Get in the Governor's Budget - Check!

Great news!  The Governor included us in his budget proposal for the full amount requested to maintain our budget for another year.  However, part of the money is only proposed as one time funding.  So now we need to convince the legislators that funding the Baby Watch Early Intervention Program is the smart thing to do.  Please reach out to legislators in your area.  Contact them and let them know what we do and why it is a valuable service.  While the Governor and ligislature are committed to funding education and enrollment growth in our system, people who are not familiar with us don't always see us as part of "education".  Make sure your legislators understand the role that Early Intervention plays in education. 

• We will be organizing Parent Panel Sessions for local legislators to attend and learn from their constituents what we do.  If you are interested in participating, please contact me. 801 402-5403

• We are compiling books of stories about families that are or have been involved in Davis Early Intervention.  Please write up a paragraph or two about the services you receive (or received) and how it helped your family and send them to me at mzeschke@dsdmail.net.

• We will be receiving some buttons for parents and staff to wear when meeting with legislators so that we can be easily identified as supporting the Baby Watch Early Intervention Program.

Please be involved in helping the legislators understand the importance of serving children as early as possible for the best outcome.

Below you will find the Davis County Legislators and their contact information.  When you email any of them, please CC: to me so we can keep track of the number of supporters we have as well!  Thank you all for your support.  We love working with you and your children!

Brad L. Dee   District 11    bdee@utah.gov    801 399-8623

Paul Ray         District 13   pray@utah.gov      801 538-1029

Curtis Oda      District 14   coda@utah.gov     801 538-1029

Brad Wilson    Distrit 15     bradwilson@utah.gov  801 538-1029

Stephen G. Handy    District 16   stevehandy@utah.gov  801 538-1029

Stewart Barlow  District 17  sbarlow@utah.gov   801 538-1029

Roger E. Barrus  District 18  rogerbarrus@utah.gov  801 538-1029  Jim Nielson     District 19    jimnielson@utah.gov    801 355-5915 Rebecca Edwards   District 20   beckyedwards@utah.gov  801 538-1029  Reid Stewart     Senate 18    screid@utahsenate.org   801 538-1035  Jerry W. Stevenson  Senate 21  jstevenson@utahsenate.org  801 538-1035 Stuart Adams     Senate 22   jsadams@utahsenate.org    801 538-1035 Tom Weiler        Senate 23   tweiler@utahsenate.org     801 538-1035

A little inspiration

I had the amazing opportunity to meet a beautiful little girl this weekend.  She reminded me of a favorite quote from Marianne Williamson (also attributed to Nelson Mandela):

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are meant to shine, as children do. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to meet many little ones who shine.  Maybe we should take our cue from the little ones in our lives to look for the best and be the best.  And maybe by doing that we will influence our little ones to keep being the best they can throughout their lives.  We also need to remember that our best may be different than someone else's best.  As Albert Einstein put it, "Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish on it's ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing it is stupid."

So I am going to take the cue from my little granddaughter and shine however I can.  I am going to go to bed each night knowing that I did my best and I will wake up each morning ready to tackle the challenges that are there for me, knowing that each success will help me shine - as children do.

This is my little inspiration.

Festival of Trees



Decorating a tree for the Festival of Trees has been such a great experience!!   The theme we chose for our tree was the Cinder"Ella" tree in memory of the little Princesses and Princes who are with us for such a short time, but make such a big impact on our lives.  What a great way to celebrate those little ones and the families who are touched by them.  The tree was beautiful!  We received $646.00 in donations and the staff involved in decorating the tree went to work to find Princess-y decorations.  The tree looked magical when it was all decked out and I am sure every little girl who saw it would have loved to have all the Cinderella toys, dress-up clothes, movie and decorations that were included!  We so appreciate all the love that was shown through the donations!  Thank you for helping us to participate in the Festival of Trees!

 Five beautiful and amazing women created the vision of the Cinder"Ella" tree and made the vision come to life!

 They worked hard to make sure it looked amazing!

All the decorations had to be wired on.  (There are a lot of things to learn about decorating a tree for Festival of Trees!)

 Here are some of the items that went under the tree to complete the package.

The final product, after months of planning, weeks of searching for just the right decorations and hours of putting it all together.

By the way, our tree sold on the first night of the Festival of Trees!  Yay!  All proceeds go to help the little ones at Primary Children's Hospital.