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Reflections on Day of Peace

Peace Kits for Paradise: When Giving Is Receiving It Lights the Spark in All of Us

May 22, 2019 Lisa SadikmanLeave a comment

It was a bluebird day: clear skies, faint hint of fading clouds, brilliant sun. Green blanketed fields, gardens and any spare ground thanks to the recent rain. You could say it was just another beautiful day in Durham, California at Ponderosa Elementary, the new site for the hundreds of students who lost their school – and many their homes – in the Paradise Camp Fire last November. And it was – but side-by-side with the ordinary was the extraordinary.

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Delivering Peace to Paradise Fire Elementary School Children

March 14, 2019 Lisa SadikmanLeave a comment

In the hours after the devastating Camp Fire began in November 2018, smoke laced the skies several hundred miles away. The deadliest wildfire in California’s history kept us inside and our kids out of school while we waited out the poor air conditions. In a few days, our lives returned to normal. For the people of Paradise, however, there was no normal to return to.

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April 2018 Highlights

May 5, 2018 Tanuka GordonLeave a comment

April was filled with unique and powerful events and workshops. We are very grateful for the opportunity to meet and work with some incredible community members and...

March 2018 Highlights

March 21, 2018 Tanuka GordonLeave a comment

March has been a busy month with lots of exciting projects and workshops. Here are just some highlights from March!

Shelter Workshop at the Animal Rescue...

Over 300 Meals for Bay Area Rescue Mission

December 29, 2017 Tanuka GordonLeave a comment

Yesterday Mindful Littles and MySustainableTable teamed up again for another Cookin' for a Cause event, and this time we got to make over 300 meals for the Bay Area Rescue Mission. The Bay Area...

Holiday Food Baskets for Families in Crisis

December 17, 2017 Tanuka GordonLeave a comment

Last week we had another Mindful Littles event, where 20 families from our community gathered to prepare holiday food baskets for Bay Area Crisis Nursery (BACN). BACN is a local nonprofit...

Making Mindful Meals for Thanksgiving

November 23, 2017 Tanuka Gordon2 Comments

Food. One of the most important and basic human needs, and yet 1 in 9 people are chronically undernourished in the world- around 795 million people according to the United Nations. The majority...

Wishing our Veterans Peace, Love and Heartfelt Gratitude

November 11, 2017 Tanuka GordonLeave a comment

In years past I have always spoken of our veterans with great respect and honor, but it isn't until this year that I really appreciated the human experience of our veterans and their loved ones. ...

OrindaCares: Express Kindness in November

November 3, 2017 Tanuka GordonLeave a comment

November 13th is WORLD KINDNESS DAY and as part of OrindaCares, we have some exciting initiatives planned to celebrate this...

As a Community…We Rallied, We Assembled, We Helped.

October 17, 2017 Tanuka GordonLeave a comment

The silver lining to a disaster is the power of community coming together to create positive change. After kickstarting our OrindaCares: Helping Hands for Houston project just 5 weeks ago, we...

That was a really great event. I held more doors open for people in the last few days than I think I have in my life.🙂 Your words were heard.

-Jennifer Kamal, Local Bay Area Parent

Working with Mindful Littles has been a life changing experience. Before volunteering with this group, I’d say I was guilty of not always incorporating compassion and mindfulness into my everyday life, but since I have started volunteering with this organization I have noticed a positive change within myself.

- Danielle Castro, Youth Leader, Age 17

Our Daisy Troop invited Tanuka Gordon of Mindful Littles to lead a
class for our Kindergarten Daisy Scouts. Tanuka taught the girls
through stories and pictures about what life is like for children
living in Haiti. We decorated and put together pencil cases for
students there. Tanuka also guided us through a mindful moment
incorporating yoga movements and breathing techniques. A few months
later, the girls were thrilled to receive artwork back from the
students in Haiti. We loved our Mindful Littles class and found that
it helped to open the girls’ eyes to the world around them!

Our Girl Scout troop was looking for something meaningful to do around the holidays. Mindful Littles made everything so easy and the core values of Mindful Littles and Girl Scouts were perfectly matched. The girls appeared at Las Trampas and were immediately put into action assisting disabled individuals with holiday activities and celebrating the holiday cheer. It was a labor of love on both ends. My daughter left the event and said, “That was awesome. Let’s do more of that."

- Jennifer LaForce, Bay Area Girl Scout Troop Leader

My time with Mindful Littles’ has solidified my commitment to youth development and empowerment, as I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing the wonderfully innovative ideas that littles have for the improvement of their communities. There are few things more gratifying than watching and helping littles turn their creativity into meaningful action, and I’m grateful to Mindful Littles for giving me the opportunity to do so.

-Iris Wu, Youth Leader, Age 19

A clinician just popped into my office and shared how one of our kids loved the positive words on the hygiene kit. The youth said it felt like Christmas – all because of a hygiene kit. Amazing.

- Beth Goldberg, Director of Development for Youth Homes

The event had quite an impact on my 7 year old son, Caden, who, after assembling hygiene kits at your Mindful Littles event, decided to raise money for the kids in Haiti on his own. I think what you are doing through the Mindful Littles program is wonderful, and it’s obviously having an impact on children near and far… I look forward to attending another one soon!

- Kim Morrow, Local Bay Area Parent

Mindful Little has led two programs this year for our community - one for parents and children on the topic "the courage to be different," and one just for children on the topic of honoring seniors. Both were absolutely wonderful! It was a pleasure to collaborate with Tanuka in planning the programs, and she and her team prepared thoughtful, engaging lessons that were meaningful to the families as well as being fun, interactive, and hands-on. I believe the lessons Mindful Littles brought to our community will stick with the children for a long time, and I highly recommend Mindful Littles programs!

The work that Mindful Littles does is the antithesis of the violence. With the continued threat of mass shootings, with homegrown mental illness, you don’t arm people with weapons. You pay attention; you teach compassion, you educate and help community members. This is how we change. This is how we are going to fight the good fight; not with weapons and strategies of self-defense, but by being proactive with love. I believe Mindful Littles is the solution. It will awaken our youth and help contribute to a more positive future.

- Travis Groft, Veteran

Mindful Littles was an integral part of our collaborative initiative, OrindaCares. OrindaCares is a partnership with Mindful Littles, the Orinda Union School District, Miramonte High School, and the City of Orinda. Mindful Littles provided not just the concept and strategy development for this partnership, but the project leadership and organization to make our initiative highly successful.

- Carolyn Seaton, Superintendent of Orinda Union School District