Category Archives: Current

Our Itinerary

Dear Friends and Family,
Happy Holidays to each of you.
In just a few days we leave for Norway. I cannot believe it is here. We have been preparing for this trip since we found out in April that I had been chosen as the Greater Tacoma Peace Laureate. Part of the award is that they send us to Norway to be in Oslo during the Nobel Peace Prize events. At this time, it is confirmed that we will be able to attend the CNN Press Conference and the Nobel Concert, with Denzel Washington as the host. We are still waiting to find out if we will be able to attend the actual ceremony.
So we are off to 9 amazing days in Oslo, Norway followed by a day and a half in Liverpool, England for the Beatles Tour for Sam’s Christmas gift and then on to Ireland to visit the land of my Maternal Grandmother’s ancestry.
If you would like to follow our adventures, we will be posting to this blog on a regular basis.
I pray that this season is full of gentle, joyful surprises for each of you.
Many Blessings,
Kim
Our Itinerary
December 5th – We arrive in Oslo .

December 6th – 9:00 a.m. – Turid Johannessen, our guide will pick us up at our B & B and take us to the
Nobel Institute, followed by a visit to
Nordmanns-Forbundet (Norse Federation) for lunch/coffee/cake,
www.norseman.no
And then a visit to the Nobel Peace Center
City Hall Plaza (Rådshusplass) www.nobelpeacecenter.org

December 7th – 11:00 a.m. – the Holocaust Museum (HL senteret) www.hlsenteret.no
lunch/meeting/tour with Georg Broch

December 8th – 11:00 a.m. – Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights
Gange Rolvsgate 5, Oslo www.oslocenter.no
Tynlee will escort the Eberts to their appointment with John Bjornebye, Senior Advisor / Ambassador

Dec. 9th – Train Trip to Lilllehammer to meet with Steinar Bryn, Senior Advisor, Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue
December 10th – 1:00 p.m. – Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony (tentative), followed by CNN Interview
Oslo City Hall

December 11th – 8:00 p.m. – Nobel Concert at Oslo Spekrum

December 12th – 12 noon – Brunch at the home of Kari Nøst-Bergem and family
7:30 p.m. – Christmas Concert – Oslo Domkirke

December 13th – Santa Lucia Day, On our own to explore.
10:00 p.m. – We depart from Oslo to Liverpool

Dec. 14th – Fab 4 Tour in Liverpool
Dec. 15 – Arrive in Ireland and begin to wander

2010 Greater Tacoma Peace Prize Laureate

Early last April, I received a call from a woman who introduced herself and said she was with the Greater Tacoma Peace Prize. She asked me if I knew that I had been nominated by a few of the teachers at my son’s school. I was surprised and touched by the generosity of these amazing woman. As I was taking it in, she informed me that in fact they had chosen me for their 2010 Laureate. I was so shocked and moved that much of the rest of our conversation was a bit of a blur. I did remember her asking me not to say anything until they made a public announcement on April 24th. I got off the phone and started to research The Greater Tacoma Peace Prize. From what I could gather, I would receive a beautiful hand blown glass bowl and be honored at a dinner in May. When April 24th arrived, my husband and I did some research and found out that the announcement would be made at the Norse festival at Pacific Lutheran University. By the time we found out, it had already been announced, but we decided to hop in the car and go to the Norse festival anyways. After introducing ourselves to a board member, he looked at me and said, “You must be so thrilled to be going to Norway.” I was totally confused and looked at him and said, “Excuse me?” He went on to tell me that the prize included a trip for 2 to Oslo, Norway to be present at the Nobel Peace Prize events this upcoming Dec. I replied, “Are you sure?” Now here I am days away from boarding the plane with Niko and Sam, still in awe of the wonder of it all.

A Boy’s Dream of a Disco Party for Peace

When Sam was only 8 years old, he had a Disco Party for Peace to help children affected by war and violence. Sam was inspired at Sunday School where he drew a picture. AS I admired his work, his teacher asked him to tell us about his picture. He looked at the 2 of us and exclaimed, “It’s a Disco Party for Peace!” I giggled. I told him I would go to a Disco Party for Peace and I would have fun! As we drove him, I probed Sam about his idea. ” What we do at a Disco Party for Peace, Sam?” “We would raise money to stop ALL war.” he replied. We discussed what a BIG goal this was and decided it may be too big a job for just us, but we could do our piece in creating a more peaceful world. Sam initially decided he wanted to raise $10,000.00 to help the children in Iraq and Sudan and to buy peace education materials for his HIlltop public school, Bryant Montessori. However, a month before the event, he watched a clip on Oprah about Liberian children orphaned by the Civil War. He turned to me and asked, “Can we raise our goal to $15,000.00 so that we can send money to those children, too?” I took a deep breath and said, “Sure, but we are going to need help.”

