Category: Miscellaneous

The rain held out just long enough for our 45 volunteers to plant 31 flats of impatiens, begonias, petunias, and marigolds!  The cubs and their families worked diligently to plant the flowers around the Great Hall, in the front planters and in the central yard that everyone passes when they arrive at Camp Cheerful.  The flowers and gardening tools were purchased by Caring Cubs as part of a grant from the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northeastern Ohio.

Thank you to the students and professor from the Tri-C early childhood education program who volunteered at the event.  The college students greeted every family, managed registration and then pitched in to get all the flowers planted.  Caring Cubs is lucky to have such wonderful volunteers – they were the first to arrive and the last to leave!

At Camp Cheerful, children and adults with disabilities participate in a variety of recreational activities that encourage confidence and independence, and create opportunities for lifelong friendships while having fun and improving their quality of life. They also offer year-round Therapeutic Horseback Riding sessions and a state-of-the-art, fully handicap accessible High Ropes challenge course during camp sessions.

Nearly 100 volunteers braved the cold on Saturday, April 20, 2013 to plant trees in the Cleveland Metroparks!  We are now proud to say that there are 50 trees in “Caring Cubs Forest” (our unofficial name) at Little Cedar Point Picnic Area in the Rocky River Reservation.

Thank you to the students and staff from Tri-C’s Early Childhood Education program who volunteered at this event!

Thank you to the Sierra Club and the Cleveland Metroparks for making this event possible!

Click here to view our entire event photo album!

The pink flags mark where Caring Cubs can plant trees…

The 50 trees are waiting for Caring Cubs to plant them…

“Caring Cubs Forest” in the Rocky River Reservation….

The Cleveland Metroparks are an outstanding feature of our community.  The mission of the Cleveland Metroparks is to conserve significant natural resources and enhance people’s lives by providing safe, high-quality outdoor education, recreation, and zoological opportunities.  The Cleveland Metroparks offers programs for the entire family and their Kids Club program is specifically designed for children 12 and under.  Kids Club provides opportunities to enjoy activities, exploration and fun experiences year-round in the Cleveland Metroparks and Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

Founded by legendary conservationist John Muir in 1892, the Sierra Club is the largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the country. The Northeast Ohio Sierra Club has partnered with Caring Cubs to assist in this event, helping our youngest friends learn to explore, enjoy, and protect the planet.

Caring Cubs volunteered for the Cleveland Sight Center on Saturday, March 16. Our cubs decorated 454 occluders for the Cleveland Sight Center to use in their Prevention Screening program, colored nearly 70 pictures which will be used to create a festive atmosphere at the center’s Easter egg hunt, and we traced and cut fabric squares for future collage projects.

While at Cleveland Sight Center, the Caring Cubs families also learned some simple and fun ways that people with vision loss do daily tasks with adaptive devices and skills, received their name and the alphabet in braille, and met a seeing eye dog.  One of the most interesting adaptations was learning how a person with vision loss could still play adapted baseball.  During the event, the Cleveland Sight Center also offered vision screening for any child age 3 to 5.

The Cleveland Sight Center has been helping the blind or visually impaired in our community since 1906. They provide a wide array of services for clients of any age. Each year Cleveland Sight Center screens thousands of area preschoolers for preventable vision loss and refers kids who seem to have a vision problem to area eye doctors so they can start school with the best vision possible.

The weather may have postponed our February event but it did not stop our cubs from spreading joy at The Harbor Court this February.  Caring Cubs made Valentine’s Day cards, colored signs to decorate the building throughout the spring, and spent time with some of the residents.  The children personally delivered the handmade Valentines and entertained the residents with a few songs and dancing.  While visiting with the residents, we also got to meet their resident therapy dog!  Thank you to our families for making this such a heartwarming event!

2013 is off to a great start!  65 Caring Cubs and their parents volunteered at the Hanna Perkins Center on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to support the Ronald McDonald House of Cleveland and Providence House.

We listened to a child-focused presentation on the great services of these organizations and completed three fun and meaningful projects.  For Providence House, our “cubs” made friendship cards for their staff to give to children when they arrive or when they need to be cheered up.  The Ronald McDonald House of Cleveland received Valentine’s to distribute to  families staying there in February and decorated brown bags that will be filled with breakfast items and given to the families each day as they depart for the hospital from Ronald McDonald House.

In addition to the hands-on projects, our families have been collecting pull tabs that were donated together to Ronald McDonald House at the event.   A special thank you to Brecksville Middle School for donating three large bags of pull tabs!  The funds raised from pull tabs are used by the Ronald McDonald House to support their Family Fund.  Caring Cubs will continue to collect pull tabs at all of our 2013 events.

Providence House is the nation’s oldest Crisis Nursery, committed to child abuse prevention and family preservation. More than a shelter for at-risk children, the agency offers holistic services for children and their families including education, mentoring, case management and aftercare focused on family preservation.

Ronald McDonald House of Cleveland is a home away from home for families with a hospitalized child. Ronald McDonald House offers a place to stay at little or no cost so families can access the best health care, regardless of their location.

Thank you to Hanna Perkins Center for donating the use of Furman Hall!

In honor of Veterans Day, Caring Cubs volunteered at the American Red Cross of Greater Cleveland on Saturday, November 10.  Caring Cubs signed and decorated holiday cards nearly 140 that will be delivered to veterans, military families and active-duty service members at hospitals and installations around the world this holiday season.  The children and their families were very enthusiastic and we hope that our cards brighten the day of someone serving our country!

If you were not able to attend the Caring Cubs card making event, you can still participate in the Holiday Mail for Heroes program.  Visit http://www.redcross.org/holidaymail to learn more and see how you and your family can be involved.  Be sure to watch the video about the program!

We also learned about the many services that the Red Cross provides locally as well as worldwide.  The American Red Cross provides disaster relief, supports military families, is the largest supplier of blood in the U.S, provides health and safety courses, and is part of the world’s largest humanitarian network with 13 million volunteers in 187 countries.

Caring Cubs volunteered at the Cleveland Foodbank for our first event of October.  The families generously donated 68 pounds of food and the children decorated 85 bags that will be used to distribute food in.  In addition to our hands-on project, we learned about the significant impact the Cleveland Foodbank has on our community.  The statistic that resonated the most with the volunteering families is that when school is out for summer, the Foodbank prepares 1,700 nutritious lunches for children in Greater Cleveland area every day!  We were proud to make some of those lunch bags special.

Caring Cubs’ summer event was a great success!  The children learned about police dogs and we helped students of the Shaker Heights School District go back to school with the necessary supplies.  Nearly 400 school supplies were collected, including backpacks, markers, pencils, rulers, scissors, glue, notebooks, pens, and crayons!

Several organizations contributed to the success of this event.  By working together, we were able to help others and make a difference in our community!  Caring Cubs would like to thank:

• The Shaker Heights Police Department and K-9 Unit.  A special thank you goes to Officer John and Carlos (the police dog)!  The children were excited to learn how police dogs are trained and see Carlos demonstrate his abilities.
• Dr. Bernice Stokes for representing the Shaker Heights School District at the event.
• Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northeastern Ohio for sponsoring this event.  Their generous grant allowed Caring Cubs to hold a larger event and provide more hands-on activities for the children.

Caring Cubs demonstrated their artistic abilities in May by painting summer camp banners at Cornerstone of Hope.  We also toured their amazing facility and learned about their many programs and services.  To thank Cornerstone of Hope for hosting Caring Cubs, we donated supplies for use at their upcoming children’s summer camp programs.

Cornerstone of Hope (www.cornerstoneofhope.org) is a center dedicated to providing support, education and hope to the grieving.