A Follow Up on Canned Goods

by Jen Kulman

This year marks the the 16th anniversary of Canstruction, a construction competition that aids in the fight against hunger. Teams must assemble their structures in a single night, made entirely from full cans of food. At the end of each competition, all canned food used as building materials is donated to local food banks.

New York City's exhibits will be shown today through December 2, followed by one hundred cities across North America who will hold their own competitions in the coming year. The price of admission for the general public to view these amazing creations? Why, canned goods, of course!

The creativity in these structures knows no bounds. Yet even more amazing is their charitable impact - millions of pounds of food are donated to needy families through the food banks. Aren't these things unbelievable? Check out more photos here, including the national winners.

In related news, a local library is also doing their part to assist with local hunger. The Fraser Public Library is accepting food donations in lieu of late fees. The Food for Fines project allows patrons to donate one can of food in exchange for having fifty cents waived from their library fines. This is a great way to get the reading community active in solving the hunger crisis.

Isn't it uplifting to read stories of the creative ways in which communities are helping their local food banks?

I Will Make a Difference

booda brand, a clothing line founded by Ruchika Sahai and including Tinna Petursson as the Director of Retail Enlightenment (love that title), produces organic clothing with proud statements that are simple and direct (DREAM, IMAGINE, COURAGE, LOVE, PEACE, etc).

Ruchika states that, "as a new parent, my deepest desire is to share the values and spirit of diverse cultures with my children in the most unique ways. Most importantly, I want to be an example of one who follows my bliss while affecting positive change in the world."

And Tinna's role behind-the-scenes is "about being a part of something that will change a child's world."

Staying true to that promise, for every purchase, Booda brand will gift ONE book to a child in need through the organization Room to Read.

View their line of organic "conversational clothing" which include:

IMAGINE a Wild Kingdom tee – Inspired by the effort to protect wildlife in Africa

Way of the Samurai COURAGE tee – Inspired by the courage of the Samurai to live by the moral principles of the Bushido Code

Joie de Vivre LOVE tee – Inspired by the French motto “joie de vivre” which expresses the cheerful joy of life

DREAM tee – Inspired by the less fortunate children of India who dream of a more abundant life

Under One Sky PEACE tee – Inspired by the hope that one day the Middle East will see a lasting peace

USS Boxer Humanitarian Mission

A few weeks ago, my son's preschool sent out a notice about a humanitarian mission that one of the parents was participating in as part of his role with the US Navy.

My son chose over a dozen stuffed animals from his collection to donate and Kane/Miller provided Spanish language books from our Libros del Mundo series.

Photograph from

Dougal the Garbage Dump Bear

by Matt Dray

Just this week, emails have been circulating with stories about the mission and the ways in which these books (and hundreds of stuffed animals) are reaching children in South America. This note was sent from Navy Dad, Jeremy, to his wife, who then shared it with the staff and family members from school:

You remember those donated books? Well 1 set was dropped off in Dental this afternoon and that is the PERRRFECT place to drop them off. Here's why:

They don't bring very young children on board for surgeries but a couple pre-teens do come on. I went there for a cleaning and noticed an 8 or 9-year-old girl sitting with one of our translators. I turned to the Dental Officer who is a buddy of mine and said, "Isn't she a little young to be here for surgery or dental work?" He said, "Yes, but when any adult comes in for surgery they have to bring an escort to help them home after the surgery. A few of them bring their older children as escorts. So while they are waiting in the Dental area for their friends/family’s surgeries to be done I always see if any of them need any teeth pulled or anything."

The girl was looking sort of bored so I remembered the donated Spanish kids books from Kane/Miller...I ran up to my stateroom and grabbed 1 of the 2 sets. I gave them to the enlisted translator and said, "Ask her if she likes to read and if she does tell her she can look through these books and take one or two." The translator asked her and she said, “Yes, she likes to read.”

While I was waiting I noticed the young girl going through them and she started reading one. When I came out afterwards I noticed she was gone and so was the book.

Kane/Miller loves being able to give back to the community when we can and we so enjoy hearing stories about how our books are used, and knowing that children around the world are now reading our editions - and translations - of some pretty wonderful books.

How has your school or family given back?

Click Here

I love sites that truly help others by having users simply click here or there.

FREE RICE is a site which not only helps feed the hungry but helps increase your English language vocabulary.

For every word you correctly define (you get four choices to select from), Free Rice will donate 20 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger.

I know, 20 grains of rice doesn't really sound like much, but this site is as addicting as solitaire once was.

I'm proud to say that I donated at least 200 grains of rice during my first 4 minutes on the site. I learned many new words and correctly defined even more.

The site does come with a warning, however: This game may make you smarter.

It can also help you:

• Formulate your ideas better
• Write better papers, emails and business letters
• Speak more precisely and persuasively
• Comprehend more of what you read
• Read faster because you comprehend better
• Get better grades in high school, college and graduate school
• Score higher on tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and GMAT
• Perform better at job interviews and conferences
• Sell yourself, your services, and your products better
• Be more effective and successful at your job

After you have done Free Rice for a couple of days, you may notice an odd phenomenon. Words that you have never consciously used before will begin to pop into your head while you are speaking or writing. You will feel yourself using and knowing more words.