A Hermes Creative Award

Flying Pig Ranch Studios Wins Hermes Award for Second Year
Again in 2011 the prestigious Hermes Creative award is presented to Flying Pig Ranch Studios for their work with the Autism Society. Thanks to Flying Pig Ranch for being such wonderful partners in every way!

West Palm Beach, Florida (PRWEB) May 31, 2011 — FPR STUDIOS (aka Flying Pig Ranch) has won a second Hermes award for their production of “The Time Is Now.” This four-minute video was produced as a fund raiser for the Autism Society designed to stress the support needs of the Society’s ongoing assistance to the autistic community. The script for the original production was written by Amanda Glensky media specialist of the Autism Society and was produced at FPR Studios sound stage in West Palm Beach Florida.

The coveted Hermes gold statue is the second award given to FPR Studios with Platinum awarded last year for FPR Studios’ production of “Look Where I Stand.”

Hermes international awards are given for creative professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of traditional and emerging media. Hermes Creative Awards recognizes outstanding work in the industry while promoting the philanthropic nature of marketing and communication professionals.

There were over 4,400 entries from throughout the United States, Canada and several other countries in the Hermes Creative Awards 2011 competition. Entries came from corporate marketing and communication departments, advertising agencies, PR firms, design shops, production companies and freelancers.

Hermes Creative Awards is administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (http://www.amcpros.com). The international organization consists of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, media production and free-lance professionals. AMCP oversees awards and recognition programs, provides judges and rewards outstanding achievement and service to the profession.

The Time Is Now from Flying Pig Ranch Studios on Vimeo.

Springfield Class of 2010 steps into the future

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The members of the Springfield Township High School Class of 2010 entered their high school stadium for the last time Wednesday evening, rounded the curve of the track together, waved and smiled to their families and took their seats center field for commencement.

Together they stood for the national anthem and cheered for their class presidents, principal, teachers and fellow students.

And together they danced in the middle of the field, heeding the call of their faculty speaker, social studies teacher Chris Dwyer.

“Welcome to celebration. Welcome to the rite of passage. Welcome to commencement 2010,” Dwyer said. “Class of 2010 please rise now and prepare to dance with Dr. D. Get up!”

The young men and women proudly wore their blue and white robes as they received their high school diplomas. Of the 160 graduates, 152 plan to pursue higher level education. Four will serve in the military, and four will join the workforce, Superintendent Wendy Royer announced.

Senior class co-Presidents Ashley Gbemudu and Emily Ball kicked off commencement and reminded their peers they will always be a part of the Class of 2010.

“It has been quite the journey. Some of us have been together for 13 years or just a few,” Emily said.

“Be proud of what you have achieved both in school and out, both as an individual and as a class,” Ashley said.

Valedictorian Andrew Seredinski used numbers to detail the Class of 2010’s journey, counting down from 13 years of school, 12 grades past kindergarten to six homerooms in high school and five subjects — all leading to one moment, where they all sat at that present time on the football field, he said.

“We will go to untold places and have unexpected experiences. Past today, though we may not seek adventure, we will all be on a grand safari of self-exploration,” Andrew said. “Our paths will twist in unpredictable ways, but if we want something, it can be had. And if we want to hold on to some aspect of the past, then hold on we shall. Because clinging to something is not a stubborn inability to let go, but a wise acknowledgment that not everything has to come to an end.”

Andrew also acknowledged the teachers: “For the lessons intended and unintended. Content related and off-topic, serious and silly. We salute you, our instructors.”

Salutatorian Caroline Repola celebrated that all students had a different experience at Springfield but would leave together.

“Today we all find our place here on this field. Sitting on the chairs, adrenaline rushing through our veins, all feeling the excitement, whether we want to or not, of graduating,” she said. “One by one we walk up on this stage to get our diploma. But together we will graduate, together we will say ‘hello’ to the real world, together we will brace ourselves for the unfamiliar.”

While trying to figure out how to address the Class of 2010, high school Principal Gregory Puckett was unsure whether to focus more on the fun times — when he purposely mispronounced students’ names for a laugh, or when the Italian foreign exchange students visited this spring — or to congratulate the students on sports awards and a successful production of the “Wizard of Oz.”

Also notable, he said, are two graduating seniors who were recognized as National Merit Scholars this year.

