Landfill Harmonic: Uses Instruments made from garbage.

A friend just sent me this video about a town in Paraguay that recycles and sells garbage. The beautiful music you will hear is from instruments made for the children using oil drums and other parts pulled from the landfill. You won't believe your ears. Click here if you can't see the video below.

Poverty can't keep these musicians down.

The story of The Migrant Mother

“Migrant Mother” was one of thousands of pictures Dorothea Lange took on assignment for the federal government, documenting the poverty of the Dust Bowl. Before it had that iconic title, the 1936 photo was captioned “Destitute peapickers in California.” But this was the one that stuck, coming to symbolize all those suffering in the Great Depression. Later, Lange would rage, “People think I haven’t made anything else!”

As you all know, I am a huge fan of NPR and rarely listen to anything else on my radio. I watch a little morning tv while I'm having coffee and then it's NPR all day until the evening news and the tv goes on again. I listened to the story behind this iconic photograph this morning on Studio 360 and then listened to the podcast again on my laptop while I was unloading the dishwasher. It's very interesting in case you want to tune in when you have 9 minutes to spare -- or you can just read the article. Podcast and article at Studio360.org. There is also a slideshow with 5 more views of this migrant worker's camp featuring Florence Thompson and her family.
This photo never fails to move me. It has become the symbol of hard times but has been exploited by the advertising industry to sell products from perfume to luggage. That should make you want to listen and I hope you will.

Remembering The Less Fortunate

The Kindly Robin

This vintage Christmas card is a reminder to remember the less fortunate. I am sending out my annual donation to a local food pantry today so others who are having financial difficulties can put something special on their holiday table.

Click orange square to subscribe via feed reader or email.

Soup Kitchens for Pets . . .

Pet soup kitchens are becoming more popular, as more people -- and welfare organizations -- seek to establish a cheap, community-based means of supporting pet owners in need.

To learn more about pet food pantries, please watch video story here.

Pets are people too. My own dog endorses all projects that provide for animals.

Thanks for stopping by the cottage today. ♥Rosemary and Webster

Photo Courtesy of Best Friends Animal Society

April Food Day -- Bloggers Fighting Hunger

Please help us fight hunger in the US by supporting either your local food bank, or Feeding America, a national food bank with 200 members across the United States.

Click on the April Food Day image above and you will be redirected to the page with a secure link for donating to the humanitarian organization FeedingAmerica.org

Every dollar you contribute provides 7 meals or 10 pounds of food. A $25 gift provides 175 meals. If each of us who has a blog writes something on April 1 and asks our readers to contribute, imagine the difference we could make in our communities.

If you would like to help, copy my post or write a similar article on your blog April lst, and ask your readers to donate to Feeding America.

Provide a link to the original blog, April Food Day, and they will link back to your blog and to your post.

Thank you on behalf of America's hungry.

The Face of The Great Depression | Update (video) . . .

As the U.S. slips into recession, a daughter reflects on Dorothea Lange's photo, which has come to symbolize the Depression.

'Migrant Mother' remembered (3:41)



A friend sent me the original CNN video but I could not embed it for some reason. Luckily I found it on YouTube. I found it very interesting to learn the real story of the most famous photograph from the Great Depression from one of the children in the picture. She is the little girl on the left with her head on her mother's shoulder.

Watch and listen.
There is a very timely message at the end.

Boy Designs 'Home Domb Shelter' from Trash . . .

You will love this heartwarming story! Max is my hero.

Twelve-year-old Max Wallack was recently named the winner of Design Squad's Trash to Treasure competition — a contest that inspired kids to repurpose trash into practical inventions.

So just what was the brilliant idea Max came up with? Wallack invented a “Home Dome,” a structure made of plastic bags filled with Styrofoam packing peanuts, designed to serve as a temporary shelter for homeless people and disaster victims. It also would help relieve landfill growth. Max was awarded a $10,000 prize provided by the Intel Foundation, but said: “I don’t really care about the money. I care about helping people.”

This isn’t the first big win for Wallack either! “When I was six,” Max said, “I won an invention contest that included a trip to Chicago. While there, I saw homeless people living on streets, and beneath highways and underpasses. I felt very sorry for these people, and ever since then, felt that my goal and obligation was to find a way to help them. My invention improves the living conditions for homeless people, refugees, or disaster victims by giving them easy-to-assemble shelter.”

Source: ecorazzi via treehugger

SPEND LESS and GIVE MORE this holiday season . . .

This is a screen shot from my computer. You can enlarge the picture but it is not a live link. Please watch the YouTube video below and learn about Toms Shoes plan to give away 30,000 pairs of shoes to children in Ethiopia in just 30 days. For each pair you buy, Tom's gives away a free pair to these needy children. Open up your hearts. This is a win/win for everyone. You get a pair of shoes with free shipping for yourself or someone on your gift list and an Ethiopian child gets a pair too. So you get and give at the same time!

Please watch!

UPDATE...GOAL REACHED...37,000 pairs sold!

