Katy Dickinson

Glass Pumpkins

Glass pumpkins have become a common home decoration at this time of year. They come in even more sizes and colors than real pumpkins. I have a small group I bought a few years ago which live next to my front door from September through Thanksgiving (after which they are replaced by poinsettia plants for Christmas).

My son Paul's High School sells pumpkins made by David Camner and his glass students - "The Paly Glass Team" - each year to raise funds for their art program. Since my kids no longer seem interested in carving real pumpkins to make Jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween, I bought three Paly art glass pumpkins to decorate my Thanksgiving table this year. One is a long purple eggplant-like shape, the other two are traditional shapes but unusual colors. Paul helped me pick them out.

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 04:31PM Oct 21, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[1]

Shop for a Cause

I spent last Saturday morning sitting at a table in the Valley Fair Macy's shoe department distributing discount tickets in exchange for $5 donations to Santa Maria Urban Ministry (SMUM). My husband John Plocher and I are on the SMUM Board of Directors. We also volunteer in SMUM's after-school homework and computer lab program for grade school kids.

Edy Unthank (SMUM's grant writer, also on the Board) had arranged for SMUM to be one of Macy's "Shop for a Cause" program charities. Macy's contacted the organizations which sold the most tickets and offered us each a table next to one of their entry doors so that we could sell even more. I put my orange and yellow Mexican blanket on the table, set out a big bowl of candy and SMUM brochures, set up my laptop to loop John's SMUM video, and asked every shopper I could to accept a 25% discount ticket in exchange for a $5 charity donation. In four hours, I collected 68 donations! Edy took the afternoon shift and collected 40 more for a total of $540 (see photo below). We snooped one of the other charity tables last Saturday and were told they had only sold $135 worth of tickets all day - so SMUM did very well. Including the tickets we sold in advance, SMUM raised over $1000 from this program.

Thanks, Macy's!

Image Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 03:47PM Oct 21, 2009 by katysblog in Church  |  Comments[0]