Change the World

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.
- Aldous Huxley

Most of the time

Most of the time, stuff doesn't just happen to us - we make it happen by what we do and the way we are.
- Tony Jeary

Neighborhood Services staff donate backpacks to group homes

Neighborhood Services staff donate backpacks to group homes

The days are getting shorter. Commercials and ads for back-to-school sales are everywhere. This means that teenagers all across Mesa are preparing to go off to school. But staff in one City of Mesa department knew that the ringing of the bell would not signal joyous preparation for every student. Neighborhood Services were aware that some teenage girls did not have the proper school supplies for the coming year, so they answered the call of that ringing bell.

The staff took nineteen backpacks filled with school supplies to the girls at A&A Cottages to outfit them for their first day of school. Jane Albin, Management Assistant in the Community Revitalization Division, who spearheaded the effort, said, "We were just as excited to buy these supplies as the girls were to receive them. The staff of A&A Cottages assured us that with 18 girls in the houses everything would be used, right down to the last piece of paper."

The girls are between the ages of 12 and 18 years old and live in one of several group homes in Mesa. Kee Hudgens, staff member at A&A Cottages told Jane Albin when the backpacks were delivered, "The girls of A&A Cottages will go back to school with their heads held high, thanks to City of Mesa Neighborhood Services and Community Revitalization. ...this generous group at the city gave the girls all the tools they needed for a great start to the school year."

A&A Cottages provides homes for teenage girls who have been abused, neglected or who come from troubled backgrounds. A&A Cottages was formed in 1996 to address the increasing need for foster care group homes for teenage youth in Arizona. Its mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of at-risk youth through quality residential and support services that promote dignity, integrity and responsibility.

For accompanying photos of city staff and A&A staff with the backpacks, please call Katie Brown at 480.644.3705.

Thought

"Never tell a man you can read him through and through; most people prefer to be thought enigmas."
- Marchioness Townsend

Famous Qutoes

"Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts."
- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

"When I was young I thought I knew all the answers, but as I became older I discovered I was not asking the right questions."
- Reinhold Niebuhr

Perspective

There is always something you can do about any problem, even it if is just changing your perspective on how you feel about the problem.
- David DeNotaris

Greatness Quotes

"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."
---Seneca, 4BC-65AD, Roman Philosopher.

Quotes - Famous Quotes

Quotes - Famous Quotes

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde

To do nothing is failure.
To try, and in the trying you
make some mistakes and then
you make some positive changes
as a result of those mistakes, is
to learn and to grow and to blossom."

~~ Darlene Larson Jenks

Erica Johnson

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
- Erica Johnson

Evil Quotes

"The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good. "

---John Locke (1632-1704)

George Washington Carver

"Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I
found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they
will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune
with people . . ."

-- George Washington Carver ~~ He was an American agricultural chemist,
agronomist, and experimenter whose development of new products derived from
peanuts (groundnuts), sweet potatoes, and soybeans helped revolutionize the
agricultural economy of the South. For most of his career he taught and
conducted research at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in
Tuskegee, Ala.

Venus Williams

Some people say I have attitude - maybe I do. But I think
you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no
one else does - that makes you a winner right there.

Venus Williams
US tennis champion

Education Quotes

Education Quotes

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
-Theodore Roosevelt, Twenty-sixth US president (1858-1919)

Quotes - Famous Quotes

Quotes - Famous Quotes

I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again.
- Bill Gates

Quotes - Safety Quotes

Quotes - Safety Quotes

The safest of all safety is to be prepared for the known consequences and willing to accept the unexpected ones.
-Chatyang M.

Quotes - Famous Quotes - Robert F. Kennedy

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
- Robert F. Kennedy (1925 - 1968), South Africa, 1966

Quotes - Famous Quotes - Failure Quotes

Quotes - Famous Quotes - Failure Quotes

"To do nothing is failure. To try, and in the trying you make some mistakes and then you make some positive changes as a result of those mistakes, is to learn and to grow and to blossom."
- Darlene Larson Jenks

Quotes - Famous Quotes - Consequences

Quotes - Famous Quotes - Consequences

"This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance."
Philip K. Dick

Quotes - Famous Quotes - James A. Pike

"A man needs self-acceptance or he can't live with himself; he needs self-criticism or others can't live with him."
James A. Pike {1913-1969 American Episcopal Bishop}

Opportunity

"The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone."
Orison Swett Marden {1850-1924 Founder of Success Magazine}

Various Quotes

"When it is dark enough you can see the stars"

"The question to be asked is not how badly we were wronged, but what we are profited by our forgiveness"

"Sometimes only one person is missing and the whole world seems dispopulated"

"Tears are like rain, they loosen up our soil so we can grow in diffrent directions"

"When the door of happiness closes another opens; but often times we look so long at the closed door that we dont see the one, which has been opened for us."

"If joy makes life beautiful, sorrow lets you know how beautiful life is"

"Cast your anxieties on him, for he cares about you"- 1st- Peter- 5:7

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength"

Henry Ford on staying young

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."
Henry Ford {1863-1947 American Entrepreneur}