Looking far and wide, and into your jar of Peanut Butter – for college scholarships
In the Sallie Mae 2013 study on how America pays for college which surveyed 1,602 families, the average family covers 32 percent of their college costs with grants and scholarships. The majority of families who received scholarships report having received them from the college (61%), although families also report receiving scholarships from community and nonprofit groups (30%), and receiving state-based scholarships (18%). In 2012, the average scholarship awarded was $6,355, the highest level over the past five years. The study also revealed that of the parents surveyed, 63% said that having a discussion about earning scholarship money was one of the most important conversations they could have with their child when preparing for college.
Read the entire article, my latest in a series of articles about financing college at road2college.com.
Next up: Private vs. Public college. How to choose? If you have a story about why you chose one over the other: (financial costs, class size, prestige) let me know.
We Love a Challange!
as I settle into my new suburban home, I think about the changes I will someday like to make, and the pieces of furniture and decor accents I will someday like to buy. when I do, I hope to use reclaimed materials from the 7,000 homes that plan to be deconstructed from Detroit. Think of all that old-growth hardwood and beautiful detailing that once graced these beautiful homes. The Sunday Detroit Free Press’ business section contained a story of how 2014 promises to step up blight removal in Detroit. Let’s hope that is coupled with the sustainable practice of deconstruction. Spread the word and reblog this post!
We are working hard to make sure that deconstruction is a part of the efforts to remove blight. We have made a presentation to the Blight Task Force and have submitted a proposal to be on the deconstruction contractors list with the Detroit Land Bank. You can help! Spread the word and speak passionately about Reclaim Detroit. Come visit our warehouse and purchase one of our products.
Deconstructing 7,000 homes (that’s only 10% of estimates) would generate $458,000,000 in economic activity – 4x more powerful than if those homes were thrown in the landfill.
http://www.freep.com/article/20140105/BUSINESS06/301050038/Packard-I-375-blight-Gilbert
Before the Ball Drops on 2014, 10 tips for maximizing Financial Aid for College
Got plans for New Year’s Eve? Whether you are zipping up that sequined gown or are just snuggling on your jammies for a night of movies, have that conversation with your college-bound teen about how to finance that higher education. Read all about it in my next installation at road2college
Teenage Play Dates
Last week, my son’s music teacher approached parents like me – parents with kids who love playing music and performing for others- with what he thought would be a big imposition.
Would I mind picking up my child plus a few of their bandmates – and their instruments – at school and driving them around town on a December afternoon to play two different gigs?
Would I mind?
I was delighted!
Ever since the beginning of the school year, my son leaves the house at 6:15 on Monday and Tuesday mornings to make a 6:30 jazz band rehearsal. That’s A.M. That’s ungodly early for most and even harder for teen musicians.
But this is a dedicated bunch. And now they would have the opportunity to bring some Christmas joy through music to the Baldwin House in Birmingham and then play the lobby of the Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.
Of course, to me, wearing my Jewish goggles, this was the perfect opportunity for me to help my son and his bandmates perform a Christmas mitzvah. So, with my car loaded with six kids, a guitar, sax, bass, and I think a few brass instruments, we were off.
The Bloomfield HS Hills Jazz Band as well as the Bloomfield Hills HS String Ensemble alternatively played traditional and contemporary Christmas music to the delight of the residents of the Baldwin House. They came in walking, or with their walkers to take in the sweet strings and the bright jazz tunes. The only musician they could not hear, was my son.
Unfortunately, his guitar amp adapter fried out somewhere between the school and the gig. And in the middle of the gig, while the strings played we had the following text conversation.
Mom, can you see if there is a music store nearby to buy me a new adapter?
Now?
Yes, my adapter died and no one can hear me.
Sorry, but there is no way I can do that right now. You should have checked this before we left the house.
It was working, don’t make this out to be my fault
Again, I’m sorry there is nothing I can do for you now. Stop fiddling with your amp and stand up. You are performing.
But, they can’t hear me.
Fake it. The show must go on.
So, in this video, you may or may not see a young man on the floor fiddling with his amp and then at the last moment stand up and pretend to play his guitar.
In between gigs, after we loaded up the car with kids and instruments, I did have time to stop and buy some batteries to power his next guitar. I turned instantly from a villan into a hero. They were now playing the big room: the lobby at Beumont Hospital in Royal Oak.