Sam’s friends helped him by making artwork that was sold at a Kids Helping Kids art sale at the Disco Part for Peace. The Sunday School classes created artwork for the event. 10 year old, Elise held a beading party. She and her friends made necklaces, earrings, and bracelets to do their part for Peace. Families made a Peace Gnome, peace necklaces, kids from Bryant Montessori made peace bowls, handmade cards, and a peace table and a neighboring school made a peace pole. Students from the local Universities offered their assistance in putting on the event.
Sam wrote letters inviting almost 40 politicians and celebrities to the event. His list included: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Governor Gregoire, Dennis Kucinich, Mayor Baarsma, Norm Dicks, Superintendent Milligan, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Senator Debbie Regala, the Prime Minister of Australia, Ty Pennington, Ellen, Rosie, Oprah, Kelly Rippa, Regis Philban, The KOMO 4 News Team, Northwest Afternoon, Diane Sawyer, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Tima Allen, John Travolta, Jim Paige, Raffi, and the Wiggles. Senator Debbie Regala attended the event, Barack Obama had his staff call Sam and sent him a personal letter and Steve Martin sent Sam $100.00 towards his efforts.

As we prepared for the event, money started flowing in. When we sent our first check to JRS to help Sudanese Refugee children with school fees Sam was vibrating with excitement. “Those kids are going to be so excited, Mom. Let me show you how excited they will be…” He then drew a picture that had an outline of the United States and an outline of Africa. Up in the NW corner of the US was a stick figure of a boy holding his hand out giving the money. Then there was a picture of a plane flying from the US to Africa and then 3 stick children in Africa jumping up and down yelling “Yipee!!!”

Over 400 people attended the Disco Party for Peace on April 27, 2007. Over $15,300.00 was raised. This event was important because it educated others on the plight of children in our world, it brought families together to dance, create art and have fun together for a common purpose, and it allowed children to have an impact on their world. In his letter to politicians and celebrities Sam wrote, “I want to help these children because I think it is right. I want the children to know that I care about them.” Amen, Sam, Amen.

Bryant Peace Committee

Our Peace program was started as the result of a Disco Party for Peace that was the dream of 8 year old, Sam. In 2007, Sam had his Disco Party and raised over $15,000.00 for children affected by war in Iraq, Sudan and Liberia, and to provide peace education materials for his own school, Bryant Montessori. A Peace Committee was formed in 2008 and students, parents and staff worked together to create a peace program at Bryant.

We kick off each year by rededicating ourselves as an International Peace Site at an assembly the peace committee creates for the International Day of Peace on September 21st. As a Peace Site we commit to the following:

Protect the environment;
Promote intercultural understanding and
Celebrate diversity;
Seek peace within ourselves and others;
Reach out in service, and
Be responsible citizens of the world.

At the assembly, each child creates a written or drawn expression of their commitment to be a peaceful citizen, and each classroom creates a peace pledge, which every child in the classroom signs and then 1 or 2 students present their classrooms pledge to the school at the assembly. Afterwards, the pledge is installed in their classroom. This has been a great way to begin our year and to clearly set our intention and rededicate ourselves as an International Peace Site.

Each year our students choose a focus topic and a continent which we then introduce at the Peace Assembly. We create our program around that focus and implement the focus topic on a personal, school-wide, community and global level. One of our goals is to choose a topic that our students may take for granted, like education and then create the opportunities to learn about the privilege and gift it really is and how the topic relates to peace.

Bryant Peace Committee 2008-09 Education

During the 2008-09 school year as we began our program our focus was on Peace through Education. We accomplished the following:
• We landscaped the front of our school to create a peace garden,
• Peace Banners were created that hang from the ceiling and go down our main hallway by our pre-k and kindergarten children
• We dedicated ourselves as Tacoma’s first International Peace Site.
• We created a peace pole for our peace garden that stands over 6 feet tall and says, “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in 12 languages. The languages represent the heritage of the children in our school and the children in our neighborhood,
• We created an assembly for World Peace Day that has become an annual ritual. It is held each year on or around Sept. 21st.
• Each house created a banner to represent one of our values as a peace site. The banners represent Love, To Protect the Environment, To Promote Cultural Understanding, and to Seek peace within ourselves and others, These banners lead the peace parade at our dedication and now hang in our peace garden.
• We started an after school peace committee program for students
• At the urging of 10 year old, Nurhan, we started a Pennies for Peace Campaign and raised $9,000.00 to build a school in Afghanistan by collecting pennies.

