Nicholas Sparks: Patron of High School Track!

Nicholas Sparks, who is one of the more popular authors with our students at The Unquiet Library, is more than just a romantic writer who makes us all cry and go through an entire box of Kleenex in one sitting!  It turns out that Sparks is not only passionate about writing books, but he is also someone who demonstrates great zeal for high school running and track!  Read more about how Sparks has supported one high school’s track program with more than words at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/sports/othersports/14sparks.html?ref=othersports .

In North Carolina, an Author Underwrites a Successful Track Program - NYTimes.com

 

Your Help Is Needed: The Johnston Tornado Relief Fund

As many of our readers know, our community suffered incredible devastation  this past Tuesday when a tornado roared through the Johnston Elementary community off East Cherokee Drive.   This sister elementary school in the Cherokee County School District is only a few miles to our west.  Nearly one in 10 students at the school are victims of the violent storm.  While we are thankful no one was killed or seriously injured, many families suffered severe damage to their homes. 

How can you help?  Dr. Keith Ingram, principal of the school, has established the Johnston Tornado Relief Fund.  You can read more about the fund and the impact of the storm on the studnts at http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=116323&catid=39 .  The school hopes to raise $5,000 in donations before the school year ends next Thursday, May 29.  The school is asking people and businesses to bring in gift cards, canned foods, boxes of food, clothing, books that they don’t need.  You can send monetary and gift cards donations to:

Johnston Elementary School
2031 East Cherokee Drive
Woodstock Ga 30188

Please indicate you read about this worthy cause on The Unquiet Library blog, the blog of the Creekview High School Media Center.  Thank you for any help you can provide!

The Go Overboard Challenge Grant

We just found out about this exciting opportunity for our students and clubs at Readergirlz.com.  This would be a WONDERFUL class project, club project, or individual project for Creekview students!

Community Challenge: Go Overboard Challenge Grant

This month we’re challenging readergirlz to Go Overboard with an idea to make a difference — and win a Go Overboard Challenge Grant to put your plan into action.

Burton Snowboards and award-winning author / readergirlz co-founder Justina Chen Headley are co-sponsoring the Go Overboard Challenge Grant with Youth Venture to fund the best youth-led ideas to change the world.

Commit to a cause you’re already passionate about - whether it’s saving the environment, ending world hunger, or protecting endangered species. With the help of local Vermont maple syrup makers (Green Mountain Sugar House), Olympic Gold medalist Hannah Teter bottles Hannah’s Gold to earn money for AIDS orphans in Africa. Justina co-founded readergirlz - our online book community - to promote literacy in teen girls. Syrah in Justina’s novel Girl Overboard spearheaded a huge snowboarding event to raise awareness for cancer. So think about a problem and figure out a solution!

Then tell us how you, your club, your team, or your entire school will Go Overboard by:
* forming a team (two or more persons) and filling out an action plan
* proposing a new sustainable organization (venture) to address a problem you have identified in your school, neighborhood, community, the world!

The best ideas will win one of 12 grants, each worth $1000, to help them realize their vision.

To learn more about the Go Overboard Challenge Grant, click here.

The rest of the divas want to thank Justina for making Syrah such an inspirational character in Girl Overboard and for working so hard on this grant opportunity with Burton Snowboards, Youth Venture, and Hannah Teter. You’re always right out there in front with a giving spirit.

Our challenge to all you readergirlz: Go Overboard with an idea now. May the best reach-out readergirl win a Go Overboard Grant!

Do You Love Animals? Chestatee Wildlife Preserve Needs Your Help!

Chestatee Wildlife Preserve is a Georgia 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and fully licensed rescue, exotic animal and wildlife preserve. The Preserve is funded through guest admission fees, corporate, and personal donations.  The preserve is experiencing a water shortage because two of the three wells have run dry; the preserve needs at least 3000 gallons a day to properly hydrate the animals in their care.  You can read more about this crisis at http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/article/921/ and http://www.wsbtv.com/drought/14452048/detail.html . 

