Regular readers of this blog will remember posts about Kids Against Hunger, one of our We Are Heroes set. Another book in that set was The Green Team, focusing on a boy who chose to plant trees at his school. We have our own Green Team here at Capstone Publishers—the Green@Work committee. We don’t plant trees (yet!), but we are helping to keep our offices greener.
One of the Green@Work committee’s new initiatives in the Twin Cities office of Capstone Publishers is Organics Recycling. Organics recycling drastically reduces the trash—things that end up in landfills—coming out of this office. We’ve blogged before about the green initiatives here—we only print on recycled paper, for example (and the ink in our color printers is made from kelp!). Organics recycling will take that one step further. Anything fibrous can now be recycled in the Twin Cities office. That includes food scraps (even meat!), paper (including paper towels and napkins), coffee grounds, the boxes from microwavable meals, tea bags—the list goes on and on. By committing to organics recycling, we’ll reduce waste in this office by 70%. That’s pretty amazing.
We’ve been piloting the program for a few months, and it’s been very successful—we’ll kick off the full implementation this Wednesday, Earth Day. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Earth Day than to actively take a step toward keeping it green. This Earth Day, form your own Green Team!
Showing posts with label We Are Heroes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label We Are Heroes. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Heroes for every day
Alison Morris of PW's Shelf Talker blog recently asked writers and publishers to think about creating books in which characters perform community service. A customer had requested such a book. She and her 5th grader were about to start volunteering, and they wanted books to read about other kids doing good work. Alison and her colleagues found a great book to recommend, but perhaps if they'd been aware of our We Are Heroes series, she'd have recommended them, too!
We've talked about the We Are Heroes series before on this blog, but now that school is back in session it's a great time to remind our loyal readers about this set of books. One of Capstone Publishers' owners, Jim Coughlan, sent out a mandate to his staff a while ago: create books in which kids are everyday heroes, doing work that helps others.
Jim's children participated in the Kids Against Hunger (KAH) organization, a group that packages a nutritious meal that can be sent to starving children. (Read about two SAB staffers helping at a school working with KAH here.) That inspired us at SAB to create the first book in We Are Heroes, Kids Against Hunger. Five other books followed, about normal, run-of-the mill kids doing such things as taking care of animals in the aftermath of a storm, participating in a bike ride to help a homeless shelter, building a house with Habitat for Humanity, and more.
We wanted to show readers that some heroes are made by doing good to help others. Oh, and we wanted to tell some good stories, too!
Check out all six of the We Are Heroes books here.
We've talked about the We Are Heroes series before on this blog, but now that school is back in session it's a great time to remind our loyal readers about this set of books. One of Capstone Publishers' owners, Jim Coughlan, sent out a mandate to his staff a while ago: create books in which kids are everyday heroes, doing work that helps others.
Jim's children participated in the Kids Against Hunger (KAH) organization, a group that packages a nutritious meal that can be sent to starving children. (Read about two SAB staffers helping at a school working with KAH here.) That inspired us at SAB to create the first book in We Are Heroes, Kids Against Hunger. Five other books followed, about normal, run-of-the mill kids doing such things as taking care of animals in the aftermath of a storm, participating in a bike ride to help a homeless shelter, building a house with Habitat for Humanity, and more.
We wanted to show readers that some heroes are made by doing good to help others. Oh, and we wanted to tell some good stories, too!
Check out all six of the We Are Heroes books here.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Stone Arch Books's Fall '08 Catalog
Our new catalog is here! The marketing team finished working on it just two weeks ago, so it was a great surprise when finished copies showed up on our desks on Thursday afternoon.
This season, our catalog is full of tons of new books we’re really proud of. Our new series, Graphic Spin, does for fairy tales what Graphic Revolve did for classic stories—in each Graphic Spin book, a fairy tale is lavishly told in graphic-novel format. You’ve never seen fairy tales like this before!
In Graphic Sparks, we have new books in our Eek and Ack, School Zombies, Time Blasters, and Buzz Beaker series. We also have the first two books in a brand-new series, Zinc Alloy, written by our own Donald Lemke. Kids will love the escapades of Zack Allen, the world’s newest superhero.
