Sunflower Creative Arts
Notes from the Garden
February 2011  
In This Issue
Ice Castle Festival March 6
Shakespeare for Everyone Welcomes Village Academy
Susan and Jonathan talk with Dr. Michael Meyerhoff
Behind the Scenes at Sunflower
Malson Family Adventures
 
 
Susan Caruso
Artistic Director 
  Jennifer Ligeti
Managing Director
Jaime Greenberg 
 Communications Director
Victoria Green
Social Media and PR Manager
Dorota Salas
Bookkeeper
Carol Vogt
Quickbooks Consultant 

Ellen Stone 
Cultural and Environmental Consultant
 
 
Sunflower Board of Directors
 
Melissa Livingston
President
Bill Epstein
Vice President 
Crystal MacLean 
Secretary
Lora McCoy
Sue Petersen
Carol Deaktor
Susan Caruso 

2601 Saint Andrews Blvd.
Boca Raton, FL 33434

561 482-3412

topGreetings!

Get Ready for the Ice Castle Festival!

Join us for this fun family day on March 6

Auction donation forms due Feb. 28 (next Monday)

 

Thank you to everyone who has collected items for our silent auction so far. If you haven't already turned in your auction donation form, there's still time-- you have until next Monday, Feb. 28.

 

Items collected to date include gift certificates to Juice and Java, Carole's Kitchen and Emanuele Salon. In addition, we have a $200 gift certificate to the Kravis Center, a gift basket and certificate for one month of free classes from Stroller Strides of Boca Raton, a Wine and Whine Party at Michelle Lynne's home, a Star Wars Darth Vader "The Force Is Strong With You" hand signed and inscribed photograph by Dave Prowse, a tour of the Boca Raton Airport donated by Aura Jets, an Earth Friends Doll from Eco Womb, several used Windows desktop computers, and more!   


This year's silent auction fundraiser will take place at the Ice Castle Festival, March 6, 3:00-6:00 pm, at Sunflower. The free community festival also will feature a 50/50 Raffle, tween/teen/adult Talent Show and oodles of homemade muffins for everyone to share. We'll kick off the day by building and decorating a giant Ice Castle--make sure to bring your own ice creations to add the finishing touches to the castle!

Contact Jennifer Ligeti for more information on auction donations, muffin baking or volunteering.

Do you have an item to donate to our auction? Know of a business that would like to participate? Download auction forms from our website.

2010 Ice Castle Festival 
Shakespeare for Everyone Welcomes Village Academy
On Monday, Feb. 7, over 35 students from Village Academy in Delray Beach took a field trip to Sunflower and joined our Shakespeare for Everyone class for theatre games and Shakespeare readings. Big smiles and fun abounded and ten of the Village Academy students will be joining our troupe for the rest of the year!

A huge thank you to Rose Newbold Blackett and David Haynes, who coordinate the after school program at Village Academy, which is run by Achievement Centers for Children and Families (Beacon). We are so excited! The partnership began with a performance by our troupe at Village Academy back in November.
What is Play? And why is it so important?

Susan and Jonathan talk to nationally-recognized play advocate Michael Meyerhoff about The Power of Play


Jonathan, Susan and Dr. MeyerhoffOn Feb. 1, several members of the Sunflower community attended a lecture at Chabad of Boca Raton on "The Power of Play: Giving Young Children the Best Educational Start" by Dr. Michael Meyerhoff. After the lecture, Susan and Jonathan had an opportunity to chat in-depth with Dr. Meyerhoff.

Watch Part 1 of their conversation here on the
updated Parenting Support section of our website.
Behind the Scenes at Sunflower...

Susan shares what it takes to keep a nonprofit running, beginning with our Communications Department

 

Read on for the first in a series detailing the talents and tireless efforts of our staff and key volunteers.

 

Jaime Greenberg -- Communications Director

jaime@sunflowercreativearts.org 

Have you ever admired the design and content of this e-newsletter? Marveled at the attention to detail in our promotional materials and all the many improvements to our website including the much more user-friendly navigation? Don't you just love the amazing photos and video showing up on our Facebook page and website? We even have Twitter and YouTube accounts and a Sunflower Share & Learn Playgroup at Meetup.com! And how terrific is it that we now have a Google calendar that you can access 24/7 so that you always know what's happening at Sunflower?

 

Did you ever wonder how Sunflower has been able to put out so many first class communications on every level? All this and much more is due to the many hours of hard work, dedication and tireless devotion of Jaime Greenberg, our incredible Communications Director.

 

Jaime oversees every aspect of Sunflower communications and is responsible for everything you see online and in print. It was Jaime's idea to move from our painfully old fashioned ineffective paper newsletter to a monthly e-news way back in October of 2008. As she has done over the years with each of her great new communications ideas, she quickly outlines the project, researches our options and takes care of all the technical aspects of making it happen seemingly overnight.  

 

Jaime began her work with Sunflower over three and a half years ago as a member of our volunteer Board of Directors. Although she is no longer on the Board, she continues to work with Sunflower strictly as a volunteer. In the two and a half years since Jaime became our very first Communications Director, she has moved Sunflower into the forefront of the local nonprofit scene. We are so fortunate to benefit every day from her writing and editing skills, design sense, technical prowess and artistic photographs and videos!

 

Victoria Green -- Social Media and PR Manager

victoria@sunflowercreativearts.org 

This fall Victoria starting working with Jaime to update the website and increase our social media presence, and since then her voice has become a wonderful addition to Sunflower's super-creative leadership team. Because of her background in marketing at PBCC before Dante and Gus were born she has been a great help in steering our efforts at reaching out to the community and making sure all our events and classes are well publicized.

 

Victoria posts all the calendar listings in local publications and has done an amazing amount of leg work to update our PR resources. She also was invaluable in helping create the new more user-friendly organization of our website.

Malson Family Adventures

One Sunflower family is on a mission to spread the message of sustainable and simple living throughout the country

 

In January, the Malson family (Angela, Clint, Connor, Jack and Emma) sold their house, downsized significantly, and moved full-time into the Eco Womb Tour Bus-- their veggie oil-powered RV. Now they're living, working and homeschooling on the road-- and it sounds like they're having a fabulous adventure so far!  

 

The Malsons have taken to the road to promote Eco Womb, their online home-based (now RV-based!) business selling eco-friendly, family friendly products. Their website features high quality, Made in the USA or Fair Trade Certified products, including organic shirts and totes, wooden toys and handmade wooden blocks, Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers, Maya Wraps and more.

 

The Malsons have been a part of the Sunflower community for years--taking part in Roots & Shoots, Little Sprouts and Circle of Song--and they've generously supported Sunflower by spreading the word about us while touring to promote their business.  

 

We are please to announce that Eco Womb has donated one of their adorable Earth Friends Dolls for this year's Ice Castle Festival silent auction on March 6. Thanks, Malsons!    

 

Want to learn more? Keep up with the Malson family adventures on their fun blog, written by Angela.

 

Special for the Sunflower community-- use this coupon code on the Eco Womb website to receive 15% off anything in the store: sunflower15  

 

 Eco Womb logoMalson family

Join our community on Facebook, Meetup, YouTube and Twitter.

 
Love Sunflower? Spread the word!

All the best,


Susan Caruso
Sunflower Creative Arts