2024 Thanksgiving Boxes
Common Ground Childcare is working with Cornerstones to gather Thanksgiving boxes for Reston Families in need!
What's a Thanksgiving Box? Each one is fully stocked with everything needed to make a complete Thanksgiving dinner for a family. No person should ever have to go hungry, especially in a time of giving and gratitude. Let's show gratitude for our good fortune by sharing it with our community!
HERE IS THE LINK TO OUR SIGNUP GENIUS
If you would like to help us build these Thanksgiving Boxes, there are a couple of different ways to sign up!
>You can choose to help your child's class by purchasing certain items. Each class with decorate and pack one box, while our School Aged Program will build all of the additional boxes donated through individual items and cash donations!
> You can build your OWN box as a family
ALL ITEMS AND BOXES MUST BE BROUGHT TO COMMON GROUND CHILDCARE CENTER BY FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15TH, BY THE END OF THE DAY.
That will ensure that we have enough time to organize them and fill in any missing pieces before drop off on Wednesday, November 20th.
Do you know someone in your family or neighborhood who would like to sign up to donate a Thanksgiving box?
Encourage them to sign up! There are hundreds of families who are struggling to provide for their families this year… we want to help as many people as we can every way we can.
Common Ground Childcare: sign-up here
2022 Thanksgiving Boxes - Let's make the holidays bright!
Common Ground Childcare and St. Anne's Episcopal Church are working with Cornerstones to gather Thanksgiving boxes for Reston Families in need!
What's a Thanksgiving Box? Each one is fully stocked with everything needed to make a complete Thanksgiving dinner for a family. No person should ever have to go hungry, especially in a time of giving and gratitude. Let's show gratitude for our good fortune by sharing it with our community!
HERE IS THE LINK TO OUR SIGNUP GENIUS
If you would like to help us build these Thanksgiving Boxes, there are a couple of different ways to sign up!
>You can choose to help your child's class by purchasing certain items
> You can build your OWN box as a family
ALL ITEMS AND BOXES MUST BE BROUGHT TO COMMON GROUND CHILDCARE CENTER BY TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8TH, BY THE END OF THE DAY.
That will ensure that we have enough time to organize them and fill in any missing pieces before drop off on Thursday, November 10th.
Do you know someone in your family or neighborhood who would like to sign up to donate a Thanksgiving box?
Encourage them to sign up with either Common Ground Childcare or St. Anne’s Episcopal Church! There are hundreds of families who are struggling to provide for their families this year… we want to help as many people as we can every way we can.
Common Ground Childcare: sign-up here
St. Anne’s Episcopal Church: sign-up here
The Season of Giving! Bleed Red or Give Green
We have another blood drive coming up on DECEMBER 10TH from 1:00PM-5:30PM
HERE IS THE SIGN UP LINK.
BLOOD DONATIONS ARE THE LOWEST THEY HAVE BEEN IN A DECADE. Please help us do our part to bolster our hospitals and protect our neighbors.
The holidays are a time of joy, family, and giving. If you give blood, you may just give the gift of a life this year.
Help us give back to our community in the most essential way.
Do you want to give back to your community but don’t qualify to give blood?
Make a pledge to our Teacher Fund for 2022
Put “Childcare Center of the Common Ground Foundation” as your Amazon Smile Charity! Don’t know how? CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS.
Do you want to give blood but have questions?
Check out these FAQs from INOVA Blood Donor Services!
Thanksgiving Boxes - Let's make the holidays bright!
Common Ground Childcare and St. Anne's Episcopal Church are working with Cornerstones to gather Thanksgiving boxes for Reston Families in need!
What's a Thanksgiving Box? Each one is fully stocked with everything needed to make a complete Thanksgiving dinner for a family. No person should ever have to go hungry, especially in a time of giving and gratitude. Let's show gratitude for our good fortune by sharing it with our community!
HERE IS THE LINK TO OUR SIGNUP GENIUS
If you would like to help us build these Thanksgiving Boxes, there are a couple of different ways to sign up!
>You can choose to help your child's class by purchasing certain items
> You can build your OWN box as a family
ALL ITEMS AND BOXES MUST BE BROUGHT TO COMMON GROUND CHILDCARE CENTER BY TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16TH, BY THE END OF THE DAY.