Unless you are having a baby, or this is your place of employment, the hospital is a somber place to be. Especially this time of year. So what a nice gift it was for the musicians at BHHS to bring their talents to play in the hospital. The acoustics sounded fantastic. The strings sounded sweeter
and the jazz music sounded happier
Weary doctors and nurses and technicians stopped from their rounds to take a listen. Some caregivers of patients even started dancing in the lobby.
The afternoon gave me the opportunity to socialize with other roadie parents who had devoted the afternoon to driving and listening. One mom of a senior cello player told me that she was getting some ridicule for letting her son consider pursuing music in college. But she said music, and playing the cello is the one thing in school that holds his passion and attention.
As I listened and sipped a cup of coffee from the hospital cafeteria, I thought how lucky my son is to be in a school with such a great music program that thinks “outside the school,” to allow them to play in public places. I also thought about the kids just down the road in Detroit, who may not have a music program in their school. Because when it comes to tight budgets, music is seen as frivolous. A luxury that poorly performing schools with low testing students cannot afford.
The last sentence is the farthest thing from the truth.
I ask those who wish to cut music in schools: can common core make people want to dance? Want to make kids come to school at 6:30 in the morning? Can common core bring joy to a hospital or an assisted living facility the way music can?
This is my final post for 2013. I invite you to listen to these talented young musicians playing some holiday joy. Thank you for following my blog, for reading me and for writing to me.
Have a joyous Christmas and a happy 2014
Join me on the Road 2 College
For some us, it feels like we ourselves just graduated college.
How is it, that now we have children who are old enough to begin the college application process.
If you are a veteran college parent, or just getting started with having conversations with your teen about getting started down the path to college, I invite you read my series on the new online newsletter called road2college.
Let’s Explore Owls – with Owls: Michigan Owl Prowl
From the attic bedroom window in my Rochester home, deep deep in the night, you could hear the sound of a train. The (unwelcome but necessary) woosh of the two nearby highways. Then, every once in a while, an eerie sound could be heard: Whoo Whoo Hooooooo…. It was the Barred Owl who lived in a grove of woods up at the Cobbs Hill Reservoir.
Since moving to our development in suburban Detroit, things are a lot more quiet. I miss the sound of the trains. I don’t miss the woosh of the highway. But, and this is strange, because we live in a more wooded suburban area, I no longer hear any owls. And I miss that late-night hoot of that Barred owl very, very much.
Chouette rayée / Barred Owl (Photo credit: meantux)night Barred Owl hoot very much.
I’m not much of a birder. I leave that hobby up to my husband. He even has a life list. I like to hike. And if I hear a bird, I think, fantastic, what a beautiful song that bird has, now let’s move on. I don’t like standing in one place for too long for the sake of identifying or calling to a bird.
But, then again, those owls have a soft spot with me. So, the other morning, as I drowsily heard the report that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources would be hosting “Owl Prowl” evenings all over the state,I did some further investigation and found the one happening closest to our house.
Turns out it took place last Sunday night at Bald Mountain State Recreation Area in Auburn Hills. The free event attracted about 125 people of all ages for a talk, some s’mores by a campfire, and the hope of sighting some owls.
Around the campfire, our guides, members of the Audobon Society, explained the order of calling the owls. It turns out that the larger owls tend to eat the smaller screech owls. So, the screech owls would be called first, then the larger owls in a different part of the forest. If the larger owls were called first, the smaller ones would make themselves scarce.
Another thing that scares away owls, and other wildlife, are humans. The guides advised us to be as quiet as possible. We were a big group. As I explained earlier, about 150 owl enthusiasts had come out that freezing night, with temperatures in the teens, to sight some owls. Those were 100 plus pairs of boots stomping in the snow. Children’s snow pants swish swished as they walked. Yet, when we were deep enough in the woods and the bird guides released their calls, it was quiet enough to hear the snow falling on our parkas.
In the end, a screech-owl and a Barred Owl called back to us. We didn’t see any owls, but just hearing them call back to our calls in the night was enough. And, it was time spent in the cold refreshing winter air.
If you live in Michigan and want to find an Owl Prowl near you, check out this site, and tell me what you saw and heard.
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Reporter’s Notebook: Seeking expert sources (or those who learned through trial by fire) about College application process
I’ve landed a great writing project for an online newsletter called www.road2college.com. Yes, my blog posts may be sparse these days, but blogging has led me to real work. So, if you are a blogger and are wondering what it’s all for, if anyone is listening, keep going. Keep writing. You’ll get there!
Now, on to my neediness in finding some great sources who can speak on the biggest decision, and one of the biggest investments, a person can make, and that is choosing, and paying for – a college education.