He chose to share with them advice for their futures and decided to draw on the philosophies of Dr. Seuss.

“Be courageous, try new things. As we sit here today your world lies ahead of you rich with the challenges, successes and even failures,” Puckett said. “One thing is certain. It is your willingness to courageously move forward through the life that will open new doors for you.

“And have the courage to tackle the unknown, for we don’t know whether we will like something until we try — even eggs that are green.”

Be creative and have fun, he added. Be your own Cat in the Hat and don’t stay inside on a rainy day.

As the faculty speaker, the occasion was momentous for Dwyer, also known as “Coach,” who is retiring after almost 20 years in the district.

“Class of 2010, we’re leaving together — we’re out of here!” he said.

After a brief hiatus of dancing the “stanky foot” and the “funky Broadway,” with the students, he addressed them with a message to aspire to be the next great generation like their grandparents and great-grandparents.

“Hold on to your principles, but don’t be afraid to compromise for the common good,” he said. “All I can say to you is that if you live your lives with integrity, dignity, loyalty and acceptance of responsibility you’ll do just fine.”

Before handing diplomas to the graduates, Royer told them it had been an honor and a privilege to be a part of their senior year.

“On behalf of the board of school directors, administration, teachers and staff, I congratulate you on your accomplishments, I thank you for your contributions to the district and I wish you great success,” she said

Springfield Sun, 6/17

A June evening is the perfect time for Moonlight and Roses

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Spring-like pink and camel suit jackets paired with yellow and green ties and sundresses in bright blues and greens and soft purples and pinks were the dress code for hundreds of guests June 11 at the Morris Arboretum’s 31st annual Moonlight and Roses fundraising gala.

The Friday-evening soirée began with 6 p.m. cocktails and hors d’oeuvres followed by outdoor dinner and dancing. A portion of the proceeds from this year’s event will support the summer concert series, four Thursday night outdoor concerts in July and August. The remaining funds will go to annual operations of the arboretum.

“I think this is one of the most beautiful places in Philadelphia. It’s right in our backyard and we should support it,” Jane Good, Flourtown, said while mingling in the arboretum’s rose garden.

The guests of honor at this year’s Moonlight and Roses were Peter and Bonnie MacCausland, longtime friends and supporters of the Morris Arboretum — they belonged to the search committee that hired Executive Director Paul Meyer — who recently purchased Erdenheim Farm, a 450-acre estate in Springfield and Whitemarsh townships. They are preparing to move to the property from Chestnut Hill.

“This is the most incredible place in Philadelphia,” Peter said. “They’ve transformed this place in the last 20 years into a nationally recognized arboretum.”

The MacCauslands’ interest in Erdenheim Farm comes from a desire to help other organizations to preserve the open space and to fulfill a more personal wish.

“I always wanted to live on a farm,” Peter said.

Barrett Stewart and Lisa Walker, co-chairwomen of this year’s Moonlight and Roses, said the event was sold out. Six-hundred fifty tickets were sold for cocktails and just under 500 for dinner, they said.

Robin Waché of Maple Glen, who co-chaired last year’s event, has attended Moonlight and Roses for the past 12 years with her husband, Bertrand.

“It’s really an opportunity to showcase the gardens in their height of glory, on a beautiful June evening,” she said.

It is also an opportunity to chat and catch up with friends and network, she added.

Each year, members select a different part of the garden to benefit from the proceeds of the event, she said. What she hopes is that more University of Pennsylvania graduates learn about the arboretum and take advantage of what it offers, she said.

“What’s really amazing is that it is really a hidden treasure within the city of Philadelphia,” she said.

- Springfield Sun 6/14

Bulletin to clarify families’ health-care rights

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Abigail Sandler, Lafayette Hill, and a group of passionate advocates on the local and state levels believe no family should have to endure a struggle against health-care providers when it comes to making a life or death decision for a loved one.

Inspired by Abigail’s younger sister, Aimee, who suffered profound physical and development disorders during her life, the group has spent the past four years pushing for the Procedures for Surrogate Healthcare Decision Making Bulletin, which will be made official this summer.

The bulletin will clarify existing Pennsylvania legislation regarding families’ rights when advocating for a loved one with special needs. One of the major components, and the one most important to Abigail, is that a health-care provider being paid to care for an individual may not participate in life or death decisions, she said.