Our Graphic Flash set has grown by four new books—all stories of war that will fit in wonderfully to American history classes. And Graphic Revolve contains four new classic stories.
Jake Maddox is back with twelve new books—four boy stories, four girl stories, and four new extreme outdoor adventure books. Our bestselling and well-reviewed Claudia Cristina Cortez set is back, too—with four more stories from Claudia’s point of view. We also have four new Vortex mysteries (including Curtains!: A High School Musical Mystery by our own Michael Dahl) and six new Shade Books, perfect for the kid who’s looking for a little bit of creepy suspense (that’s still safe!)
And we’ve mentioned the We Are Heroes series before on this blog. This new series contains six high-low books about ordinary kids making extraordinary changes in their communities. Whether it’s planting trees at school or painting a room in a house built by Habitat for Humanity, these books show real ways kids can make differences. (And, of course, proceeds from the book Kids Against Hunger will go to the nonprofit organization Kids Against Hunger™.)
These books aren’t available yet, but they will be on July 15. Keep your eye on this blog for more information about all of our new products over the next couple of months! Take a look at all of our books, or request a catalog of your own, at www.stonearchbooks.com.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Kids Against Hunger in action
On Friday, Krista Monyhan and I drove to Mankato, MN to take part in a really special opportunity. We headed to Franklin Elementary School, where the school principal had contacted Kids Against Hunger and organized a special volunteering day for the kids there. As we’ve mentioned before in this blog, we have a book (which I edited) coming out this summer about Kids Against Hunger, and it was my first chance to get to see for myself what the organization does.
When Krista and I arrived at Franklin Elementary, the day was already in full swing. We entered a noisy, crowded gym, where five long tables had been set up. Ten kids (and two adult supervisors), each wearing a special Kids Against Hunger apron and a hairnet* were at each table. The tables were covered with big plastic containers, each full of a different component of the special rice-soy casserole. As we watched, the kids scooped up rice, soy, dried vegetables, and “chicken” powder**. Each scoop went into a funnel, which led to a plastic bag with cooking instructions and nutrition facts. Once the bag was full, one of the kids brought it to the weighers, who made sure that the package was the right weight. If it wasn’t, they’d add or subtract some ingredients. Then another kid sealed the package using a special heat-sealing machine, and passed it on to be packed into a box.
None of these jobs sounds particularly thrilling for a kid, but it was incredible to see how all of the kids in the room were working together. They’d race, trying to fill more boxes than the table next to them. They’d relay orders--"less rice! More soy!"--and box counts down the line. Every so often, they’d trade jobs, so that everyone got a chance to try different parts of the line. And they kept saying “Come on, it’s for the kids! Hurry up, it’s for the kids!”
As I helped one fifth-grade girl learn to use the sealing machine, another girl looked at me and said, “I’ve been helping Kids Against Hunger for like, longer than I can remember.” I smiled and said, “That’s great! Today’s my first time.” But I have the feeling it won’t be my last—it was such a fun experience, made even more fun by a really great group of kids and their teachers, and other volunteers for Kids Against Hunger.
While Krista and I were there (and we were only there for half of the day!), the kids packaged enough food to make more than twenty thousand meals. That’s a lot of good, filling, healthy food for people who don’t have enough to eat—and all it took was one afternoon, a gymnasium, and a bunch of really great kids. These are exactly the kind of kids we had in mind when we came up with our series We Are Heroes (which includes the book Kids Against Hunger)—everyday, ordinary kids doing extraordinary things.
You can learn more about Kids Against Hunger at their website. And we’ll give you more information about our book Kids Against Hunger when it’s available for purchase.
--Beth Brezenoff
Senior Editor, Stone Arch Books
* I thought the kids would be embarrassed to be wearing hairnets, but no! At first, they seemed hesitant—when we handed out the hairnets to a new group of kids, one of them said, “Well, we look dumb, but at least we ALL look dumb.” But by the end of each session, they were begging to be able to keep their hairnets.