Do you know someone in your family or neighborhood who would like to sign up for a Thanksgiving box?
Encourage them to sign up with either Common Ground Childcare or St. Anne’s Episcopal Church! There are hundreds of families who are struggling to provide for their families this year… we want to help as many people as we can every way we can.
Common Ground Childcare: sign-up here
St. Anne’s Episcopal Church: sign-up here
St. Anne's Episcopal Blood Drive!
As 2021 presses on, there are so many people who are in need! It can be overwhelming to decide where to start, and sometimes it is hard to tell if you’re really making a difference. (Although here at Common Ground, we really believe that all good deeds ripple out, no matter how small).
Donating blood costs no money and very little time, but it is a constant, essential need! Every 2 seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood. 1 donation can potentially save up to 3 lives.
St. Anne’s Episcopal Church is hosting a blood drive on March 5th!
WHEN: Friday, March 5th, from 12PM-6PM
WHERE: St. Anne’s Episcopal Church! There will be an INOVA Bloodmobile
HOW: Register below, show up for your time slot, it’s that simple!
WHY: To save lives. Our hospitals are strained and people need help more than ever. This is something small we can do to really make a difference!
REGISTER HERE: https://www.inovabloodsaves.org/index.cfm?group=op&expand=27318&zc=20190
PLEASE SHARE THE FLYER! THE MORE DONATIONS THEY GET, THE MORE LIVES THEY SAVE.
FLYER
Let’s all get together as a community and let our goodness shine!!
-Your CG Fam
Covid-19 Vaccine: First Two Days
Hurray! It’s Vaccine Day!
What to Expect — Vaccine Reactions
That’s what we (Ms. Liz and Ms. LJ) have been cheering all day!
When we saw that Preschool Teachers would be eligible for the vaccine starting this week, we decided we wanted to be leading the pack and documenting our journey all the way. We talk a lot about this in our live video right after our first vaccination, but here is a quick overview.
We hope that by getting the vaccine as soon as we could, being open and honest about our experiences, providing peer reviewed research, and encouraging everyone to talk to their PERSONAL physician, we can help alleviate any fears and dispel any misinformation relating to the Covid-19 vaccine.
When we arrived at INOVA Fairfax at 8:38 AM there was a long, appropriately spaced line! It wound all the way to the parking-lot. But the weather was good and spirits were high!
One of the things LJ was anxious about was not the vaccine at all, but the fact that we had to go to a hospital. We were concerned about being contacts of all of those people, masks or no. But the line moved at an even clip and, in no time at all, we were waiting with our little registration clip boards for a nurse.
Some quick thoughts before THE BIG MOMENT:
Everyone on the staff was excited we were there. They were encouraging and helpful. We had our IDs, proof that we worked at a school and weren’t “jumping the line,” and our appointment confirmation sheets, but they took us at our word. We honestly think that they are just trying to make sure everyone gets it as easily and painlessly as possible, which was encouraging. This is something that should be available to as many people as possible as quickly as possible, and Fairfax County is a medical powerhouse.
There were at least fifty stations with health professionals standing by. Our nurses were friendly, warm, ready to answer any questions.
WE BOTH GOT THE PFIZER VACCINE. Fact Sheet for Pfizer Vaccine
The stick was surprisingly not painful! Giving blood, the TDAP, Flu shots, PNEUMAVAX, there have been far worse shots in our experience. They gave us a card so that we could schedule our second vaccination in within 21 days. We were moved into an area stationed with health professionals where we could sit between 15-30 minutes to see if we had any immediate reactions, either from the vaccine or, more likely, a Vasovagle Syncope reaction from being stuck with a needle.
(What is Vasovagle Syncope? READ MORE HERE)
In the afternoon, Ms. Victoria, our fantastic OWLS teacher, also got her vaccine! Hurray! We felt empowered, like we could finally, FINALLY do something about this pandemic. This was a concrete step in the right direction, a small action to say “we are here to support our health, our families, and our community!” We finished up the day with a Kindergarten Interest Meeting all about our beliefs in play-based curriculums and what our Common Ground Kindergarten would look like this coming September!
Whether it was the excitement, the long day, or the vaccine, all of us went to bed early, feeling quite tired and a little warm.
