When our son Nathaniel was two years old, he would come into the living room shouting, “Mommy, Daddy, come see! It’s fun raising on TV!” And he was hard to resist.
Walking into our bedroom with the TV on, we’d see the announcer who had just told kids, at a break in the programming, to go get their parents–for the fundraising.
I wish I could come to you with the glee of a two-year-old about Fun Raising! But what I can offer is something perhaps as persuasive– though that may be hard to imagine:
Connecting the world through shared dreams.
We’re not “interrupting our programming” to do this, but I want to tell you what Cloud Cloth Programming included this past year.
In 2017:
- We supported and connected more than 80 teachers from 69 different sites who did something that otherwise wouldn’t happen in schools: declaring and sharing dreams to facilitate trust and community.
- We gave every one of our 10,046 students from age 3-18 an audience for their flags, and a metaphor to remember that we’re all connected– the line of flags in their hallway and the other lines around the world.
- We created a global celebration of dreams, centered at The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, but reaching as far as a remote mountaintop orphanage in Tanzania.
- We released the beta Dreamline mobile app and made a space for each student’s voice–literally–in the crowded world of online information.
- We wrote new lesson plans, answered calls and questions, gave instructional workshops, did Skype inservice programs, and whatever it took to bring a common experience to 10,046 students from the USA, China, Belize, France, Macedonia, Morocco, Romania, and Tanzania.
Of course we’re not stopping all that while we ask you for the money to keep it going. One look at headlines and you’ll know why.
In the coming year the programming of Cloud Cloth Education AND the responsibilities of Cloud Cloth Education will expand rapidly with your help, providing:
- Dream Path: A pilot program to explore the analysis of Dream Flags in a school community, determine common dreams, and work with area resources to provide educational programming directed at students’ dreams.
- Dreamline App: Full inclusion of social media friendly and searchable Dream Flags through Dreamline, reaching participants and supporters around the world.
- The Dreamline Program: Continued support of Dreamline programming and operation.
- Material & Markers: Sending cloth and other flag supplies to schools who lack them.
- What it Takes: Workshops, inservice programs, and full-on support for the teachers who bring dream sharing into their classrooms.
- A Free Program: Lesson plans and online platforms to connect students to their dreams and each other.
- Inclusive Community: Programs such as the annual National Constitution Center celebration, the Martin Luther King Day Festival, and the Dreams In Transit exhibition. Also one to one school connection programs, such as the Dreams and Friendship Exchange and the iEarn Youth Forum.
To reach these goals, we need to raise $25,000 through our Annual Campaign.
And if we can exceed that amount? That means more reach, more community, more resources delivered to those communities to support students becoming true to their dreams and the world.
So pick a cloud and join us.
Make Your Own Cloud
provides what you wish
$20 Cumulous
provides materials and program for one classroom
$200 Stratus
provides materials and program for a grade level
$2,000 Altocumulus
provides materials and program for an average school
$20,000 Altostratus
provides materials and program for a district
Contact jharlan@CloudClothEducation for donation details.
$200,000 Cirrocumulus
provides materials and program for a state-wide program
Contact jharlan@CloudClothEducation for donation details.
$2,000,000 Cumulonimbus
provides materials and programs for the USA or equivalent
Contact jharlan@CloudClothEducation for donation details.
$20,000,000 Atmosphere
provides materials and programs for the world.
Contact jharlan@CloudClothEducation for donation details.
info.dreamline 