Thankful for homeschooling and the DLC

Hi everyone,

It's the end of a year and time to take stock. Here at the DLC, the board made our New Year resolutions in August, and they were pretty simple:

• Get 501(c)3 status. CHECK!
• Offer fun, educational classes for our homeschooling families. CHECK!
• Create a space where professional teachers can offer classes. CHECK!
• Get more homeschoolers to offer clubs and classes—we're still working on that. Let us know if you have a Monday afternoon club idea or a Tuesday morning drop-in class idea.
• Be an active, functioning group.

There's an enormous CHECK mark after that last entry. I am so thankful for everything our wonderful board members have done:

Charlotte, who is keeping our member list organized and updating our procedures to make it even easier.

Zan, who helped transition us to a new, interactive online experience.

Heddi, for continuing to take care of our wonderful library.

Melody, for taking over the finances and reminding us all how things are supposed to work.

Vaiva and Rebecca, for sharing the job of facilities management.

Samira, for being a conscientious liaison with teachers who want to use our space.

Nova, for linking us with social media and running a wonderful art class.

Krishna, for stepping in and taking up jobs with cheer and zeal.

And our fearless President, Heather, for her ideas and great work with our landlord to keep things running smoothly.

When we started this, we had no idea how it was going to work. We knew we didn't want to make it a strict co-op, where members who didn't feel up to participating were goaded into it anyway. And we knew that it wouldn't work with one person trying to run it and make the decisions for everyone. So we have hit a happy medium: anyone can join in to help as they desire. If you see something that needs to be done, please let us know. And if you volunteer to help work on the problem, even better!

Homeschooling parents are the busiest I know. We nurse our babies with one arm while we're playing math games with the other. We meld the job of educating our children with other jobs that we do to support our families or our personal needs. We haul our kids to meetings, the DMV, and anywhere else we need to go in our daily lives.

We can do all of this best when we depend on each other for support, and that's what the DLC is for. Thanks to everyone who has helped make it a success.

Crafty kids at the Boys and Girls Club

We started up the DLC so we could have some space for all homeschoolers to meet, create, learn, and socialize. But sometimes we step outside of our wonderful little town square...as we did today.

Some DLC kids selling their wares.

Every year the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Cruz  has a Children's Holiday Gift and Food Fair — everything made and sold by kids. You might have this image of lots of kids selling the sort of things that only parents and grandparents would display, but you'd be wrong. These goods made by kids were awesome!

DLC kids held their own in the awesome category: Paintings, jewelry, miniatures, corn-and-rice-filled warm packs, balloon animals, brownies, pitcher plants, ornaments, and even homemade devilsticks! Kids made the items (sometimes with a little help when needed), set the prices, and sold them.

This is definitely a cool event that you should check out next year.

This year, holiday craft opportunities are by no means over! Check out our calendar for crafting all month long. Or if you're a crafty parent, schedule your own activity.

Happy rainy December!