Small Things Matter joined Difference Makers at their community table at the Takoma Park Folk Festival (TPFF) on September 16, 2018 at TPMS. STM had a great time, met lots of wonderful people, and enjoyed great music, crafts, entertainment, and community groups! Our thanks to Doris Duarte/ Community CHEER Lunch & Learn Summer Camp for coming by to give us a Certificate of Appreciation for our summer work and to Bryan Goehring & Difference Makers for their support and for sharing their booth with us!

The Difference Makers Teen Ambassadors made some fun and amazing fabric paper for STM. We learned about fabric paper from my good friend Tisha in Canada and thought it would be fun to make this with the Ambassadors as part of their August Day of Service. Our fabric paper is made with relatively inexpensive items (muslin, glue, paint, paper bits -newspaper, colored tissue, and Chinese joss paper). Once the sheets were dry they were cut into these lovely little bookmarks. STM can’t wait to share these with the kids at Rolling Terrace ES at our first school-wide distribution of new books on September 24!!! Our thanks to the AMAZING DM Teen Ambassadors!

STM had an amazing day on August 8, 2018 at Let’s Play America‘s 10th Annual Play Day at Takoma Park Middle School. There were tons of fun games, face painting, karate demos and participation, dress up, Simon Says with Congressman Jamie Raskin, Comics Jam with Dave Burbank, Marsha and the Positrons, snacks from TPSS Co-op, and more! Our sincere thanks to the wonderful Play Lady Pat Rumbaugh for the kind invite to share our mission with others, her wonderful volunteers (special shout out to Michelle), our friends the amazing Difference Makers, and to all the wonderful children and families that came by to say hi. We were thrilled to share over 100 books with all the enthusiastic readers and were grateful to the little artists who took the time to craft a bookmark with us! Take care and we hope to see you soon!

STM was recognized on September 3, 2018 at the Frederick Keys BGE HOME Make a Difference Monday. Our generous sponsors gave us 25 complimentary tickets behind home plate, a marketing booth on the concourse where we shared our mission and invited children to color and donate bookmarks for our upcoming book event at Rolling Terrace ES, and a 20 second PA announcement before and during the game. Lana and Leela were also interviewed on the field by Andrew Klein and Lana was given the honor of throwing out the first pitch! It was an exciting end of the season game! The Keys were victorious against the Myrtle Beach Pelicans with a 2 to 1 win! Our thanks to BGE Home, The Frederick Keys, Kyle Huson (Broadcast, PR, & Community Assistant), and Andrew Klein (Assistant General Manager of Sales) for their kindness. What a wonderful Labor Day! Thank you!!!

STM donated 100 monster stuffies to our friends at The Children’s Inn at NIH for their Thoughtful Treasures Program on August 31, 2018. We hope that these brighten the day of these brave children.
Please mark your calendars and join us at #KIDfest on September 23 at Silver Spring Civic Center and Veterans Plaza and help us craft monster stuffies to help more area hospitals!

STM had a great day out at the Takoma Park Farmers Market. Lots of friendly faces, fresh produce and flowers, music, and more. Our thanks to everyone who stopped by to learn about what we do and for purchasing our Hawaiian shave ice and lemonade! We are grateful for your support! Please mark your calendars and join us at KID Museum KIDfest in downtown Silver Spring on September 23 where we will be making monster stuffies to donate to children’s hospitals!

Small Things Matter had a wonderful time with Marsha Goodman-Wood and the Positrons and Takoma Park Maryland Library on August 25, 2018 at the @TakomaParkRecreationCenter. Our thanks to Karen MacPherson/ Children and Teen Librarian at the TP MD library for the kind invite to share our mission with our community. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to color a bookmark! Hope to see everyone again soon!

This weekend we received a huge donation of 262 brand new books from our friend and supporter Aimee Orberndorfer Le! Thank you so much for your wonderful and generous donation. We are nearing our biggest distribution of 1200+ books for Rolling Terrace Elementary School in September and this is definitely a big help! Thank you!!!