Ms. LJ felt a bit itchy around the site, and an immediate tightness in the shoulder that lasted until Saturday. It was never any worse than what you would experience with the TDAP shot. She also went to bed early both Thursday and Friday night.
Ms. Liz was dizzy at first, a regular reaction for her to most vaccines, and her shoulder also felt tight as the day went on.
Ms. Victoria had pain in her shoulder, and for the first three days she had fatigue, flu-like symptoms, and occasional hot flashes.
Mr. Josh had the shoulder pain and flu like symptoms the next day, but two days out already feels better.
We are excited to announce that Ms. Adella, Ms. Mimi, Ms. Simi, Ms. Pinky, Ms. Vanessa, Ms. Petty, Ms. Janette, and Ms. Kisha will all be getting their first doses over the next two weeks as well!
GIVE TIME: Teacher Volunteers Needed!
We are calling on our fantastic parent community for a very unique volunteer opportunity!
We are looking for five parent volunteers a month to be on-call substitute teachers. These volunteers would be willing to go through a background check process and be willing to watch over a classroom should the need arise.
Please Note — This rarely happens. In the past we have only had the need for parent volunteers to help with watching classrooms while we allow our teachers to vote on election days. However, if the need did arise to have someone watch a classroom, we want to put our children in the hands of someone in our community we trust with a verified background check.
If you are interested, please contact either Ms. Liz or Ms. LJ for more details!
Thanksgiving Box Drive: BIG THANK YOU!!
Common Ground Family and Friends,
I am, as always, sincerely humbled by the giving hearts of our community. We had promised Cornerstones 6 lovingly decorated boxes, one for each classroom, and we ended up with 10 fully stocked Thanksgiving meals. That’s ten families that will get to celebrate with a proper meal on one of the most difficult holiday seasons in recent memory.
This was an elegant example of what our #GiveFundsGiveTime campaign is all about. Together, each of you giving a little time and money, we managed to pull of something magical.
And you know what? Our kids see that.
I had a student come up and ask us what else we needed. He was so excited to be a part of this with his family, and he wanted to know if there was anything missing from any of the boxes. He and his parents then went out, together, gathered the remaining items, and brought them in.
This was something they did as a family, something that this child genuinely enjoyed, and he could see, first hand, what a difference his items made.
He’s always had a good heart, but practice makes perfect. We are helping our kiddos work those giving muscles so that when they’re adults, they’ll be SUPER heroes.
After they were all packed and ready to go, I went over to our buddies at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church! They had gathered a whopping 54 BOXES!! SOME OF THEM GLUTEN-FREE!! I WAS ECSTATIC to be working with them!
With all of their helpful volunteers, we loaded up the Common Ground Bus and drove all 64 boxes over to the drop off station. I have to tell you, I love driving that bus, but loading would have been quite a big chore had everyone not been ready to give a little. They have been at this Thanksgiving Box drive thing for many years, so it has been really amazing working with the and learning all about how to make this an effective Giving campaign.
All together, working as a unit, most of the volunteers maybe spent 5-10 minutes of their day pulling this off. Many hands make light work. DO NOT EVER DOUBT what your five minutes of giving a day can do, especially with a community like Common Ground Childcare.
Warmest Thanks and Love,
Ms. LJ
#GiveTime: Community and Causes
Hi there! LJ Donnell here with some incredible (and quick!) ideas to #GiveTime to your community! This is a part of our #GiveFundsGiveTime Campaign for #GivingTuesday, so if you need more ideas, visit THIS PAGE. We also ask that if you have any excellent ideas of your own that aren’t listed here, PLEASE share them in the comments!! A community is always better when we work together.
So far, our suggestions are:
5 minutes a night knitting/crocheting/making blankets for Project Linus
Do click throughs on charity sites
Sign petitions
Call your local representative and talk to the about an issue
Draw inspirational chalk messages around your neighborhood
Draw loving chalk messages and pictures on the sidewalk of your local hospital so patience can see them out the window
Write post cards to senior citizens and other high-risk populations who are stuck in quarantine and away from their families. Example Here
Share/Amplify social media messages for local businesses, charities, and local activist groups. — I know this doesn’t sound like much… but it really means the world to people trying to get their messages out there. It takes you very little time, and you could make a big difference to their business or cause. Even something as small as sharing a “Missing Pet” post from your local neighborhood’s facebook could make a world of difference for a family.