If an individual is declared incompetent, either a family member or a guardian will be assigned to make decisions for the individual, not a health-care provider, such as a group home, she said.

“We arrived at a policy that is pro-family, that is pro-consumer, that makes it very clear that, in the final analysis, decisions about health care and life decisions are best made in a family environment,” Pennsylvania Deputy Secretary for Development Programs Kevin Casey said at a press conference and celebration at Keystone House, Wyndmoor, May 27. “They are best made with family present and making the decisions.”

Frequently in Pennsylvania and other states, the rules regarding surrogate care have been contradictory, allowing for health-care officials to ignore family issues, which happens far too often, Casey said. The problem with unclear guidelines is that they lead to inconsistent practices, he added.

The team, which included Casey, Abigail and Gail Inderwies, president and CEO of Keystone Hospice, began its work in 2006.

It appears the bulletin will be certified by the end of June, Casey said.

Aimee died at the age of 52. She loved music and the color red. “Sunrise, Sunset” from the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” was played at her funeral.

Her sister Abigail, six years her senior, knows firsthand the challenges of advocating for a disabled person.

Aimee became the poster child for everything that could go wrong within the system, Abigail said. Aimee was “medically fragile,” requiring many life or death decisions over the years, visits to emergency rooms and placement in group homes, she added.

She had suffered terrible pain from misdiagnosis and was at the center of a legal debate in which her older sister had to fight a group home against giving Aimee a feeding tube. The Montgomery County group home wanted to insert a feeding tube into Aimee after she had stopped eating, and when Abigail prevailed in court, the group home refused to continue to care for her sister.

After all was said and done, and Aimee had been living at Keystone Hospice for three months, a search through her medical records in March 2006 revealed she had gallstones and a chronic, severely diseased gallbladder, none of which was ever communicated to Abigail.

The gallbladder was immediately removed, and Aimee returned to eating her favorite foods — chocolate chip cookies and chocolate pudding — like a champ, Abigail said.

Aimee was well enough to leave the hospice and did not return until the days leading up to her death. She needed an aspiration tube, but it would have made her very uncomfortable, given the state of her body, Abigail said.

“I’m happy to share that no other Aimee within the great state of Pennsylvania will ever have to endure what Aimee endured at the hands of a broken system,” Abigail said. “I believe going forward the new procedures for surrogate health-care decision-making absolutely avoid any confusion or misinterpretation around the end of life decision-making process for special needs individuals.”

After challenging the health-care providers on Aimee’s behalf, Abigail and Inderwies stormed into Casey’s life four years ago with the goal of making Aimee’s legacy one that would protect the future for developmentally disabled people.

“Her undue and great suffering made us realize other people should not suffer,” said Inderwies, who lost her own brother to a developmental disability during her childhood. Inderwies is also a member of the Springfield Township School Board.

“Hopefully this will be the beginning — because I believe we are not done yet — the beginning that will stop some of this undue suffering of people who are very special and need us to protect them,” she said.

At the end of the ceremony, Abigail unveiled a bench in the Keystone Hospice garden engraved with Aimee’s name in hopes, she said, that it will bring healing to those who live there.

- Springfield Sun 6/4/10

Schoolhouse founder to retire

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Christine Dewees retired from the Springfield Township School District more than two decades ago — but not really.

After 25 subsequent years as the director of the Schoolhouse in Flourtown, Dewees plans to retire for good this June.

“I’ll miss the hugs, but it’s time,” Dewees, 75, said at her office May 18.

A paper chain made up of 16 links flopped over the top of a wooden bookcase to symbolize her final 16 days at the school. Each day until her retirement, she will remove one link until none are left.

Dewees recently moved from an apartment inside of the Schoolhouse building into a retirement community, just eight minutes away on Ridge Pike. She didn’t expect the move would happen so soon, but a unit opened back in February.

“I’ve had 25 years here, what could be better?” she said. “Heaven only knows what will happen next.”

Dewees grew up around the Germantown and Mount Airy sections of Philadelphia. She attended Olney High School and West Chester University, back when it was West Chester State Teachers College.

