IF YOUR NOT GIVING - YOU JUST DON'T GET IT!

“The positive effect of kindness on the immune system and on the increased production of serotonin in the brain has been proved on research studies. Serotonin is a naturally occurring substance in the body that makes us feel more comfortable, peaceful, and even blissful. In fact the role of most anti-depressants is to stimulate the serotonin production to alleviate depression. Research has shown that a simple act of kindness directed toward another improves the functioning of the immune system and stimulates production of serotonin in both the recipient of the kindness and the person extending the kindness. Even more amazing is that persons observing the act of kindness have similar beneficial results. Imagine this: kindness extended, received, or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved.” ― Wayne Dyer

If you placed an order for 2 or more packs of covers this year you would have received free scratch & sniff stickers. Why? Because it made me feel good to give them away. Many of you would have received something a little extra when you opened your parcel, why? Because I wanted to. I have always found more joy in giving than receiving. I have even been criticised for giving too much. This quote from Wayne Dyer above explains why. There is a positive physical reaction – a love drug – which is felt by the giver, the receiver and every witness to the act of giving. It makes us feel GREAT ~ literally ~ to give.

A month ago I decided to give an education to Anita, one of the millions of stolen children of Nepal. (My previous blog explains the amazing circumstances in which she came to be 2 Kool 4 Skool’s second sponsor child).  I had wanted to have enough sales to educate her for life before I gave the instruction to find her but I just couldn’t wait that long. I had enough to pay for her education for 3 years and knew that I would find a way to pay for the next 7 years somehow.

So if Serotonin is released by an act of kindness by the giver the receiver, and any witness, be prepared to feel great.  This week I received Anita’s photo in her new school uniform ready to start school for the first time in 3 years.

 

 

This is Anita’s before and after photo. What an amazing difference. Gone is the broken sad little girl and in her place is a little girl with a smile who knows that someone cares!

So thank you to each and every customer who bought covers for back to school this year as each one of you are contributing to this happy little girl’s education. You should feel great. It’s biological!

 

A Girl Called Anita

I have been asked often over the last few months, Why do you choose to pay for the education of girls in Nepal and India? There are so many reasons but hopefully this story will start explain why.

Due to the remoteness of many of the homes of the children who attend Demazong Academy they must board at the school . This means that they say at the school full time for 11 months of the year and would return home for 1 month’s holiday. If it is not possible to return home they may stay at the school all year in the care of the school’s headmaster  Pema and his wife, family and staff.  It is not unusual for a parent to send their child into the care of another,  trusting that they are getting an education without contact for months at a time. To our western way of thinking this is inconceivable but in Nepal and this remote part of India this is the sacrifice a family makes for an education. An educated child has the chance to get a better job and in turn a better life for both them, their family and community.

 

Anita, thanks to the sales of covers for back to school 2013 is our company’s second child to receive her education, board, food, uniforms and books for life. I have the privilege of calling Pema who runs the Demazong Academy in Sikkim, my Nepali Brother. When I wrote to him and said that we had started to set aside funds for a second child and that “I wanted a to find a child who’s life would be truly transformed by our sponsorship” this was his reply.

Myself & Pema

Hello Dear Sister,

I was very happy to hear you. Here we all are fine and well. We are preparing for the session. All the students and teachers are back after vacation. The construction of our new kitchen is done. We now need some plastic chairs for the dining hall.

Here I have the picture of Anita with her parents.  They are originally from Nepal. They came to Sikkim a long time back and were living in one of the remote area of South Sikkim. Two years back Anita was studying in Class one in one of the Government School , living with her parents.  One of the men came from Gangtok to meet her parents. He promised them that he will take Anita to Gangtok and send her to one of the good school there. Once Anita was taken to Gangtok they never came to meet her parents. Recently Anita’s parents have shifted near to our school. Her father often comes to me to help in some construction work.  One day he told me the story about his daughter Anita. Immediately I made a phone call to everyone who I know in Gangtok. After one week we came to know the address of that person. I manage some money for him and send him to Gangtok to bring his daughter back. He could not bring her back on that day. Later we came to know that she was locked inside and both the man and his wife went to work in office.  When her father went he found lock hanging outside the house and came back helplessly.  I felt that on Sunday all the government offices will remain closed and the man and his wife will be at home. So, I send him on Sunday for the second time and finally he met his daughter and brought her back home. Anita was never sent to school. They treated Anita as a servant and let her do all sort of domestic work.
 

 Anita has two younger sisters and one younger brother. Anita is the eldest in their family. Her parents have been requesting me to find sponsor for her. I feel she needs help.  I am very happy that you decided to help her.  In India thousands of such innocent children are being cheated and are send to work in hotels and even sold to brothels every day. I feel very sorry for these children.
 

Today I will call her parents and tell them this good news. I would like to thank you very much for giving hope and opportunity to her.

Looking forward to hear from you. Convey my love and wishes to your kids.

Pema from Sikkim

 

As Pema says, Anita’s story is not unique. This happens every day. But for now Anita is safe and free to go to school like any girl her age should be free to do.

