Matt Kelly, Toys for C.H.O.P.
Matt Kelly spent much of his childhood as a CHOP (Children’s Hopsital Of Philadephia) patient due to rare blood disorder and, since he remembers the joy of receiving a toy as a child patient, as he got older he knew he wanted to do the same for other kids.
So Matt, who says, “I’ve been on the receiving end and now it’s great to give back,” organized not only his friends, family, and classmates, but also complete strangers to collect 300 toys and several hundred dollars for the hospital. His post requesting new and unwrapped gifts on Facebook and Patch reached even out-of-state donors, and Matt hopes to continue enriching the lives of CHOP patients in the coming year.
I’m sure he will ;)
See his story here:
Do you know a toast-worthy teen you’d like to see featured here at BWATE?
Comment below with your email address so we can get a post together!
RESENT: book review request by award-winning author
ReplyDeleteDear Shelley,
I'm an award-winning author with a new book of fiction. Ugly To Start
With is a series of thirteen interrelated stories about teen life
published by West Virginia University Press in November
of 2011.
Can I interest you in reviewing it?
I wrote to you this past fall, but lost much of my AOL mail from that
time, thanks to overwhelming SPAM. If you replied, my apologies.
Perhaps you now have more time to consider a book review or Q&A?
My book's only 160 pages short. The writing is easy and open, and all
the stories are interconnected--same hero and story arc throughout. It
reads like a brisk novel in the form of stories.
If you write me back at johnmcummings@aol.com, I can email you a PDF of my book.
My publisher, I should add, can offer your readers a free excerpt of my book through a link from your blog to my publisher's website:
http://wvupressonline.com/cummings_ugly_to_start_with_9781935978084
Here’s what Jacob Appel, celebrated author of
Dyads and The Vermin Episode, says about my new collection: "In Ugly to Start With, set in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, Cummings tackles the challenges of boyhood adventure and family conflict in a taut, crystalline style that captures the triumphs and tribulations of small-town life. He has a gift for transcending the particular experiences to his characters to capture the universal truths of human affection and suffering--emotional truths that the members of his audience will recognize from their own experiences of childhood and adolescence.”
My short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five literary journals, including North American Review, The Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Chattahoochee Review. Twice I have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. My short story "The Scratchboard Project" received an honorable mention in The Best American Short Stories 2007.
I am also the author of the nationally acclaimed coming-of-age novel The Night I Freed John Brown (Philomel Books, Penguin Group, 2009), winner of The Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers (Grades 7-12) and one of ten books recommended by USA TODAY.
For more information about me, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Cummings
Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Kindly,
John Michael Cummings
That is a fine gesture to do with those who most need it. Way to go!
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