If you love animals and would like to help, the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve can use any donation of water or money to buy water.  Bottled water must be sealed and new. (No refilled bottles)  The preserve also welcomes any water trucks. The preserve is located at:

Chestatee Wildlife Preserve
469 Old Dahlonega Highway
Dahlonega, Georgia 30533 

orvisit http://www.chestateewildlifepreserve.org/ for more information.

JROTC Kicks Off Holiday Drive!

Thank you CRHS community for your support to JROTC and the Army unit that JRTOC sponsors in Iraq.   As many of you know, we (JROTC) are making a shipment at the end of the month to send the soldiers Holiday Greetings.  As a special gift to each soldier, we are supporting Chaplain Turner’s Christmas stocking gift drive.  We have committed to providing 50 stockings.  We have the stockings, and now we are looking for the stuffing.  We will take all donations, but here are the priority items we need.

•   Holiday Greeting cards addressed to “Any Soldier” (as many as we can get!)
•   Hard candy, non-perishable snacks, and beef jerky.
•   60 minute domestic phone cards.  We need 50 of them minimum, and we want each soldier to receive same type These cards will allow the troops to call home on Christmas. 

All morale items received will ship, but these are what we need most.  Several clubs and classes are assisting us, and we thank you for your continued support.  The Unquiet Library will be glad to help deliver any donations students or faculty wish to make to this worthy cause!

Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels in the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art

ATLANTA – Oglethorpe University’s Philip Weltner Library will present the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels in the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art for one weekend only – Friday, October 26, through Sunday, October 28. This is the southeast region’s only opportunity to view the copies of these ancient manuscripts.  

The Book of Kells is an ornately illustrated manuscript which glorifies the life of Christ. Produced by Irish monks around 800 AD in the style known as Insular art, it is one of the more lavishly illuminated manuscripts to survive from the Middle Ages and had been described as the zenith of Western calligraphy and illumination. It contains the four gospels of the Bible in Latin, decorated with numerous colorful illustrations. Of the 680 pages all but two are decorated with beautiful symbolic imagery which is woven into countless intricate designs. The facsimile provides a perfect replica of the original manuscript and has also been hand-bound.  

The Lindisfarne Gospels is one of the world’s masterpieces of manuscript painting. An opulent and richly decorated gospel book, the Lindisfarne Gospels was created in the early eighth century for ceremonial use at the monastery of Lindisfarne in the northeast of England. The manuscript’s main text is also a Latin version of the four gospels. This is a revision of the Latin Bible made in the late fourth century and widely used throughout the western world. The Gospels contains 15 elaborate fully decorated pages, featuring ornament of extraordinary intricacy.  

For more information please call 404.364.8514 or visit http://www.oglethorpe.edu/news/press_releases/2007/book_of_kells.asp .

Light the Way with United Way: 2007 Campaign Kickoff!

Today is the kickoff for our school United Way Campaign 2007!  Our school goal is to raise $3000.00 by Friday, October 12.  You can make a contribution in The Media Center—just drop by and drop your pennies or other loose change in to our donation jar!  How does your contribution to United Way help?  Here are just a few of the great services United Way provides to our community:

• United Way supports over 400 local metro Atlanta agencies!
• Supports programs to help children and youth!
• Provides programs to strengthen families to help moms and dads be better parents!
• Community programs to promote self-sufficiency!
• Programs to create safer neighborhoods and more citizen involvement!
• Community programs to help  individuals and families have the resources to meet basic needs!

For those of you who are not familiar with United Way and where your contributions will help others, learn more by watching the following videos. Make sure your sound is turned on. Videos:
(right click and “save as” for best performance)
2007 Campaign video: 63.5 MB (avi), 62.9 MB (mp4) or 16.9 MB low-res (wmv)

Come by The Unquiet Library to make your donation, large or small, today!!!