Fall has arrived, summer
vacation has come to a close and the new school year has begun. In my house,
back to school entailed the obligatory 1st day of school picture. My
children happily obliged me, even through high school, wearing their new back
to school outfits, sitting on the old carriage bench outside our door,
backpacks filled with new notebooks and freshly sharpened pencils, filled with
anticipation of what the new school year would bring.
This year, I'm especially
plugged in to the back to school activities around my town. This
September would have been Amilia's last - "first day of
school". She would have entered her senior year of high school.
We only had an opportunity to take
two ‘first day of school' pics of her She
joined the ranks of angels, at the end of May of 2003, two weeks before her
preschool graduation.
I don’t spend much time, thinking of what life
with Amilia would have looked like. Instead, I try to emulate her light. It’s
why Amilia’s Light got started. We want
to Illuminate our World by encouraging people to step up, step
out and light up someone’s life. That may translate to sitting down
next to a stranger or the less popular kid in the cafeteria and offering a
smile or a kind word. It may mean buying a meal for a homeless
person, like my friend did just recently. It could involve much,
much more. It could mean training for a marathon to raise money for
a great cause or mentoring an at risk youth.
At Amilia’s Light, it translates to raising awareness about the epidemic of human trafficking and to facilitate
organizations working to rescue and rehabilitate youth whose lives have been
darkened by it. We continue to fund-raise for the Empowerment
Program, our joint project with Destiny Women in Uganda, which will bridge
their rehabilitation program, with a business, mentoring, training and loan
program that teaches savings and self-sustainability.
Since Amilia would be graduating with the class of 2016 we are especially thrilled to announce that we are expanding our programs by establishing two new exciting initiatives.
Become an Ambassador! (It’s not only for the UN!)
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The timing is right- and
we’re doing our own stepping up and stepping out! This fall we are developing
a pilot program geared for high school students
in and around Medfield to help our cause. It’s dubbed, A5, Amilia’s Angels - Ambassadors for Anti-trafficking Awareness, and I can’t
think of a better way for Amilia’s friends and fellow students to help us
continue to radiate her “10,000 watts of light”! We have some great ideas for this group, such as running an education - prevention program for local areas, producing a video about awareness, collecting used cell phones for reuse for at-risk youth, and perhaps even a mentorship program. We hope you'll put your thinking caps on, and let us know your ideas via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or email. Stop by our booth on Medfield Day to be part of the upcoming A5 video and join the group. We plan to get started in October.
We are so privileged to announce, that we will be awarding the first annual Amilia's Light Scholarship to a qualifying Medfield High School senior. Students who exemplify our core values will be considered by the school’s scholarship committee. More information about the scholarship will be posted in late fall, on our website.
We are so privileged to announce, that we will be awarding the first annual Amilia's Light Scholarship to a qualifying Medfield High School senior. Students who exemplify our core values will be considered by the school’s scholarship committee. More information about the scholarship will be posted in late fall, on our website.
*For more information on how Amilia's Light got started, read "A Spark of Light", my April 9 blog or check out this great article from the Hometown Weekly, http://hometownweekly.net/medfield-charity-helping-girls-across-the-globe-p14602-143.htm.
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