Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Today I’m interviewing Eloise Stevens, the President of the Okaloosa County Alumnae of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. The Delta Sigma Thetas are known for their service to their community and here’s why! 1. Tell us a little about yourself. My name is Eloise Stevens and I’m a retired Lt. Colonel from the United States Air Force. I am married to Cecil Stevens and have two adult children. I have been a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority for 37 years and I am a charter member of Nu Theta Chapter at Troy State University . 2. Explain each of the programs you do as part of the Five-Point Program Thrust. Economic Development: We support predominately minority-based programs. We sponsor programs, seminars and workshops for minorities on procurement and entrepreneurship with special emphasis on personal financial planning and management of assets . Educational Development: We conduct programs/projects designed to address the need for excellence in education. We give scholarsh...

This year if you were to visit a class of 40 students, on average by the end of the year ten of those 40 students will have dropped out of that school. In a school of two thousand students, that would be five hundred dropouts. Frightening numbers, aren’t they? General Colin Powell founded America’s Promise Alliance over a decade ago. In 2010, America’s Promise launched the Grad Nation campaign to fight back against the dropout trend.   According to the America’s Promise Alliance website: Grad Nation is a large and growing movement of dedicated individuals, organizations and communities working together to end America’s dropout crisis. Grad Nation goals include achieving a 90 percent graduation rate nationwide by 2020, with no high school graduating less than 80 percent of its students, and regaining America’s standing as first in the world in college completion.Grad Nation is a 10-year initiative focused on mobilizing Americans to end the dropout crisis and ensure that youn...

What is summer really all about?   I think it’s about enjoying the good weather and spending time with those you love.   One way to do that is on summer vacations and I’ll write this month about Volunteer Vacations that you will be excited to try.   But another way to revel in long summer days and clear skies is do some playing around in your local parks. KaBOOM has made doing that even more pleasurable with the chance to win a weeklong trip to Washington, D.C .   But I’m not just writing about KaBOOM because of the contest. KaBOOM! is a national nonprofit that does lots of wonderful things in communities throughout the United States. KaBOOM provides grants for park equipment for playgrounds as well as tools for organization and fundraising for these playgrounds. It also sponsored an initiative to build playgrounds in hurricane ravaged areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita and built over 130 playgrounds on the Gulf Coast. It encourages imaginativ...

Our son is a boy scout and loves to camp.   I like to think he got his love of the outdoors from us since I love hiking and enjoy camping myself. Before boy scouts, he was in the Adventure Guides program through the YMCA. The leader of the group was wonderful and one of the things he always made the boys do before they set up camp and after we broke it down was to pick up 10 pieces of trash. It’s something I hope my son will always take with him, the idea that taking care of the environment is an important responsibility of stewardship.   If we are to enjoy the great outdoors, we need to take care of them.    This month began the Keep America Beautiful (KAB) Great American Cleanup. It goes from March 1 through May 31 every year and is America’s largest annual community improvement program. Last year 3.8 million volunteers put in 5.2 million hours at 30,629 events around the country and the world. Volunteers also planted 166,000 trees and planted 1.5 mill...