It is Saturday morning, and Nellie yawns as she wakes up from her bed. The air feels crisp and cold in her room. It hurts to breathe. Hopefully dad just turned off the heater last night, and can turn it back on again today. Last time, the power company shut off our heat, and it took a long time to get it turned back on. Those were very cold days. Quickly dressing in long pants, a warm shirt, sweater, and socks, Nellie walks down the short hallway from her bedroom to the living area. “Momma, why is it so cold?” Nellie asks her mom, who is sitting at the kitchen table. “Nellie, good, you’re bundled up. The power company turned off our heat. They turned the heat off for everyone on our block. I’ve been trying to figure out who still has heat at the Rosebud Reservation all morning. I haven’t found anyone yet.” Nellie is cold all weekend, and worried. Its November, and the weather is only going to get worse in South Dakota. Would everyone on the entire Rosebud Native American Reservation freeze to death this winter? The power company turned off power for over 100 houses on the Rosebud Reservation, and they won’t turn it back on until all bills are completely paid off. With no jobs, and no extra money, Nellie didn’t know what her family would do. Nellie is always excited for school on Monday morning because her teacher, Ms. Smith, is so smart and inspiring, and really seems to care about her students. “Good morning class!” sings Ms. Smith as they get seated. “Good morning Ms. Smith!” the class sings back. The students all look around and seem relieved. Ms. Smith asks the class, “Did anything exciting happen this weekend?” Nobody speaks. Ms. Smith asks again, “Nothing? Nothing interesting happened this weekend? If not, then let’s get started on our math lesson.” Nellie cautiously raises her hand, “Excuse me, Ms. Smith?” “Yes Nellie. Did something interesting happen this weekend?” “Ms. Smith, they turned the heat off again.” Ms. Smith looked confused. “What do you mean, Nellie? The heat is on, thankfully. It’s going to be cold today!” “No, Ms. Smith. The power company turned off our heat at home. They won’t turn it back on until we pay off our bill.” Ms. Smith replied, “Oh. Nellie, I’m sorry to hear that. Let’s talk about it after class.” “Ms. Smith? It’s not just at my house.” “Oh? What do you mean?” asked Ms. Smith. Nellie said quietly, “They turned off the power at all of our houses.” Nellie’s classmates all started talking excitedly amongst themselves. They all confirmed that they’ve been without heat since Friday, and that they all got the same message from the power company. They wouldn’t get any power again until they paid their bills in full. Ms. Victoria Smith watched her students talk about the power company, the lack of heat, and the coming winter. She needed to get to a quiet place so she could think of a way to help these children, but that couldn’t happen until school let out. She needed to get through today’s lessons first, and then she would try to think of a solution. “OK kids. We will try to figure out what to do about the heat problem later. For now, let’s enjoy the heat in the classroom, and get started on our lessons. Today we are going to start with working on our multiplication table.” Victoria Smith is a young teacher at a school on the Rosebud Reservation. She is 26 years old, and recently graduated from Wellesley College near Boston, Massachusetts. Wellesley is a college for women, and it has a special motto, “Non Ministrari sed Ministrare.” That means, “Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Wellesley College’s goal is to educate women who will make a difference in the world. That’s why Victoria chose to become at teacher on the Rosebud Native American Reservation in South Dakota. Most of the families here live in poverty. They don’t have access to education, jobs, money, or anything else to help improve their lives. Victoria hoped she could make a difference for her students. Victoria had been thinking about her students’ power problem all day. She corrected assignments after school let out, and now she was reading through Facebook before bed. She enjoys keeping up with her friends on Facebook especially now that she’s living in South Dakota, far away from her friends and family. As Victoria read through some posts, she came across some Wellesley message boards. Suddenly, Victoria had an idea. Since Wellesley is known for women who make a difference, the Wellesley graduates are an unusually helpful group. Maybe they would like to help Victoria’s students get their heat back? It was worth a try. Victoria quickly posted a message of her own on a Wellesley Facebook message board explaining the problem, and asking for ideas. Then she turned her computer off, and went to sleep. Victoria woke up the next morning to her phone ringing loudly on her nightstand. She answered the phone, “Hello?” A voice replied, “VICTORIA. Its Keisha.” Keisha was Victoria’s roommate at Wellesley during her first year. “Hi Keisha! It’s so early here. Is everything ok? Keisha replied, “Have you checked Facebook this morning? A bunch of people responded to your post last night. You have hundreds of women asking if they can donate money to help your students!” “Really?” asked Victoria. “I’ll check it out right now!” The next few weeks are a whirlwind for Victoria, Nellie and the rest of the students. A handful of Wellesley graduates took charge of organizing payments from hundreds of other Wellesley graduates. Those women paid off the families’ power bills one by one. It was thousands of dollars, and it took a lot of their time. They had to get each account number, and the power company did not make the process easy, but they did it.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Saturday Newsletter: September 14, 2019