Volunteer as your Cal de sac’s glass recycling person — okay, this one may be a 15/20 minute task once a week. Have your neighbors put their used glass products in bags and place them on their doorsteps, then you take them to the nearest glass recycling bins. You could also set up a round-robin sort of thing, and it’s as easy as making a post on your neighborhood’s facebook or NextDoor page.
Pick up trash on your walk — You may be getting fresh air. You may be on a little run! You may be taking your kids out of the house to get rid of some of their energy. Either way, just have gloves in your pockets and a grocery bag so you can pick up trash you see on the walk. You’d be surprised how little effort it takes, and what a big difference it makes. Wildlife in the area is getting snared in disposable masks on the ground. It’s pretty awful. Every little bit you do, even if it’s just five minutes while you’re already walking outside, could save a precious life.
#GiveFundsGiveTime is all about giving what you can when you can, and not overtaxing. All good deeds make waves, no matter how small. Let’s make this holiday season as full of hope, magic, and love as we possibly can.
See you out there!
Ms. LJ
Saving our Planet: Recycling
Okay! So you want to be more green! You want to get those three R’s in action.
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
But where do you start?
We all know that change needs to happen on a world-wide scale. It seems all-encompassing, overwhelming. What can we do as our house, our family, our one person self?
Well, our kiddos are learning about just that. Starting in November, our Rising Stars and Honeybees classes will begin a RECYCLING unit! They will be sorting their recyclables, creating new things from old, and learning life-long habits to reduce their carbon footprint .
We recommend these books to help cement those essential insights on how to protect their world:
Lift-The-Flap Questions and Answers about Recycling Trash — Katie Daynes
A comprehensive, interactive book all about recycling that answers all your curious kid’s questions! The pictures are enchanting, the facts are sharp, the message is STICKY.
Planet Earth Mazes — Sam Smith
Does your kid love to doodle while they learn? Planet Earth Mazes is a book chock full of facts and enchanting images to capture your child while they solve complex mazes and exert their logic skills.
Be the Change, Make it Happen — Bernadette Russell
As we said above, it can be overwhelming to want to help, to enact BIG CHANGE, but be a small person. Bernadette Russell shows kids how even the littlest changes (and the littlest person) can change the course of the future.
These are incredible books to feed your kids’ appetite for knowledge and can be purchased at any time. But if you purchase them this weekend (October 23-26th) Common Ground gets 10% of the funds!
(Visit our Book Fair here)
In the meantime, here are some steps to get you going at home!
1) Look up your local recycling facility HERE
2) Learn which items can be recycled and how HERE
3) Find some creative/fun REUSE projects to do with your kids HERE
4) Find some ways to REDUCE your use of disposable products HERE
We will be posting more ways to do those 3R’s on our Facebook as well as easy tips to reduce your carbon footprint, so check us out! PLEASE also let us know what you are doing at home! We need to work as a team to keep this planet GREEN!!
Have a FANTASTIC DAY!
LJ and your Common Ground Team!
Winter Coat Closet 2020
It is only the beginning of November and already, all of us here at Common Ground are huddled in our warm winter coats. The kids look like happy, puffy little marshmallows in the Autumn chill while the teachers are laughing about matching their scarves and gloves with their masks.
Not everyone gets to enjoy the change of the season from a safe, comfortable position. Parents and children alike are facing a long, cold winter (and cold/flu season!) without proper attire.
PLEASE NOTE! If you or anyone you know needs help this winter, note the winter clothing distribution times. There is no shame in needing help. Click Here for all the programs available through Cornerstones.
Cornerstones, in partnership with the Hunter Mill District Supervisor’s Office, is once again operating the Hunter Mill District Winter Coat Closet for 2020 – 2021 in order to provide free winter coats, hats, gloves, mittens and scarves to all who need them.
We at Common Ground are encouraging our families, friends, teachers, neighbors, and readers to contribute new or gently used winter attire to their cause!
Donations can be dropped off at:
The Reston National Golf Course (until November 6th)
The Cornerstones Main Office (Oct. 15th-Jan. 4th)
These three days in the North County Government Building (Nov. 14th, December 12th, and January 9th).
Would you like to donate, but do not have the time to get over to the drop off station? Do you have any other questions or need clarification?
Contact LJ Donnell and she would be happy to help in any way.