She spent her entire teaching career in the Springfield Township School District, teaching there for 30 years. She worked at Erdenheim Elementary School when the former building was new, and then at a small district-owned school that functioned almost as a small private school for students needing special education.

In 1978, Dewees and another woman decided to buy the Schoolhouse, which had been owned by the school district but closed its doors in the 1970s and was being used for storage. Their plan was to live in two converted apartments in the building and establish a nursery school.

Dewees retired from the district in 1986 and devoted all of her efforts to the Schoolhouse.

She has always thought that the school district sold the building to her because it wanted to keep the school for the children. This allowed her to continue doing what she loved — being with children, parents and teachers — but in a different capacity, she said.

“I’ve always been a teacher,” Dewees said. “You can’t go into teaching if you don’t love it.”

“You just love children, Chris,” added Pat Watkins, a science teacher at the Schoolhouse, its financial administrator and a close friend of Dewees.

Notes past and present students wrote to Dewees on the eve of her retirement suggest the feeling is mutual.

“You made magical things happened and so I am lucky to be there with you, over magical years,” wrote a girl named Charlotte.

Matt wrote, “You gave me the power to move on!” and Libby wrote, “I will miss you so much and I still do at St. Gen’s.”

“She’s a wonderful person, she’s a good friend to all of us, as well as being a boss,” said Watkins, who has been with the school 22 years. “She’s wonderful to the children. She treats them as her responsibility.”

Some of these children have grown up and come back to the Schoolhouse to work while in their early 20s.

“It’s a very long-term relationship,” Dewees said “I’ll be in touch with these people. That kind of thing doesn’t go away.”

Dewees also isn’t planning on cutting ties immediately with the operations of the school. Next school year the Schoolhouse will welcome younger children, thanks to a merger of the Schoolhouse and the nursery school of Carson Valley Children’s Aid, Flourtown. The school will serve children 2 years old through kindergarten.

While she plans to assist in the transition, Dewees’ retirement will also be spent gardening and enjoying a new cat, a companion she felt she couldn’t adopt while working at the preschool because she wouldn’t have had the time to give it proper attention, she said.

The school day begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m., but Dewees leaves for work at 6:10 a.m. so she can feed the school rabbit and take care of other matters.

And after not setting foot in a shopping mall for 20 years, Dewees has plans for a mall outing with Watkins.

But she will still have those memories of the hugs — those in which the children wrapped their hands around her legs and almost knocked her down, she said.

District finds cost reduction in special ed

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The School District of Springfield Township saved about $700,000 last year by establishing its own program for special needs students instead of sending them to the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, according to Pupil Services and Special Education Director Sylvia Sanfilippo-Cohn.

“I’ve been at Springfield for 15 years, and I have been attempting to build capacity to provide appropriate services within the school district for as many special needs children as possible,” Cohn said in an interview Tuesday.

The savings represent the tuition that the district no longer pays to the IU for children with autism to attend an extended school year, a summer program mandated for the most challenged students who might lose too many skills during summer vacation, Cohn said.

Springfield has sponsored a pilot ESY program at the high school for the past two years, and last month the school board voted to make that program permanent. Seventeen students will participate in the ESY program this summer, Cohn said.

“We’ve been very successful, so we’re making it a permanent program,” she said.

Some of the district’s savings are being used to finance its own program, but the cost of holding it in Springfield is much less than at the IU, and the district also saves on transportation costs, she said.

Hosting its own programs also opens the district to more funding. Special needs students who have individualized education programs are eligible for medical assistance reimbursement called ACCESS, which offsets the cost of support such as nursing care and occupational, speech and language therapies, she said.

When the children are placed outside of the district, the district doesn’t get that revenue, she said. Currently, about a third of eligible parents have signed up for ACCESS, Cohn said. It would be helpful if all signed up because it assists the costs of special education, which are pretty high, and helps the taxpayer, she said.

Outside of the cost-cutting benefits, hosting ESY within the district also lets the administration monitor its programs for quality, Cohn said. In her proposal to the school board, Cohn wrote that there is no control over programming or the caliber of staff at the IU. Parents have been exasperated with the IU in the past, she wrote.

As a result of this push to provide services within the district instead of sending students out, the district has developed a variety of programs, Cohn said.

For example, the district offers a part-time learning support program for students from kindergarten to age 21 that provides functional life skills and prevocational training. This program began about seven years ago.

