Daily Archives: 03/08/2011

(Community Matters) Encouraged by the customers’ reactions.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

(Community Matters) so sad to hear of Jan Hughes passing of an aggressive cancer called multiple myeloma.  Over the years, Jan, David and her entire family became friends. She could brightened people’s lives just by showing up; she embodied the spirit of generosity.

Her service will be at St. David’s Episcopal Church at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 10.

(Community Matters) thanks to our friend Kerry Tate for reminding us today is International Women’s Day , which celebrates the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

In honor of IWD, Steven and I are making another contribution to Fonkoze, which is economically empowering over 234,000 Haitian women.

(Community Matters) Quite proud of our staff at the KDK-Harman Foundation which led organizing the recent Texas foundation’s education lobby day and which is a founding sponsor of Save Texas Schools, the rally occurring this Saturday, March 12.

Texas was already at risk of losing its economic competitiveness because of declining education achievement. Our projected growth demographics and the education attainment challenges we know we’re facing can’t withstand ideologically driven, foolhardy slashing of school budgets.  Yes there are systems consolidations and other productivity & efficacy enhancements we should influence as part of the solution. And, as a member of several foundations during the last ten years, I’ve witnessed meaningful progress in regional public elementary and high schools – much more during the last three years than ever before.

Save Texas Schools is a nonpartisan statewide volunteer coalition of parents, students, educators, business leaders, concerned citizens, community groups and faith organizations. Our goal is to educate our state’s elected officials about the importance of maintaining funding for Texas public education – from pre-K through college – to the maximum degree possible, within the context of the current state budget crisis and beyond.

The legislature’s willingness to now include tapping the rainy day fund as part of the solution to our funding crisis indicates substantial progress – two other components of the solution should be closing certain tax loop holes and limited strategic funding cuts