Thank you for 2013 and looking ahead to 2014

ASR Events • Business Angel • Current Events • Darfur • Environmental Sustainability • Haiti • Katrina • Media • Tsunami • Women

What a year 2013 has been! Aid Still Required has seen incredible growth and achieved major accomplishments: In Haiti, we began our support and guidance of OADENN, a children’s mentoring and support program in the northern city of Cap Haitien.  The program is working with over 100 kids weekly and provides everything from educational counseling, medical care, and team building, to safe places for play, yoga and meditation.  Heading into 2014, we aim to establish a physical center for expanded programming, to increase enrollment, and to support more kids going to school and receiving medical care.

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Team Aid Still Required heads to The Big Easy

ASR Events • Current Events • Environmental Sustainability • Katrina

One of the people we met with in New Orleans said that her city is more like “the Little Difficult than the Big Easy” but we found in our jam-packed week there that there is a lot to be hopeful about in the Crescent City. We were all in New Orleans about 6 months ago and it just felt like a different city then. This time we met with 4 powerful  after-school and extra-curricular youth development programs at both the middle and high school levels. Charter schools now represent 85% of the city’s public education system and for the most…

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ASR Supporter Payton Taylor needs our support

Current Events • Katrina • Media

Up and coming country music star and ASR supporter Payton Taylor is working on the release of her new EP and she is using Kickstarter to do it. Payton has talked about Aid Still Required programs at her concerts and even made a PSA to call attention to the work that still needs to be done in New Orleans. Last year, she even wrote a song about the great storm, Katrina, that left New Orleans battered over 8 years ago. And now, she needs your support. Go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paytontaylor/payton-taylor-new-ep-release and chip in to help Payton put out her latest record.…

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Rosemarie McCaffery Antiques Hosts Benefit for Aid Still Required

ASR Events • Darfur • Haiti • Katrina • Tsunami

Thank you to all those who made it out to Rosemarie McCaffery Antiques last week to support ASR’s existing projects in Haiti, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, in Chad with the Darfuri refugees living there, and in New Orleans. It was a beautiful event thanks to Robert Ross who gave a moving talk on why ASR’s work is so important (maybe we will be able to post a copy of his talk on the ASR blog!), to Cathie Ross, Irene Mink and Rosemarie McCaffery for their tireless work in preparing the beautiful setting and to all the volunteers who made the evening so enjoyable. In…

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Family Fun Day Event Benefiting Aid Still Required and The Garden of Eatin’

ASR Events • Environmental Sustainability • Katrina

Hello Pismo Beach!  Playful Planet Co-founder Karen Duggan called ASR a couple of months ago and asked us to be the beneficiary of a wonderful event she is co-hosting in Pismo Beach July 30th with Harmony House Yoga and Honeymoon Cafe.  Why, yes, of course, Karen, THANK YOU, we’d love to participate! There will be something for everyone:   Whole Family Cookbook author, Scholastic 2010 Parent Blogger Award winner, mom, and former high-school teacher Michelle Stern will be signing copies of her new cookbook.  Clark Valley Organic Farms is providing healthy snacks, Storyland Yoga is presenting a yoga class,  Kids Entertainer Jody…

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ASR’s FIRST MAJOR FUNDRAISING EVENT – “A Night of Culture for a Cause”

ASR Events • Darfur • Katrina • Media • Tsunami

“June 20th” quickly became an ASR household buzzword with weeks of tireless preparation, culminating into A Night of Culture for a Cause.  Actress and ASR friend Barbara Bosson hosted the fete at her stunning Pacific Palisades home.  Thanks to Marble Arch Fine Afts and the Cracking Art Group, guests were greeted by eco-friendly, larger-than-life animal sculptures made out of recycled plastic, highlighting ASR’s commitment to environmental issues.  Animals included giant bulldogs and terriers, oversized sneaker-wearing chihuahuas, goats, giraffes, and alligators. ASR’s various projects in the tsunami region in Southeast Asia, Sudan, and New Orleans were featured on displays in the…

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From New Orleans

Katrina

We have left these people behind.  New Orleans is a very depressed city today and has a vacant feeling to it.  I haven’t been here in years, but this town used to be flowing with life. The Lower Ninth Ward, once a fully populated neighborhood, is now a large field of weeds mixed with rubble from old foundations.  There’s barely a building standing and only a few new homes started or completed.  90% of its population has stayed away.  Frankly, we’ve given them little or no reason to come back.

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