Bring Peace to Earth: Making a Difference with Maathai and a 10-year-old non-profiteer

It was December and I wanted to be seasonal but not limiting myself to the one holiday or belief structure. So I decided to go with Peace. I set up my program early in November to make sure I could get all the pieces in place. My December display was our large tree bulletin board so I decorated our now-bare tree with lights and ornaments depicting different peace symbols from various cultures around the world (separate post all about that display to come). I named my program Bring Peace to Earth and wanted to talk about people who've made a difference in the world.

AnyRefugee
The flashiest part of this program was the AnyRefugee program, which a ten-year-old Alaskan boy created to help kids send postcards to refugee children all over the world.

The Jesuit Refugee Organization distributes them for him now and anyone can send cards. In the blog on the AnyRefugee site William talks about groups he's spoken to, including via Skype, so I decided to reach out to him and see if would be able to talk to use during our afternoon program. Once he was lined up I created a template for our postcards and made up my own as an example. We have a lot of very young regulars in our programs and many children for whom English is not their first language, so I made up a quick sign with phrases they might like to use, such as "I am thinking about you. I care about you. Don't give up. I am here for you."  I hoped that talking to William would give us some tips about what to write, since he'd visited refugee camps himself. Our conversation ended up being fairly short, but he told us a little bit about why he created the organization and what it was like to give kids cards. Our kids didn't have any questions for him but they were very quiet and paid close attention, which is a good sign.

I had a back-up of several videos about children refugees in case something happened and our talk with William fell through. I had reached out to him to verify our details and send him my Skype profile a few times with no response, so I was relieved when I just signed on at the right time and he was there. Since our conversation was short and the computer was already set up, we watched this video about child refugees making drawings of their dreams. It's not too frightening but is very effective at showing what it's like for children who flee their homes.

Since it was just one part of a program I just went with markers and colored pencils for making our postcards. The kids came up with some great stuff, my favorite included "If I can change the world, I will help you, give you a home".   

I added a display in the children's room and kept open the request for postcards for a month. Then I sent them all in one envelope to the address provided on the website. I was absolutely thrilled to receive a response in May with a card hand-made by an adult refugee and written by the Jesuit who distributed our cards. The children he gave them to, at the Kahuma Refugee Camp in Northern Kenya, from South Sudan and Ethiopia, wanted to write back to us and they each wrote messages in response. I made up this display for everyone to enjoy the responses and learn about the Refugee crisis, including tips on talking to kids about it. A boy replied to my postcard with the incredible message "I am here for you, strong, strong, strong and never give up."

Wangari Maathai and Her Trees
I was a little concerned about the appeal of a program for kids about refugees, so I decided I needed to add a snack component to get them hooked. But I like being matchy and themed, so I decided to expand my study of individuals making a difference to Wangari Maathai, who helped reforest Kenya. We would make chocolate covered pretzel trees that the kids could decorate, the general idea of which I got off of Pinterest. Because they needed time for the chocolate to harden, we actually made the trees first, then talked to William and worked on our postcards, and they were allowed to have their trees after the postcards were finished. I read Wangari's Trees of Peace by Jeanette Winter while they drew their postcards, they were really impressed by the number of trees attributed to her efforts.

 After sourcing pretzel rods on the Internet and seeing people complain about the quantity that arrived broken, I just went to Target and got a good deal on two bags of large pretzel rods. They also had some great holly leaf and red sprinkle decorations. I used green chocolate melts from Michaels for the chocolate. 

I had read about using a hot water bath in an electric skillet to keep chocolate melts liquid for dipping and it sounded like a good way to keep it around for numerous kids. Our teen librarian had purchased a good, deep electric skillet for programs and I brought in some 8 oz ball jelly jars to see if I was able to melt enough chocolate and keep it liquid for kids to dip, without anything getting too dangerously hot. I tested the process out before the event to make sure it would work safely (and deliciously). Even though we could only get a few inches of chocolate, it was easy to tilt the jars so that they could get a good 1/3 to half of the tree dipped. I  handled the jars with a kitchen towel, they were hot to the touch but only on the bottoms, and had the kids reach in with the pretzels. I kept a few jars going and swapped them out of the hot water bath as needed to keep them liquid. I used those little plastic condiment cups you can get in big packs at the grocery store to pre-measure a reasonable amount of decorations for each kid. I let each kid do two pretzels but had supplies left over at the end for them to do more. 

In keeping with my theme I suggested they could eat one pretzel themselves and save the other one to give to someone, maybe a friend or family member, or maybe even someone they don't get along with or don't know well, to promote peace. A casual poll of participants suggested that was not going to happen, but hey, at least I put the idea out there. I had a bunch of plastic holiday treat bags at home that I brought in, cutting them in half and then taping them up to double the number, then gave them these to hold their finished pretzels. 

The kids were very attentive in the whole program and while they didn't speak up much, I felt like the fact they stayed with it said something and hopefully the program helped them think about some new concepts and possibilities. The chocolate making was a lot of fun and I have loads of ideas about future candy making programs.