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Hello, Friends,
This is a week of great excitement and activity as we prepare to leave for the convention in Kingsport, Tennessee. I’m looking forward to seeing my “extended family” and hopefully to meeting some new friends, too. I’m having trouble deciding how to dress for the dinner dance this Saturday evening. As you know, we’re having a ’50’s theme, and I don’t know whether to go as the good-girl Sandy from Grease or the bad-girl Sandy. I guess it will be a surprise! I plan to have great pictures to show you next week.
Ruth Miller of Kitten's Korner Gift Shoppe visits with Pat in Mathews.This past Friday Ruth Miller of Kitten’s Korner Gift Shoppe came all the way from White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to my Distribution Center in Mathews to have me sign prints and originals purchased at her show the weekend before. The Distribution Center is not open to the general public, and it isn’t set up for walk-in retail. So, the pictures you see of it are not glamorous at all. It just so happens that this week I have two pictures taken at the Distribution Center to show you, one of me with Ruth and one of me with a group of local school children. Although we aren’t open to the public, dealers are welcome to visit and bring things for me to sign, and we make an exception for special education groups and art students from local schools.
The students who visited me earlier this morning are a terrific bunch of kids from Thomas Hunter Middle School here in Mathews. The students were from Tammy Turner’s MR/Autistic Class. While the Mathews County Public School System is very small, it is also progressive and has adopted a program of community involvement and community-based instruction for its Special Needs children. Ms. Turner scheduled this field trip to familiarize the students with the career opportunities that may be available to them in the area in which they live. It also gave the students an opportunity to demonstrate their social skills, which were excellent! The students enjoyed a tour of our facility and then had cookies and lemonade.
Students from Thomas Hunter Middle School tour the distribution center in Mathews.The highlight of my weekend was meeting my daughter Ginny and grandson Picco in Hampton on Saturday. Picco was participating in a competition sponsored by The Technology Student Association (TSA), a national non-profit organization devoted exclusively to the needs of elementary, middle, and high school students with a dedicated interest in technology. TSA’s mission is to prepare students for the challenges of a dynamic world by promoting technological literacy, leadership, personal growth, and opportunities (www.tsaweb.org).
The children at this event were very eager to learn and demonstrate their skills and treated one another wonderfully. I know that some of them were learning different, and I am grateful that there are programs like this available in which they can participate and show their creativity and strengths and be successful. Such programs are so good for our young people, particularly the learning different. They build confidence and self-esteem and foster the desire to learn. In so doing, TSA and other programs like it also enrich our overall education system and society in general.
Pat has thumbs-up for Picco's win at the TSA competition.I was thrilled when Picco won 1st place in Communications and 3rd in Graphic Design. Picco’s task was to design a business card, letterhead, and newsletter. Finalists then had an on-site task of creating a poster. Picco was just as thrilled as I was but partly for a different reason. He knew that his winning was a reflection on his advisor, who had spent so much time with him as a volunteer, and he wanted to win for his advisor, too. In spite of that, Picco didn’t attend the awards ceremony the next day. He had a soccer game, and he knew that his soccer coach, also a volunteer, was depending on him to be there for the team. I am very proud of Picco, not only for winning but also for respecting his volunteer mentors.
Well, that’s all for this week. I have to go pack for Tennessee!
Love,
Pat
The Moss
Portfolio
HC 69 Box 17118 Poplar Grove Lane
Mathews, VA 23109
(800) 430-1320
©P. Buckley Moss 2004