2011 In Review

There really is so much to review this year in particular however, I want to keep this relatively short … and hopefully sweet!

A few highlights:

• We were at the Weston A. Price Foundation’s Annual Wise Traditions Conference for the eighth time!
• I revised every page on our website and changed our organizational branding – from egg yolks to the nest you see displayed above.
• I created this blog and a new Facebook page: Nourishing The Whole Child to expand our discussions beyond nutrition.
• I created some “portraits” of  Nourished families, some of which appear only on Facebook now but, will make their way to our website soon!
• I created an archived list of our First Steps Guide.
• We distributed more of our educational materials this year than in all of the previous years combined!

Nourishing Our Children DVD

While we have continued to distribute our PowerPoint, E-Book, Audio Book and Study Guide in record numbers this past year, 2011 proved to be the “Year of our DVD” which was launched in November of 2010. We distributed approximately 800 hard copy versions of our DVD and another 600 or so received the .mov files for computer viewing without the hard copy.  We are still finalizing our end of the year accounting … but, these numbers are close!  Our  educational materials have reached the Philippines, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Zambia, France, The United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, The Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Chile and all over the United States and Canada.

We were established in June of 2005 and began to distribute our educational materials in November of 2006.  The first year we only had our PowerPoint.  To date we have had 1,273 donors and we’ve written 1,582 donation receipts — so we have “repeat donors” … !

Well, who cares about all these numbers?!  They are relevant because it means we are fulfilling our mission to teach families and childcare providers how to nourish rather than merely feed themselves and their children.  We are inspired to “teach, teach, teach” as Dr. Weston A. Price encouraged with his very last words in 1948.  We have a limited reach in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I am personally elated that more and more have our materials as a resource by which to teach in their communities.  This year our local group of volunteer presenters were at the following venues:  Novato Charter School, Natural Resources … twice, Margaret’s Garden, Gathering Thyme, Discovery Charter School, Zernyshko Waldorf Day Care Center, Birthways and Whole Foods.

You may view the first 20 minutes of our DVD here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCX1QG2df6c&feature=share and learn more about it here: http://www.nourishingourchildren.org/DVD.html

Facebook

2011 was also the “Year of Facebook”.  We grew from exactly 4,000 right at New Years Eve 2010 to over 10,150 today.  While we had what I perceived as a lot of interest in a number of topics, folks seemed to be most passionately engaged in the following – some of which proved to be relatively controversial:

Child Spacing
Tandem Breastfeeding
Introduction of Solid Foods
Sonograms
Vaccines
Spanking/Corporal Punishment
Home Births
Veganism/Vegetarianism

I will be blogging on these topics in the coming year so we have these Facebook discussions archived in a searchable way.

Some of my favorite quotes that were well received on Facebook:

“It’s bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children’s health than the pediatrician.” – Meryl Streep

“Train the parent and spare the child.” – Duane Alan Hahn

“Many things can wait; the child cannot. Now is the time his bones are being formed, his mind is being developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow; his name is today.” – Gabriela Mistral

“People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.” – Author Unknown

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” – Frederick Douglass

‎”As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.” – Buddy Hackett

Another 10,000

This was also a year in which I raised over $10,000.00 for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund by giving away our educational materials as an incentive to folks to become members or donate to the Fund.  We we were blessed with unprecedented communal support and in turn, reciprocated with our own support.  We also distributed our DVD content to over 150 who had it on their “Wish List”.   I funded this opportunity along with donations from The Weston A. Price Foundation, the Radiant Life Company, Green Pasture Products, Real Food Whole Health and Nourished Kitchen.

Appreciations

I want to express my deep gratitude to Riki Juster, our new Director of Operations, and all of our volunteer presenters and Facebook “mentors” this past year.  Since some prefer not to be mentioned online – I will use first names only:  Angie, Holly, Deborah, Karen, Masha, Suzan, Coco and Katie!  I also want to acknowledge all of the donors who contributed to receive our educational materials as an appreciation gift  … and The Weston A. Price Foundation, Green Pasture Products, The Radiant Life Company, Vital Choice Seafood and Organics, Real Food Media, Nourished Kitchen, Cheeseslave, Kelly the Kitchen Kop, The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, Nourishing Hope for Autism, FoodforKidshealth, Simply Being Well and Real Food Whole Health for their financial and/or emotional support in 2011.