** The chicken powder is vegetarian, to accommodate the needs of various diets throughout the world.
Krista Monyhan and Beth Brezenoff at Franklin Elementary School.
When Krista and I arrived at Franklin Elementary, the day was already in full swing. We entered a noisy, crowded gym, where five long tables had been set up. Ten kids (and two adult supervisors), each wearing a special Kids Against Hunger apron and a hairnet* were at each table. The tables were covered with big plastic containers, each full of a different component of the special rice-soy casserole. As we watched, the kids scooped up rice, soy, dried vegetables, and “chicken” powder**. Each scoop went into a funnel, which led to a plastic bag with cooking instructions and nutrition facts. Once the bag was full, one of the kids brought it to the weighers, who made sure that the package was the right weight. If it wasn’t, they’d add or subtract some ingredients. Then another kid sealed the package using a special heat-sealing machine, and passed it on to be packed into a box.
None of these jobs sounds particularly thrilling for a kid, but it was incredible to see how all of the kids in the room were working together. They’d race, trying to fill more boxes than the table next to them. They’d relay orders--"less rice! More soy!"--and box counts down the line. Every so often, they’d trade jobs, so that everyone got a chance to try different parts of the line. And they kept saying “Come on, it’s for the kids! Hurry up, it’s for the kids!”
As I helped one fifth-grade girl learn to use the sealing machine, another girl looked at me and said, “I’ve been helping Kids Against Hunger for like, longer than I can remember.” I smiled and said, “That’s great! Today’s my first time.” But I have the feeling it won’t be my last—it was such a fun experience, made even more fun by a really great group of kids and their teachers, and other volunteers for Kids Against Hunger.
While Krista and I were there (and we were only there for half of the day!), the kids packaged enough food to make more than twenty thousand meals. That’s a lot of good, filling, healthy food for people who don’t have enough to eat—and all it took was one afternoon, a gymnasium, and a bunch of really great kids. These are exactly the kind of kids we had in mind when we came up with our series We Are Heroes (which includes the book Kids Against Hunger)—everyday, ordinary kids doing extraordinary things.
You can learn more about Kids Against Hunger at their website. And we’ll give you more information about our book Kids Against Hunger when it’s available for purchase.
--Beth Brezenoff
Senior Editor, Stone Arch Books
* I thought the kids would be embarrassed to be wearing hairnets, but no! At first, they seemed hesitant—when we handed out the hairnets to a new group of kids, one of them said, “Well, we look dumb, but at least we ALL look dumb.” But by the end of each session, they were begging to be able to keep their hairnets.
** The chicken powder is vegetarian, to accommodate the needs of various diets throughout the world.
Krista Monyhan and Beth Brezenoff at Franklin Elementary School.Monday, May 12, 2008
Kids Against Hunger
This season, we worked on a book about a really special organization, Kids Against Hunger. Kids Against Hunger (KAH), which works to eliminate starvation worldwide, was featured on the Minneapolis ABC affiliate last night (May 11). You can watch the story here. In this powerful, moving segment, Emmy Award-winning reporter Jason Davis travels to a KAH feeding site in Haiti with KAH founder Richard Proudfit and the director of KAH's Mankato, MN division, Tim Stromer.
Stone Arch Books will publish Kids Against Hunger in Fall ‘08. The book, part of our “We Are Heroes” series, is one of six new books that focus on kids making a difference in their communities. Stone Arch Books will donate the profits from the sale of our Kids Against Hunger book to the organization.
Keep an eye on our website and this blog for more information. We’ll tell you more about our Kids Against Hunger book and the other books in the "We Are Heroes" series when the books are available in August.
Stone Arch Books will publish Kids Against Hunger in Fall ‘08. The book, part of our “We Are Heroes” series, is one of six new books that focus on kids making a difference in their communities. Stone Arch Books will donate the profits from the sale of our Kids Against Hunger book to the organization.
Keep an eye on our website and this blog for more information. We’ll tell you more about our Kids Against Hunger book and the other books in the "We Are Heroes" series when the books are available in August.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