If you’d like to read more or need a good cry, a wonderful book is Little Princes by Conor Grennan about child trafficking in Nepal.  http://conorgrennan.com/little-princes/

 

BOYS JUST DON’T GET IT!

Ok girls – this stationery obsession we have is truly a girl thing. Boys just don’t get it. As a parent of both a boy and 2 girls the evidence is clear and it starts early. The girls will sit and help and cover and stick and write and plan. My 10 year old girl has set out her Day 1 of School Morning Plan from 5.30 – 8.30 am in bullet point format, her bag is packed, clothes set out and is soooo excited about returning to school. My 14 year old girl is less enthusiastic about Day 1 but is still asking to go to the uniform shop to make sure the uniform is right. I’d say this has more to do with having enough time to have the hem raised. Her books aren’t issued until Day 1 but the pencil case is done, labelled and she is obsessed with what accessories to take for the school locker.

Now to my darling 16 year old son. No 1 Son as he is known now after my manufacturing in China. I have not been able to have covering on his books since year 8.  He attends an all boys school where the teachers must just despair at the state of the boys books. After speaking to one of my lovely customers today I realise I am not alone in being embarrassed at the state of my child’s school books after only a few weeks at school. But Boys Just Don’t Get It! They don’t see the dog eared pages, the disgusting stains from the milk drink that spilled over the entire contents of the school bag and the corner that's been resting against a rotting apple for weeks! I have even had notes home from a teacher (female obviously) advising me of the poor state of my sons stationery. Can you believe it! I was appalled. I felt this was a reflection on my parenting skills. Where had I gone wrong?

My son also thought that I was a stationery shop, (well I am now) but I was asked on a weekly basis for more pens, pencils, white out etc. I’m sure he was selling it. No he wasn’t. It was just that Boys Don’t Get It! I do have a good news ending to this story and proof that miracles do happen so stay with me.

In an effort to try to keep No. 1 Sons’ exercise books in some sort of condition this year I purchased hardcover exercise books knowing that even though I had designed a pack based on his likes which you would know as “Kool Dude”, as a year 11 boy he was never going to put them on his books. So sitting on our kitchen table for the last couple of weeks has been a pile of hardcover books. No. 1 Son has walked past, sat beside and eaten in front of these books but when I asked him last night about them he had not seen them. Sound familiar? Then the true miracle occurred. No. 1 Son announces that he wants to cover his books – gasp!

As a result we have PVC protected hardcover  exercise books that should withstand spills and extreme school conditions that only 16 year old boys can inflict. The hard covers did take a little more effort to get into the cover so go carefully if you are going to do the same but below is a photo of my sons’ books covered by him in covers designed for him. I am so proud!

THANK GOD FOR CLEAR COVERS - THANKS TO MY SISTER

I was running through cover designs with my sister, a working mother of 4 who lives in Sydney. She said “the designs are great but I hope you are making clear covers, my kids can’t have printed covers”.  “Why would I make clear covers when you can already buy them in every newsagency?” I replied. “Because yours are cool (sorry kool) and have a pocket and a pen holder and your plastic is thicker and it will have your kool brand on it which the kids will want”. At this point I remember saying something like “no one will buy them and at least I’ll have 1000’s of clear covers for your kids”, as only a caring sister would say very sarcastically.

I have to thank my sister for that suggestion way back when. Today they are an essential element of our range. Not only do many schools insist on clear covers only but it means no more covering text books either. Our clear covers won’t fit all text books but we did make them extra wide to cover the thickest exercise book and attempt to cover as many text books as possible. This is an example of a text book covered in 30 seconds.  Stay Kool!

SO WHERE DID IT ALL COME FROM!

We as females, love stationery. Yes its a girl thing. Cute stationery, beautiful books and stationery that smells. I have Dads say to me “I just don’t get it! She doesn’t like what I bought?”. And men just don’t get it and that’s for another blog.

I thought I’d give a little background into where my obsession with school book covering and now school book covers has come from.

I have always covered books. As a kid in primary school it was brown paper and with envy I saw friends’ books whose parents took the extra step of covering in clear plastic film. Contact hadn’t been invented except as something that you stuck to the shelves in your kitchen so it didn’t mark the paintwork and they had lovely floral or geometric patterns in colours like mission brown and orange. This beautiful contact lined our kitchen draws.

This huge, possibly hundred metre roll was purchased at the local hardware store and if you were lucky enough to have your parents buy it for you, this assured that you and your siblings’ books were covered in this sticky mess for your entire junior school life.