I’m dividing my series into the following possible topics and need your expertise and stories:
- Private vs. Public education – These days, some are questioning the value of a high-priced private education and wonder if the same quality and advantages can be found for their student at a public university. At the same time, others say that private colleges offer individualized attention and career direction, better connections after graduation for securing employment, and larger endowments for scholarships and financial aid. Is the high price tag of a private university worth it? what are the pros and cons of each? For the middle class, what is the most economical: a state college, with lower tuition, or a private college with a bigger endowment and better chance to secure financial aid/scholarships, etc.
- Community college vs. Four-year institutions. To save money, there is a growing trend where students take their core requirements at a community college and then transfer them to a four-year institution. Is this easier said than done? Anyone out there who successfully transferred their credits from a community college to a four-year institution?
- Scholarships: There are so many out there that few students take advantage of. What are the best ways of finding a scholarship just for you or your student? What are the more unusual scholarships you or your child have attained?
- The role of the Safety School in the college application process – What are the benefits of applying to a school where your grades and SAT scores rise way above the average applicant to that school?
Looking forward to your wisdom and help! (and did I mention I needed this like yesterday?)
Saved for college and now there is no financial aid for you? is this absolutely true?
Thank you!
Oh There’s No Place Like Homes for Thanksgivingkah
Yes. I know I really botched up the words of that song. But with the odd concurrence of Thanksgiving and the first light of Chanukah falling on the same night, and our first trip back to Rochester since departing for Detroit, my family feels like they are going through some surreal times.
Rochesterians, very well-meaning and sincere, actually said it to me:
“Welcome home!”
“Are you glad to be home?”
The word “home” was not something I expected to hear out of the mouths of my many Rochesterian friends and acquaintances I saw in the weekend leading up to Thanksgiving.
This is a homecoming of a sort. For my kids. Because after I checked off every last detail of what to pack, what to turn off and turn down in our new house. After the kids packed whatever they needed to eat and entertain themselves in the car. After the last seat belt had been clicked and the six-hour trek from Detroit to Rochester lay before us, my children said it:
“We are going home.”
Yes. Rochester is their home. Where they spent the better part of their formative years. It’s where two of three of them took their first steps and all of them lost their first teeth. It’s where their friends live who know them best. Who share some weird private jokes, shared histories, and their own strange way of talking in a fake accent.
For me, Rochester is not home. New York City is home. Or is it? I haven’t lived in the area for almost 20 years.
I am trying to make Detroit home. But it’s tough to make it home when we leave it for holidays. It’s not a home if there are no aromas of turkey and stuffing , and this year, the smell of potato latkes frying in a pan, and the sounds of grandparents, siblings and cousins hanging out in the family room. It’s just a house we live in.
Because home is where you go for the holidays. And if the majority of family do not live in your current city of residence, like the way smaller celestial bodies are drawn to larger ones in the universe, the pull is greater the other way. So home we must go.
Still, Rochester feels a lot like home now that we no longer live here. Yesterday, we spent the day in some old familiar places trying to catch up with as many people as possible. We got hugs everywhere. We are missed. And thought of. I lost track of how many hugs I gave and received. It truly was a homecoming.
But there are places you really cannot return. My youngest wanted to go into his old house. That, we told him, was off limits. He was able to peek into the downstairs family room and said he didn’t like how the new owners painted it blue.
The big kids tried to loiter in visit their old high school. To them, that was home too. They had it all planned out. They would enter the building in the morning, loaded backpacks slung on backs and blend into the stream of hundreds of other teens before the morning homeroom bell. Either in the library or cafeteria they would study and receive friends, and hugs, during their free periods.
But their old principal, who had known them since their elementary school days, apparently never forgets a face. And, knowing that these two faces had moved to Detroit, he kindly but firmly told them that new high school policy forbids non students to visit during school hours. But he gave them a valiant A for effort.
Sometimes, you really can’t go home.
It’s New to Me: A night out at Detroit’s Fox Theatre
I need to get out more often. And by that, I don’t mean dinner at the Outback and a movie at the local suburban multiplex.
I am going to put this blog post into a new I-know-you’ve-lived-here-all-your-life-but-ya’ll-it’s-all-new-to-me category. Because, I know all of you Detroiters know all about the Fox Theatre like I know about Radio City Music Hall (but hey, real New Yorkers know a trip to Radio City is just for TOURISTS).
