Dr. Shellie Hipsky's

One of my mottos has always been, "Go big or go home."  I have been heard saying this phrase at the gym while lifting, when pumping up an audience, or encouraging a friend.  According to the Urban Dictionary this phrase means:

I try to I live this daily, for instance when I spoke to over 1,400 people at Pepperdine University's Convocation regarding my life story and my book Ordinary People Extraordinary Planet...

Or while performing at one of my fundraisers for the Homeless Children's Education Fund...

The reality for me though is that I am a teacher at heart. I adore the stage and taking on a role... but there is something about a small colorful carpet in a classroom or a homeless shelter that brings out the teacher in me.

 

Here I am last week at the transitional shelter Healthy Start reading a story to kiddos... 

 

Tonight, my 4-year-old Alyssa and I ventured out on our first volunteer project together.  We began with a story from about when I started volunteering at 12 years old with students with special needs during our long car ride.  She likes the idea of volunteering because it has always been something I have spoken about with great joy while raising over $35,000 for the Homeless Children's Education Fund (HCEF).  In fact, for the past two years, Allie has raised money for “mommy’s homeless kids” by collecting nickels and dimes and was recognized by the HCEF for her service.  I am very proud of her!

We walked into the transitional housing together.  The aroma of greens, chicken, and sweet potatoes filled the air.  The awesome dinner was cooked by one of the women from the shelter.  It was wonderful to start the evening out like this as we broke bread with the kiddos and their moms.

Then Roy Juarez, Jr. and I did an on-camera interview filmed by Dreamcatchers Films.  Roy has been "couch surfing" around America with his Homeless by Choice Tour about when he was homeless at 14 years old with his baby brother and young sister. I first met him through Ray Leonard the radio host at kmr-media when we featured Roy in the book Ordinary People Extraordinary Planet.  It was incredible to have his personal understanding of what these kids are facing there with us in the shelter. 

After our interview, I went up upstairs and got the Luv My Woobie, Inc. ® blankets.  In my immediate family, every Christmas morning we would stand at the top of the steps as my dad would check and see if Santa was gone and the coast was clear.  It felt like that for me as I asked the kids if they wanted their blankets.  They raced down the flights of stairs and burst into the playroom.  My Allie helped me to pass out the blankets to the babies and toddlers.  One precious one was literally 4 days old.  Yes… 4 DAYS old.  We were awe struck by the baby’s newness and beauty…

The kids loved their blankets.  I want to thank the mothers for allowing us to show their adorable faces on this site.  The littlest ones got pacifiers to tuck into the built-in blanket pockets from Luv My Woobie, Inc.

For the slightly older ones, my daughter realized that the kids needed something for the their woobie pockets, so the night before she went to her toys and brought out two little hands full of pocket-sized toys to let the kids pick. 

After the woobie blanket drop (which is simultaneously happening this week in an LA shelter and in with Getrude Matshe in Zimbabwe through the Africa Alive Education Foundation the babies who were orphaned by AIDS)... I got to read the Eric Carle book Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You See? Complete with a story teller apron, the stuffed animal attachments and the beautiful kids crawling on me naming the animals and the sounds they make. It definitely brought me back to my teaching days!

Following the bedtime story snuggled up in their woobies and yummy cookies, the adults went to the community center room and we were joined by teenage boys from a local shelter. After I introduced him, Roy Juarez told his incredibly powerful story.

As I tucked my Allie in tonight, we reminisced about the babies, especially the one who attached herself to me...

Alyssa said to me as we snuggled warm into her own bed as she clutched her woobie, “I am glad we aren’t homeless. I liked helping those cute babies.”  Please buy your baby a blanket at www.luvmywoobie.com so that we can continue to help blanket the world with love and kindness, because for every one purchased... a special woobie is made for a child in need!

“You don’t have to tell her… she lived it,” mentioned the nurse at the school for emotional and behavioral students where I was once an assistant principal.  I went through so much with those kids and the staff years ago.  My university students at Robert Morris University have heard the tales the schizophrenic student who hurled shoes at my head, the boy who walked the streets of Chicago with his mother who was a prostitute, and the child who shoved a pair of scissors straight through a fellow teacher’s hand out of anger.  However, until they visited my former work place today, I don’t think they truly understood what I had been describing in class.

I recalled a brief opening of the school year speech I did there almost a decade ago.  Standing in front of the large staff on the hill in the outdoor classroom on the over three hundred acres of land, I threw a crumbled piece of paper in the can, and talked about the task ahead of us.  Later in the talk, I pulled the paper back out open and smoothed it out revealing that the wrinkled sheets of paper had children’s first names on it.  Many of the 200 children from first to twelfth grade had been abused, in trouble with the law, or inflicted pain on themselves because of past hurts.  I explained that many of our children at the school had been thrown away by society and that it was up to us to pick them up, and think of them as individual children and meet their needs so they could be educated.

Today, I was delighted that the school continues to flourish.  They have adopted the Sanctuary Model ® that according to Healing Magazine, “...focuses on addressing the traumas in clients’ lives that have led them into residential treatment.”  It looks at:

Seven commitments that serve as goals for resolving trauma-based issues:
1. Nonviolence
2. Emotional Intelligence
3. Social Learning
4. Social Responsibility
5. Shared Governance
6. Open Communication
7. Growth and Change

When I was an administrator, I used to do yoga or visualization exercises in my office with the students who had been emotionally triggered. My future teachers and I liked that now every child, teacher, and even administrator had badges with five things that they could do to calm themselves down while experiencing a frustrating event (e.g., quiet time at the computer). Also, the sensory room for the autistic children was impressive and allows for the upset child to experience some peaceful time while deescalating. Here are my university students chilling out in the sensory room...

Shawna tried out the swing that is utilized by the school's autistic students that was purchased by a grant.

Sarah witnessed how soothing some of the other sensory room tools such as the light displays can be for students.

It was wonderful to get the hugs of people whom I haven’t worked with in eight years and to see that this school continues to lift up and help children who were once thrown away by society.  No child should ever be given up on;  all children have something to give back to the world whether they are a non-verbal autistic child or child who is acting out due to past trauma.  Treasure our children.