In high school came a new phenomenon – Individuality! I attended an all girls school where even our hair ribbon, socks and undies (yes undies) were school issue. We had one place where our personality could be expressed – our stationery. Entire weeks of the Christmas break would be used for the purpose of book covering. Old wrapping paper that had been saved was put onto books and covered with clear contact (yes this had now been invented). Lots of creative book covering elements such as newspaper, magazine clippings and even shop packing from really cool stores at the time like Sportsgirl and then still covered with clear contact. Then there was the ultimate book covering – the poster. There were the posters from the inside of the Dolly and Cleo magazine which had the hottest teenage boy you could find and the only card that would trump this was the pop star poster. From this perspective I was truly blessed. For as a child and teen my Grandparents owned a record store. Yes kids, records were on black vinyl and sold in stores and had really cool covers too, and you purchased clear sleeves to protect your valuable purchase. There were no iTunes cards and EFTPOS machines, just a cash register. Sunday nights for me as a kid (and I mean every Sunday night) meant dinner at my grandparents and afterwards we HAD to watch Countdown. We had to watch Countdown, because Molly and Countdown announced the Top 10. We needed to know the Top 10 so that we knew how to arrange the singles on Monday morning from position 1 – 10. This has today made me a legend at music trivia nights but as a kid I had what every kid wanted – posters. It took a little while to train Grandad not to give them away. He didn’t think they were important once the record had been out for a while and I still today cannot come to terms with the fact he gave the huge ABBA Arrival poster away because someone else asked first! What about an empty cover he suggested? Now with my own 14 year old hormone ravaged teenage girl I can only imagine the look that would have received from me. I think I’ve gone a little off track here but you get the idea.

Then with the arrival of my own children (3 in total) I discovered nothing had changed. Bordering on obsessive at times, I would purchase beautiful papers, even buying scrapbooking papers and an arm full of poster magazines from the Newsagency then covering 100’s of books. This is no joke. It seems to me that some of you in southern states have been spared a week long torture, for in QLD we purchase all books (text and exercise) prior to the commencement of school and you arrive on the first day with every book covered and labelled and they stay at school until returned home in the last week of November. You almost dislocate your shoulder getting them from the car to the classroom. Frustratingly many books then arrive home at the end of the year beautifully covered and unused. There was a saviour during this time – the clear cover! It then even came in a tinted colour but I was never satisfied with this as a school book cover. Not pretty, cool or colourful enough for my kids (see reason why from paragraph 4 above) and after 10 years of covering enough was enough. I made 2kool4skool.

So you are seeing my first range. Covers designed with genders and age groups in mind. Covers which show personality. Which reinforce positive affirmations. Designs that have a G rating but are Kool. Covers that are fun and have a game so that the kids want to open the covers and get them on their books but once the game is done won’t have them distracted in school because they’ve solved the mystery already. If you could see what’s in my mind for what our next covers will look like you’d be very excited – I know I am!

THE JOYS OF SCHOOL BEING OVER FOR ANOTHER YEAR – FEEL FREE TO ADD YOUR JOYS TO OUR LIST

What fills me with joy:

Not having to make sandwiches at 6.30am for 6 weeks

Not having to watch my teenage daughters’ top lip curl as she inspects what’s on the above sandwiches

Not having to try to extract teenagers from their beds on school days by threats, bribery or both

Not having to check homework, test spelling words or listen to a home reader for 6 weeks

Not having to sew a button, find a missing sock or emergency uniform wash when I should have already left the house

Not having to be a taxi to the after school activities because they too are on holidays

What doesn’t fill me with joy:

Finding my son’s school bag stuffed in the bottom of his cupboard filled with what has been cleared from his school locker. The contents, including many of the above sandwiches now have started to grow legs and escape from the said school bag. When questioned about the school bag he feels the appropriate answer is  “what?”

Realising that half of the beautifully covered and contacted school books have not been touched since you covered them last January and have been returned home to you. Unfortunately those school books are not on next years school book list. Lucky this year my covering book problems are over thanks to 2kool4skool.

Feeding 3 children on school holidays. No wonder kids grow on school holidays. Its because they constantly empty the contents of the pantry into their hollow legs.

Deciding that going to Wet n Wild would be a fun school holiday thing to do on what seems to be the busiest day of the year with every child in the Southern Hemisphere there on the same day and that day also is the day a huge thunderstorm hits, the rides are closed and every person in 3 theme parks leave and enter the Pacific Highway at the same time.

The phrase “I’m Bored”. How can 3 children with every electronic device, foxtel and a pool be bored!

Gifts for $30 and under @ 2kool4skool!

There's now less than 2 weeks till Christmas! It's getting down to the pointy end of the season, but there is still time to score yourself some fantastic products from 2kool4skool.com.au! Over the past couple of days we have looked at 'Stocking Fillers & Gifts under $10', 'Gifts $20 and under and today let's take a peek at 'Gifts $30 and under!'

 

Pefect for yourself, your kids, the neighbours kid's, cousins or whomever you have on your Christmas list!

 

Our Giant Gym Boot bags are bound to be a Christmas favourite this year.. they are so bright and colourful & appeal to kids both big and small (even adults for that matter!) Available in the following colours;

Giant Gym Boot Bag - Orange. $29.95

Giant Gym Boot Bag - Pink Glitter $32.95

Giant Gym Boot Bag - Peace $29.95

 

 

Our USB's and ID wallet sets are the ultimate in organisation & kool. Save $$ when you bundle them together..

 

Heart USB and Bag Tag/ID Cover Set $28.95

 

 

Lipstick USB and Bag Tag/ID Cover Set $28.95

 

 

Plenty more items available on our website

www.2kool4skool.com.au