered through me before Dec. 15 should also make it in time for the 25th!

Learn more about Grace Educational Trust School through a CBC special here  Giving Hope).

Gifts of Magic are a great stocking stuffer idea – see more about Unicef’s Gifts of Magic here).

A Child’s View of Politics

On this historic day, I feel privileged to be able to write that my neighbours in the United States of America have elected an ambitious, wise, and inspiring leader who also happens to be black.

Let’s be real now: Barack Obama can’t and won’t do it all. He’s only one man, and this is politics, where it seems like everything is debated and nothing gets done. But this great leader has sparked in us – in so many different people around the world – a sense of hope and joy and promise. This morning, there is a light that I have not seen behind people’s eyes since the fall of the Berlin wall. A light that went out with the fall of two towers. That’s something already, and he’s not even in office yet.

He’s even inspired our three-and-a-half-year-old  daughter. I told her yesterday, while we watched some election coverage on TV and the Net, that Obama was a great man who wanted to help people who don’t have as much as we have; that he wanted everyone to have access to homes and food and jobs and happiness. I said he was going to try to teach people to share and make the world a better place. That was the best explanation I could give a toddler in the early morning before my first coffee.

I educated her in the same way with the October Canadian election, and after listening intently to the choices she had; after Mommy pushing Green perhaps just a little too hard, she said she wanted to vote “Purple.” This time, she seemed to be mulling over everything I’d said more, and really taking it in.

Over supper, before the election results were in, she told Daddy about her day. Out of the blue, she looked at him and said, “Daddy, Obama’s going to change the world!” with a big grin on her face.

This morning, I set up our daughter with breakfast in front of the TV, and together we watched Obama’s historic speech, thanks to a wonderful technology called PVR. “He won? You mean he’s already won?”  she said to me during the speech, not realizing that she’d actually missed this “defining moment,” as Obama put it,  while asleep in her bed.

“Yes, honey, Barack Obama is President. It’s like you said last night, he’s going to try to change the world!” I said.

She looked at me, perplexed. “But Mommy, I don’t want him to change the world!” she began to cry.

My heart skipped a beat. I wondered what could be coming next. Was she seeing his colour? Had someone put ideas in her head? I paused the speech. I would have to talk with her. Then she finished her thought:

“I don’t want him to change it. I like it round!”

Poetry That Can Make a Difference

Some of you may not know that half the proceeds from sales of Where the Butterflies Go are donated to educational projects in the third world. My collection was launched in February, and I was pleasantly surprised to reach my first goal by early March. My first donation was made at that time to Unicef’s Gift of Education Project. This donation paid for a full year of education for a child in need, including their tuition, books, supplies, and part of a teacher’s salary.

I didn’t want to stop there – it is incredibly rewarding to have my poems making a small difference in the world. So when I interviewed Neelima Pratap for a magazine article and learned about the small one- roomed school in Goa, India that she has co-founded with Francis Das, Grace Educational Trust school,  I knew I’d found another worthy, wonderful project that could use my help.

These young children would never have had the opportunity to get even the most basic education -something I have often taken for granted – if it weren’t for the dedication and effort these incredible ladies have put forth.

The fact that the school’s name is my maiden name was purely coincidental…yet an interesting coincidence!

My small $100 donation will help them build desks and chairs for the children, but I am hoping that with continued sales of Where the Butterflies Go, I can donate more towards their goal of building a brand new school for the children. This is where you, dear readers, come in!

I hope that you’ll watch this wonderful clip from an interview with Neelima Pratap which aired on CBC’s The National in early July- I am sure it will move you, and will tell you more about where your dollars are going when you buy Where the Butterflies Go.

Giving Hope -The National, CBC

If you are interested in an autographed copy of my collection, please contact me at writer@hgrace.com or below, and I will arrange payment (I accept money orders but prefer Paypal) to sign and ship a copy to your home. Non-autographed copies are available from my publisher at Lulu.com

Neelima has also informed me that Grace Educational Trust school now has a website at GraceEducationalTrust.com, where you can read articles and updates about the school.

Thanks again to all my kind readers!

Photo: Children at Grace Educational Trust. Photo courtesy Neelima Pratap.