‘Free as a Bird’Mixed media collage by Sage Millen, 11 (Vancouver, Canada). Published September 2019. A note from Sarah Ainsworth I am a big fan of collages and all of the artistic possibilities they represent. If you look at the fine print to see what medium they are, it usually says “mixed media.” The category of “mixed media” has always struck me as an unfair standardization of such varied artwork. But at the same time, those two words do give the artist room to explore—after all, there are so many media you can mix! Plus, it lends an air of mystery to artwork, as a viewer is often left wondering what materials they did mix. I was excited to see two of Sage Millen’s collages published in this month’s issue (one of them featured in last week’s Newsletter). In the one featured above, Free as a Bird, can you identify all of the materials that Sage used? How many “layers” of media are there? My challenge for you this weekend is simply to create a collage. You can begin by assembling the materials you’d like to use, like magazines or colored paper. Is there anything in your recycling bin that you could use (and is clean enough to handle)? Maybe you want to incorporate some natural elements, as Sage does in her pieces. Then the fun begins! If you create a collage you’re proud of, please send it to us via Submittable so we can consider it for publication! Happy weekend, Fundraising Update: the Refugee Project has almost reached its target already! We are overwhelmed. Within days of launching our appeal for donations toward our Refugee Project, you had already donated almost all of our total goal! We set $5,000 as our target, thinking it was a huge stretch and that we’d be lucky to get even halfway there. But we only need $300 more to make it. Yes, our readers and supporters have already donated an incredible $4,700 to this project. You are all just amazing. Thank you! It’s obvious that this initiative means as much to our readers as it does to us. Besides being delighted to have the funding in place to support the creative journeys of kids in refugee camps, the whole Stone Soup team is really buoyed up by knowing that you, our extended Stone Soup family, are in this with us. This is our fall fundraiser, and the season has barely begun. That $5,000 target is clearly in view, and maybe we are going to beat it! Click the button below if you want to join in supporting this project. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Take a look at the beautiful artwork that former contributor Jessica Libor creates in the interview we published with her from Tuesday. Jessica illustrated two stories from 2000, “A Strike for the Wind” and “A Christmas Wish,” and wrote and illustrated “Seventeen Years,” from 2001. Her interview is full of great advice. From Stone Soup, September 2019 Trenza Francesa, French Braids By Alina Samarasan, 12 (Brookline, MA) Illustrated by Sage Millen, 11 (Vancouver, Canada) “¡Ven aquí, Carlita! ¡No puedes ir a la escuela así! Tu cabello es un desastre!” Come here, Carlita! You can not go to school like that! Your hair is a mess! I walk into the room and sit down so Mamá can reach my hair, wishing that she spoke English. Then I wouldn’t be so embarrassed at school. Then no one would tell me to go back to Mexico. My family’s from Cuba, not Mexico, and I wasn’t even born there. I was born here, unlike most of the kids at school, but that doesn’t really matter. Don’t be like them, my big brother said. Don’t fall to their level. You’re better than them, Carlita. And make that known. …/MORE Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. Stone Soup’s Advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.
Former Contributor Interview: Jessica Libor
Editor’s Note: our Former Contributors Interview Project showcases former contributors of Stone Soup and the wonderful things they’ve gone on to do. Jessica Libor illustrated “A Strike for the Wind,” from our March/April 2000 issue, “A Christmas Wish,” from November/December 2000, and wrote and illustrated “Seventeen Years,” from July/August 2001. SS: What are you doing now? I’m living in Philadelphia, currently working as a drawing and painting teacher at Harcum College. I also am the founder of a pop-up gallery “Era Contemporary” and paint and create artwork! I have a solo exhibition coming up on September 4th at the Da Vinci Art Alliance called “Nature’s Daughters.” I love making work about nature and femininity and how they integrate. I work in oil paints and real gold and silver leaf, and my work has a strong storytelling aspect to it! “The Butterflies,” a painting by Jessica from 2019 SS: What did Stone Soup mean to you? JL: Stone Soup was one of my first successes as a young artist, and made me feel like I could actually take a career in art seriously! I remember when I had a story and pictures both published and I felt like I had “made it!” It seriously meant a lot to me, and the feeling that people would see value in my work was embedded in my mind at that young age. It definitely helped propel my vision for the future as an artist! SS: Do you have any advice for current readers, writers, and artists who contribute to Stone Soup? JL: Yes, I would say always create from the heart and not for acclaim or success. Anything created with passion from the heart will always touch people in a much stronger way than anything you would create just to publish or to sell. Think about the things that you are passionate about and let that carry your work! When I wrote the story that was published in Stone Soup, I stayed up late for a week typing it all up on my typewriter, getting lost in the story because I had to get it onto paper. Only afterwards did I worry about where I would send it! Also, be disciplined in practicing your craft. To get good at art takes a lot of time, energy and focus, but it is worth it to see your vision come to life! Are you a former Stone Soup writer or artist and interested in being interviewed? We’d love to hear from you! Please reach out to sarah@stonesoup.com for more information.