“I no longer use any of the life skills programs at the IU,” Cohn said. The first 21-year-old graduated from the program last year, she added.

Now only two students in the district attend class at the IU. Four others attend approved private schools for emotional and mental support, Cohn said.

Next, she is looking to develop a support program at the middle school for children with autism, and another at the high school by 2011, she said.

Hatboro residents return from Haiti mission

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From April 18 to 24, six residents of Hatboro — a group made up of a construction worker, a school president, business and medical professionals — donated their time to rebuilding a devastated post-earthquake Haiti.

Jeff Preston, Michael Ostrander, Steve Guenst, Rick McHale and Dennis and Kathy Gleason, helped to reopen a school in an orphanage outside of Port au Prince, in a village just far enough away that it dodged major devastation from the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that occurred in January. The volunteers went on behalf of the nonprofit organization Heart 911.

“I felt like everything we did was still only a small drop in the bucket compared to what the country needs. But I think we helped out the orphanage quite a bit,” Dennis said. “It’s one of those things where what you do may only help 10, but there’s thousands in need.”

The team worked from 5 a.m. to almost 7 p.m. rebuilding desks and blackboards so the Love a Child orphanage in Fond Parisean, Haiti, could reopen after the building had been used as a hospital to accommodate the many injured. Much of the original blackboards and desks had to be burned for fuel or because they were contaminated by disease.

When the volunteers finished their main job they also repaired X-ray tables, washing machines and general pluming problems at the facility.

“It was a mixed group and mostly everybody’s talents were put to use in different ways,” Guenst said.

They slept in tents in the 90 degree heat, and were fortunate to stay in a secure region, they said. They had showers while volunteers elsewhere bathed themselves with buckets. They had potable water, and meals of rice and beans, sometimes spaghetti or goat meat.

One of the most unforgettable parts as expressed by the volunteers was working side by side with the Haitian people.

“They were never not busy. It’s their upbringing. They’re not a sit-around, do absolutely nothing people. They’re always trying to find a way helping themselves out of what they’re in right now,” Ostrander said.

Everyone surmounted the language barrier by “showing and doing,” he added. Most of the construction in Haiti involves concrete because the island doesn’t have much wood, but within three to four hours, Ostrander was amazed at how quickly and accurately the volunteers learned their tasks.

“I think the thing that was most tugging on all of our hearts was that every day a lot of the orphans from the orphanage would watch us work and eventually they would be a part of the team,” Kathy said.

The children took an interest in working with the wood scraps. If there wasn’t an available hammer, they used rocks to secure nails. Independently they made stools, bird houses and model churches from the scraps.

“They seemed to be proud of what they did,” Dennis said.

On the last day when the volunteers got to take a tour of the orphanage, they learned what the children did with their creations: they colored them and displayed them in their rooms.

“It made us all feel very good,” Kathy said.

When they took a break from working, the group went to a nearby village called Laytan, which is located within a few miles of the orphanage. The orphanage supports the village with donations of food and clothes, said McHale, who brought soccer balls from home for the children. “It was like stepping back in time … no electric, no water, no plumbing, people living in mud and stick huts,” he said.

The volunteers also saw Port au Prince during their stay. Many people were living under gigantic tarps thrown over whatever they could find, Ostrander said.

“I was overwhelmed at the devastation, especially in Port au Prince. They tell you this and that and prepare for this, and it was just nothing that I’ve ever seen before,” Dennis said.

When the volunteers first arrived in the city after landing in Haiti, they saw tent cities and hundreds of people lying in the streets. “When the earth moved, everything came tumbling down,” Dennis added.

The volunteers said they would return to Haiti, and some are planning on returning to continue teaching the Haitian people how to build with wood.

“We sometimes take our own situation for granted and don’t realize how fortunate we are,” Preston said. “Seeing people from other countries sometimes brings that to life. I just look at it as it was an opportunity for me, an able-bodied person, to help out and lend a hand where I could.”

Love a Child is a nonprofit organization with outreach programs that include 13 schools in Haiti. The organization feeds and educates children and thousands of Haitian families, according to its website. Heart 911 has ongoing projects in Haiti, Ostrander said. Those who want to get involved can visit Heart911.org.