Bryant Peace Committee 2009-10 – Water

In 2009-10 the students chose water as our focus. Our goals were to rededicate our school as an International Peace Site, to create a culture of kindness in our school by implementing a kindness campaign, and to promote an environmental focus on “Clean Water for All”
We accomplished the following:
• We started a kindness campaign in our school. The students a kindness box that sits in the main office. Every classroom has forms available. When a student catches someone going out of their way to be kind, they report them by filling out a ‘You were caught being kind” form. Once it is filled out they put it in the Kindness Box in the main office. Each week the peace committee collects the forms and creates a card for the student thanking them for the specific act they did to promote kindness, and the principal acknowledges highlights a few of the actions and the students who made them, over the intercom.
• We created our own green cleaning supplies, an all purpose spray and a creamy soft scrub that we sell to support our program.
• We made a peace dove out of 6 twin sheets, that has a wing span of 21 feet. This peace dove led our Parade of the Species on Earth Day and is used as a focal point in our assemblies as well as at community events.
• We took twelve of our peace committee members to a gathering at UW Tacoma to meet and listen to a Delegation of Japanese survivors of the Atomic Bomb. Our students made peace doves that the presented the delegation. Afterwards, UW installed their Peace Pole and our students were part of the celebration with their giant peace dove.
• We raised over $6000.00 to provide clean water and a school vegetable garden to the children of Las Maratos, Bolivia with Etta Projects by selling our green cleaning supplies, garden bulbs and plant starts, by starting an after school store on the playground each Friday and selling bug necklaces and organic suckers and by having a school wide coin drive.
• We applied for and were awarded a $2500.00 splash grant by the City of Tacoma. We utilized these funds to accomplish the following:
Over 275 elementary age students visited Puget Creek watershed to deepen their understanding of the connection between what we put down our storm drains and watershed health. One of our 5th grade students asked his teacher, “Are we still in Tacoma?”
We purchased 4 rain barrels for our school gardens. Our children’s house, Lower Elementary, Upper Elementary and Middle School were each given a rain barrel to design and paint. These beautiful works of art were presented to the school on World Water Day and the afterwards installed on our school in time Approximately 450 children were involved in this project.
Envirochallenger presented Down the Storm Drain: Where does the flow go? to over 125 students.
The students and adults of the Bryant Peace Committee planned, organized and implemented a World Water Day Assembly for the 450 students and 50 staff members of our school.
We implemented an Earth Day Garden and Water Festival and Parade of the Species.
Our Earth Day garden party was open to the greater community. We had over 700 people attend and Over 40 vendor, activity and information booths educated and supported healthy garden practices.
Middle School students ran information booths and activities that showed examples of water cohesion and adhesion.
Students and their families made 10 worm compost bins. Families then took home the worm bins to foster them for the school. The compost will be used for our school garden.
We sent home weekly articles on water health to the 425 student families and we put a flyer that included the Salmon friendly gardening tips in the mailboxes of 400 homes.
We purchased books, school aquatic field guides, classroom aquifer models, music cds and videos for our classrooms and school library to increase student awareness of water health.
We purchased materials and built a 3 tier garden compost and tools for our school composting project.
Working with a local artist we created a watershed mosaic.

• We organized a Parade of the Species for Earth Day in which our giant peace dove led parents, students, staff, and neighbors around our hilltop neighborhood dressed as their favorite animals and carrying signs promoting protection of our watersheds.

Bryant Peace Committee 2010-11: Nutrition

Bryant Peace Committee 2010-11: Nutrition
For the 2010-11 school year, the peace committee students have chosen Nutrition as their focus. To date we have
• Provided Leadership training to 6 middle school students,
• Enrolled 30 students in our weekly after school peace program
• Organized a family Harvest for Health Dance at which we will kick off our
• Healthy Food Drive for Tacoma’s Food Connection
• Designed and implemented and International Peace Day Assembly and rededicated ourselves as an International Peace Site,
• Started a tea garden in our school garden to provide herbal tea to classrooms.
• Began collecting recipes for a Healthy Kids Cookbook
• Bagged up over 500 individual servings of a protein mix for the Food Connections Back Pack Program
• Provided an after school class on non-violent communication training to the students in the peace committee.

