"But the Needy Will Not Always be Forgotten, Nor the Hope of the Afflicted Ever Perish." ~ Psalms 9:18

Been REALLY busy the last week and a half!  I've been running the program for over a week now, while Emily took that time to work on a huge grant.  That is, until I would call her down for various things, like random people walking in looking for food, or moms of our kids coming in looking for her.  Mostly because they know I don't speak Spanish.  I need to learn Spanish.  For reals.  Someone add that to the list.

LAST Sunday, many of our kids participated in the Inland Valley Hope Partners' 39th Annual "Walk for the Hungry."  I explained most of it in my last post, but I didn't tell you how it went!  By Thursday, I got permission slips from HALF of the kids in our program, and they were really excited about coming.  Now, I've never really had to organize something like this before: getting permission slips, scheduling start and end times (if you know me personally, I'm pretty much late to EVERYTHING... it's part of my charm), finding qualified drivers with open seats, figuring out the best route to the location, making sure we had enough volunteers to keep everyone together, not losing anybody, etc. etc. etc.  Turns out it's a lot of work.  But Pomona Hope has wonderful volunteers who are ready to help out even outside of their normal volunteer hours.  And that's the way we like it.  We had enough volunteers signed up to have two kids to every volunteer.  And we actually had fewer kids come than signed up, so the ratio was even better!

MOST of our group.

As you can tell from the group picture, there was FREE POPCORN!  There was also free face painting (which our kids went crazy with!) and free balloons! The kids had a lot of fun, (I think) the volunteers had a lot of fun, the dogs had a lot of fun, and I took a nap on the couch when it was all over... I'd say it was a success!  (My dog, Rosie, is the one in the picture, and her best friend, Hurley, joined us.)

On the way to the Walk.

All the kids took turns walking Rosie.  I didn't even see her for most of the Walk, since she was dragging whatever kid was walking her to the front, while I was hanging out toward the back making sure we didn't lose anyone.  Every so often, whatever kid was walking her would get dragged back through the crowd (mostly made up of our group) until they found me, because Rosie realized I wasn't where she could see me.  Once she found me, she would charge back to the front, kid in tow.

I bring all this up about my dog because I was never really concerned that anything would happen to her.  If the kid was walking my dog, I was pretty sure they would take on the responsibility and make good decisions.  They even picked up the dog poop!  And then promptly handed it to the closest volunteer.  Close enough.

They met Tremor!

And Gumby!

Face painting!

Taking a break

 One awesome thing about the Walk location this year was that it was around (and through) the Claremont Colleges, where many of our volunteers come from.  It was a chance for the kids to see what a college campus (or 7) looks like.  They were fascinated by the bathroom at CGU (sorry CGU, they had to go and the door was open).

The little kids were REALLY tuckered by the end... actually, some of them were complaining about being tired before the first checkpoint.  But they made it (though one or two may have gotten piggyback rides, or rides in the wagon)!  I'm sure their families were glad for the break in energy too. :-)

The balloons were a challenge, but I imagine, well worth it.

Not just on the face.

This is where I found them when the walk was over.

Unacceptable.