Please post about this wonderful humanitarian endeavor on your blog and choose one of their many banners to display in your sidebar. Mine is at the top and will stay there for the whole month of December.

This holiday season, SPEND LESS AND GIVE MORE!
Visit Toms Shoes today.

UPDATE ~ Other bloggers who are posting about this worthy cause.

Sabina at Barefoot in the Orchard

Tina at Gal Friday is displaying a banner in her sidebar.

Let me know how you are participating and I will add your name to the list.

Friends of TOMS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to mobilizing, connecting, and empowering individuals who want to give further aid to communities served by the TOMS One for One mission.

If you would like to donate to their movement to eradicate Podoconiosis in Ethiopia, you can send your donations to:

Friends of TOMS
3025 Olympic Blvd.
Studio C
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Mankind is No Island ~ award winning cell phone video . . .

Sydney-based film makers Jason van Genderen (director), Shane Emmett (producer), and John Roy (music composer) created an amazing short that just won $20,000 and Best Film at Tropfest NY 2008 (the world’s largest short film festival).

The best part is that it was shot on the streets of New York & Sydney, Australia with a total budget of $57.00 and captured using cell phones, nothing else!

Please remember those less fortunate than yourself this Thanksgiving.

Note: This film might load slowly...please be patient...it is SO worth watching! Warning: you will cry.

Party Shoes . . .

These are great. I only wish I had discovered them sooner. Other styles are available including one pair with the elephant too for the undecided voter. They are $45.00 and the company Toms Shoes has a fabulous company policy. For every pair purchased (in any style) Toms will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. Go to their website and watch a short film before you start shopping for the many styles available for men, women, and children. Surely you will consider purchasing from such socially conscious entrepreneurs. The holidays are coming...so think gifts.

Free Medical, Dental & Vision to poor in America and third world countries . . .

Today is Blog Action Day and those of us who registered have agreed to blog about one subject POVERTY. I just clicked on the banner at the bottom of this post and saw that 9,376 bloggers had signed up (at 7:45 pm the night before) and their posts will reach 10,430,874 readers. Very impressive numbers that are still growing. I am happy to add my voice. (Update...7pm in New Jersey...10/15...12,205 bloggers participating; reaching 13,079,246 readers.)

I would like to call attention to Remote Area Medical® (RAM) Volunteer Corps. A non-profit, volunteer, airborne relief corps dedicated to serving mankind by providing free clinics for health care, dental care, eye care, veterinary services, and technical and educational assistance to people in remote areas of the United States and the world.

Please give their website the attention it deserves. Click on every link and consider making a donation of your money, your services, supplies, or your time. I mailed a large check today...10/16/2008. It felt so good just writing it!!! Plus I know it will be put to such good use.

Founded in 1985, Remote Area Medical® is a publicly supported all-volunteer charitable organization. Volunteer doctors, nurses, pilots, veterinarians and support workers participate in expeditions (at their own expense) in some of the world's most remote and places. Medical supplies, medicines, facilities and vehicles are donated.

I first learned about them on March 20, 2008 when CBS 60 Minutes ran a segment about a weekend in poverty stricken rural Tennessee where huge crowds gathered days before the event to get free medical assistance. Hundreds were turned away at the end due to lack of time.

Luckily, I found a shortened version of the segment on YouTube.
Please watch...it is very inspiring. You won't be sorry.


RAM FREE CLINICS will be at the following locations between now and Election Day (the next three weeks).

Oct. 18-19
McCreary County, Kentucky & Scott County, Tennessee
at Scott Appalachian Industries (SAI), Huntsville, TN
(Dental, Vision, Medical)

Oct. 25-Nov. 2
Honduras - Seguatepeque (South America)
(Dental, Vision, Medical)

Nov. 1-2
Grundy County, Tennessee
(Dental, Vision, Medical)

See full 2008 schedule. See full 2009 schedule.

Remote Area Medical Foundation
1834 Beech Street
Knoxville, TN 37920
865-579-1530

Thank you for visiting my blog on this important day.

DON'T FORGET TO WATCH THE LAST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE TONIGHT!

Wonderful Documentary Tonight on PBS . . .

Florence Thompson and Children
"Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange

"Fleeing a Dust Storm" by Arthur Rothstein

“Migrant Mother,” Dorothea Lange’s image of a weathered, grimy Depression-era woman in California surrounded by her children, is one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century, as is “Fleeing a Dust Storm,” Arthur Rothstein’s shot of a farmer and his two young sons in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl whipped by the wind, a shack in the background.

The PBS film “Documenting the Face of America: Roy Stryker and the F.S.A./O.W.I. Photographers” shows how the small Farm Security Administration’s New Deal project to document poverty turned into a visual anthology of thousands of images of American life in the 1930s and early ’40s.

There is a great article in today's New York Times about this program which will air on PBS tonight (Monday, 08/18/08) in most areas. In the NY/NJ area it is on at 10PM. Check your local listings and set your DVRs. This looks like "must-see tv" to me!