But for me – the New Yawker newbie, a babe in the urban D woods – I am loving discovering my new city.
Last night, I had my first nighttime visit into Downtown Detroit. We were invited out by the same very interesting new friends (the ones who press their own apple cider) to a benefit to support the Jewish Association for Residential Care. The featured act: The Rascals.
You know, the Rascals:
My husband and I still don’t know how to get around downtown. ( I really don’t understand how to traverse a metropolis without a subway system.) They offered to drive. We happily accepted the ride.
Driving down highway 10 at night to downtown Detroit, you really get an understanding of just how blighted some sections have become. As you leave suburbia for downtown, the highway submerges, and what’s left of neighborhoods peek out from concrete walls that rise to the right and the left. Every now and again you get a glimpse of houses. Completely dark. What’s left of houses. What’s left of churches. And stores. And housing projects. Empty shells. Dark and lonely.
And then, reaching downtown, the lights, and life, emerges again. If just for a dozen or so square blocks that house the city’s businesses, theaters Detroit nightlife post baseball season is still trying to go on.
Though Comerica Park now stands quiet, it is lit up. Giant stone tigers roar into a post-season sky and roar into a mostly vacant parking lot. I make nice to them and promise I will come cheer for the Tigers (because they don’t play against the NY Mets) come the spring.
credit: DetroitDerek Photography
Across the street stands the glorious Fox Theatre:
Built in the grand style of the 1920’s, when auto manufacturing was in high swing, it has a 3,600 square foot lobby and a grand auditorium that seats 5,000. And every square inch drips with restored opulence snatched from the mouths of the Blight and Decay demons that caused many of Detroit’s architectural treasures to crumble or lay in waste.
Though I wasn’t that excited to see this 60’s band, it was the venue itself – plus a fundraiser supporting independent lifestyles for adults with disabilities – that made me plunk down the cash for the tickets.
“I bet you have been craving for a night like this in the city,” my friend said as we crossed Woodward – a main thoroughfare in Detroit that is far wider than any avenue in Manhattan. Outside the theatre, a small crowd gathered and a ragged group of street musicians played and asked for change.
Oh yeah, I miss going out into a city for some nightlife. I miss packed sidewalks and even further packed subway cars. Even little Rochester had some hopping areas, some beautiful theaters, jazz spots and restaurants for entertainment.
I stepped inside the lobby. I knew I had to make my way to will call to get our tickets. I knew I should have been more friendly and engaged in conversation with new friends in the community who made their way over to say hi. But they had already been in the Fox theatre. They had lived here most of their lives. This was all new to me. And I was having trouble keeping my jaw from hanging to the floor:
The grandeur of the Fox Theater lobby made me happy and sad all at once. Happy that this gem has been restored and saved from blight and stands as a reminder of what Detroit could be again. Sad to think of all the other architectural treasures of the city – other theatres, the Central Train Station, hotels, schools, mansions, homes – that just lay in waste, I thought of the Heidelberg Art project that arsonists just burned to the ground. Again. Before I got to set eyes on it.
We spent the night listening to the Rascals play with new friends and some JARC residents, who quickly befriended us and were happy to sing and dance the evening away, even though I thought the Rascals depended very much upon their multimedia show than pandering to the crowd:
After the show, the city was dark. No bars open. No restaurants to spend our money in. Just a few lingering panhandlers and straggling musicians. So, back to suburbia we went for a late night bite to eat.
We really wanted to spend more money downtown. But there was nowhere open to spend it.
This is not the city that Never Sleeps. Not even by a long shot.
Three Friends, Three WWII and Honor Flight Veterans
not sure if these guys are kicking it around in Victor, NY, but it was an honor to interview and write about them. Honor a Veteran Today.
Jack Hennessy’s handshake is still very strong at age
89. This enduring strength might be attributed to the rigorous training he
received decades ago as a member of the Glider Corps, a little-known part of
101st Airborne Division during World War II.
Last May, the father of four and grandfather of 10
received many firm handshakes of gratitude when he took an all-expenses-paid day
trip to Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Honor Flight Network. Hennessy is
just one of 63,000 veterans of WWII and the Korean and Vietnam wars who have
taken an Honor Flight since 2005 to see the monuments built for their
sacrifices. The nonprofit organization is fighting against time to bring all
able WWII veterans on this trip.
“People were rushing up to thank me. People I didn’t
know from a pile of brooms were lining up to shake my hand. It was all very
moving,” said…
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About Me
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Versatile Blogger Award
Stacy Gittleman 