Monday, February 23, 2009

coming soon...

the 2009 Children at the Well performance!!

The Interfaith Story Circle of the Tri-City Area presents:

Interfaith Youth Storytelling
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
3:30 pm


St. Francis de Sales Church
1 Maria Drive, Loudonville


All Welcome- Family, Friends, and Community!
Donations to benefit our youth program

To be followed by a vegetarian pot-luck supper and informal story sharing
If you wish to join us for supper
please bring your favorite vegetarian* dish to share
*(containing no meat, fish, or poultry)
For further information, please contact Gert Johnson: 374-0637 or GRSJohnson@aol.com

This project is made possible in part through COMMUNITY ART$GRANTS

Friday, February 13, 2009

MARNI GILLARD WRITES "BRAVO FOR CHILDREN AT THE WELL AT RESPECT DAY!!"

I just want to thank Nasibah Elmi and Ben Russell for doing a fabulous job representing Children at the Well on Respect Day at their high school, Shenendahowa.

We all learned that you have to stay flexible whenever you expect to perform because there can always be glitches. But Ben and Nasibah both stayed calm as a switch in the schedule started to eat up our time. It all worked out in the end, and Nasibah appeared relaxed and confident as she talked of our group’s work and how important it is for helping people develop respect around differences. She spoke quite eloquently about the symbol of the well and how alike we are in our mutual yearning to know God in our own ways.

Ben, as we used to say in the world of performance diving in which I grew up, “nailed” his story. His character voices were wonderful, and I could HEAR kids laughing as he delivered all the funny lines. He looked like a pro at the microphone. The choice of the humorous Chelm tale about Hanukkah showed how our group can have fun and at the same time approach the serious issue of faith-sharing.

Extra special thanks to Mrs. Linda Russell who helped set up this opportunity for us and who made a beautiful display that showed photos and some written material about the group. We’ll take it to display at Story Sunday March 8 at the Glen Sanders and the next Word Play night at Proctors, both of which are sponsored by the Story Circle of the Capital District. It was really fun to be part of this promotion of our work!

I hear our new brochure is also in the making, thanks to Ritam Mehta, Paula Weiss and Gert Johnson who’ve been busy at that. And next a documentary? Stay tuned.