Other goals for the year include:
• Selling our Whirled Peas Cookbook
• Promoting healthy snacks in our school and at school events
• Raising $5000.00 for Heifer Project in Africa
• Attending the Desmond Tutu event in May at the Tacoma Dome
• Organizing and Implementing an Earth Day Garden Fair and Parade of the Species
• Publish a monthly article on healthy food choices
• Purchasing, Painting and installing 4 more rain barrels on our school.
• Implement a compassionate schools and/or a non-violent communication program in our school.

Etta Projects: Thank you to Bryant Students


Dear Kim & Bryant Elementary Peace Committee:
I wanted to send you handwritten note to let you know how grateful and honored we are to be the recipients of your peace efforts for this past school year. I knew though, that Kim could send it best to you via email so just pretend it is penned by hand.
I work with a lot of organizations in their efforts to do good in our world. Bryant Montessori Peace Committee is one that I tell people about all over the world. I think what you do has such lasting impact on our world. The children you encourage to think and understand their situation in relation to other children in our world is what will create leadership and businesspeople and teachers and garbage men and politicians and environmentalist and janitors and biologist and farm workers and engineers and mechanics and tellers and doctors that will truly save our planet, our environment, and our souls.
These children at Bryant are so very fortunate to have you in their lives, the children of Bolivia and Africa are so very fortunate to have you in their lives, and Etta Projects is so very honored to have you as a part of our organization. We are a better organization because of your organization. Thank you and Congratulations on your accomplishments in our world. We promise the money you have gifted to Etta Projects will change the village of Los Maratos forever.
With total Gratitude,
Pennye
pennyelw@ettaprojects.org


I Can Do This!

I’ve always been an odd duck in my family, so when I informed my siblings that I wanted to bathe my mom’s body and prepare her for burial, they just shook their heads and said, “That’s fine, just don’t expect us to be in the room.”

We discovered mom was dying after she fell the day after her birthday in 2005. She went to the hospital with 2 black eyes from where her glass frames smashed into her face as she hit the floor. She had no major injuries from the fall, but her examination and tests for what may have caused her to fall, led to an unexpected discovery that she had colon cancer which had metastasized to the liver. After 2 weeks of intense pain and high fevers, mom died.

After everyone left her room, I got a basin and filled it with soapy water. The hospice nurse joined me as I began to wash the body of the very woman who brought me life. I washed her face, her arms, her hands, her breasts, her belly, her genitals, her legs. The nurse gently lifted her up on her side and held her so that I could wash her backside. As I washed, my younger sister, Kari, walked into the room. Standing next to the nurse she held on to mom’s upper body, until I was finished. Then she and the nurse gently laid mom down. I lifted her from the other side, handed the cloth to Kari and asked her to wash mom from that side. She handed the cloth to the nurse and said, “I’ll help you hold her.” As she reached the foot of the bed, she stopped in her tracks and said “I Can Do This!” She then turned around and took the cloth from the nurse. Tenderly, she washed the body of our mom.

After mom was bathed, we were preparing to wash her hair when my sister, Jill walked in. When she discovered that we were getting ready to wash mom’s hair, she said, “I used to do Mom’s hair every week. I can do that.” So with the help of the nurse and Kari, Jill washed Mom’s hair. Then she and Kari blow dried and curled mom’s hair. They put on her favorite lipstick and we dressed her in a pair of silk pajamas that Mom had been saving for a special occasion.

When we were finished, the rest of our brothers and sisters walked into the room and stood around Mom’s bed. Tears flowed as we gazed on this woman, who looked like herself for the first time in 2 weeks. This healing image of Mom replaced the images of her suffering. It is our final memory of our beloved mother.

As I reflect on this experience, I am struck by Kari’s courage. When Spirit beckons, the easiest response is to step back to a safe place. Our insides quake and we think we cannot possibly do this thing we are called to do. We run to a safe place… food, alcohol, facebook, computer games, television, anything that insulates us from the voice of our spirit calling us into life. The easy thing would have been for Kari to hold onto Mom. She didn’t. She stopped. She moved into her courage. And with a courageous, “I Can Do This”, she followed the voice of her Spirit.

My Child

Precious Child,
My deepest dream
is that you will know
that my love for you
is deep
and steady
and strong.

Though there are many things
your can say or do that
would cause my heart to ache with sadness,
my blood to boil with anger,
or my soul to grieve deeply,

There is nothing, my dear one,
Nothing
you can say
or do
to stop me from
loving you.

You are my precious,
my beloved
my dear child.
My love surrounds you
always.