Central Ohio BLOG-ilicious Blog is ALLLLLIIIIIVVVVVVEEEEE!

The title of this post is a direct quote from my supervisor.  I think it's a fantastic way to describe our excitement about our newest communication tool to Central Ohio.  We've been working very hard to pull together community resource information and logos, so we are relieved to finally make the blog public.

Check it out:    http://obbservationsco.blogspot.com/

This is a tool that any site, counselor, or individual in Central Ohio can use to learn about our upcoming trainings, current OBB events, and to connect with county-wide resources. 

Projects, traveling, and a loooong week.

It has been the busiest/craziest week so far on my term.  It is Friday morning, and I already have 36.75 hours logged for the week, thanks in part to a straight 10 hour day on Tuesday. 

Monday started off with meetings at two different Job and Family Services, building partnerships withe the Directors at each and learning how they handle Benefit Bank applications.  It's interesting to see how some people truly see the Benefit Bank as a valuable tool, and some people are very much traditionally minded that using the Benefit Bank isn't even an option.  For example, one of the JFS's we met with would actually want their staff to use the Benefit Bank in their office to help expedite front end processes.  This way they wouldn't have to deal with all the paper applications and inserting the information into CRIS-E (their archaic system).  The applications would be submitted electronically, AND they could help their citizens connect with other resources in the area that they don't administer.  Remember this is the top people at JFS suggesting this for the agency.  The very next day I met with a woman who runs a Free Store (similar to a Goodwill) and a soup kitchen.  Sites like this are usually fantastic, because they very obviously work with low to moderate income families.  The first thing the woman said when I sat down was to the effect of "I understand your program, but I don't think it is necessary here.  You are duplicating services, and we don't want to help people through the Benefit Bank here when we can just send them off to JFS or the other agencies."  Ugh.


One of my other projects is creating a taining supplement for the counselors in each of my county, filled with information straight from the income maintenance workers at JFS on how Benefit Bank clients can work effiicently and successfully with JFS proceses.  So this means visits with the reps in all 15 counties in Central Ohio.  The counties in green are my region   >>>>


What other projects am I working on, you ask?

• Connecting sites with the Rehab Services Commission and Disability Determination ajudicators
• Allows the people who determine disability status can see people living with disabilities "in real life," and not just at a half hour appointment sitting across a desk.
• Meeting with school districts, Family and Children First Councils, and Education Service Centers to get the Benefit Bank in school to fulfill the Family and Civic Engagement reguirements (from the Oh Dept of Education). 
• Do you know a superintendent/guidance counselor, or someone else that would want to talk with me about using the Benefit Bank in their school to help the students receive wrap-around services? 

Clark county Job and Family Services:

I don't want to play favorites, I mean, I love all 15 of the counties in my region.  But how can I help doing a special post when the lobby looks like this? :

Here is a close-up.  All of the little children on the wall of decorated with actual fabric, ribbon, yarn, etc.

They also had adorable little chairs and couches for kids to sit in.  Well, kids and...

Zach does a great job of managing/encouraging/guiding/supervising, and keeping the job interesting and fun.  Hence, plopping in the mini-armchair in preparation for our meeting with the Director. 

Other than a really sweet lobby (that included a friendly receptionist and bottles of water for clients!), Clark county Job and Family Services is a really proactive and involved agency.  They seem flexible in their practices and willing to find solutions to barriers that stop clients from accessing public benefits.  It was great to meet with their Director and staff that work with the Benefit Bank applications, and get practice networking and communicating with our partners with Zach's guidance. 

There is a LOT more traveling in my future for networking and the expansion of the network (example: today I was in Bellefontaine in the morning and Lancaster in the afternoon. Consult a map to visualize this adventure).  At least I'm not driving as much as my colleague Alesha (her blog), who works in the SE region.

Here's to meeting fantastic people all over Ohio, working together to provide resources and help people be self-sufficient!

Food Stamp Challenge: Reflections

Today I can buy and eat food with reckless abandon again!  Well, not quite, but at least the Food Stamp Challenge is over for my organization.  I am still on a very strict budget, still relying on the Direction card for assistance, but the weight of this challenge has been removed.

The light at the end of the tunnel is something that helps me plow through these challenges (I found this similar to my experiences with the 30 Hour Famine).  To steal a line from A Knights Tale, "Hope guides me. It is what gets me through the day and especially the night."  I only have to do this for a week, and then I'm home free.  I absolutely cannot imagine the psychological weight of living this life (with food insecurity).  The stress day in and day out from thinking about food:  how much you have or don't have, how much you can afford, where your next meal is coming from.  When something is deliberately taken away from you, like your freedom to buy what you want when you want it, that something consumes you.  It seemed to be a fairly common topic in the office this week:  We can't eat normally, so we think about eating a lot.  We can do food stamp challenges, work alongside people and hear their stories, but there is not way to add the most critical piece of the puzzle: hope (or the debilitating lack thereof).  I am so blessed to always have a way out, to have family and friends to fall back on in times of need.

For the people that don't have that support network, who have lost hope, who are burdened daily with food insecurity, I can only keep coming to work.  Life isn't fair, but I believe in making certain parts of life more fair, and attempting to even the playing field one Ohioan at a time.

The last supper. Err, suppers.

I had to drag myself to Kroger after work yesterday, I was so hungry and exhausted that all I wanted to do was go home and eat. Since I don't have the storage space where I am currently staying, I can't stock up on food for the week, so for this challenge this will be my second trip to the store (I surprisingly stretched a little over 6 dollars from my first trip to 5 days, relying on free meals and creative planning.) I spent 3.99 with the help of a Kroger plus card on a couple days worth of food. That is, if I don't mind eating the same thing for days at a time.

Grocery list:

• Broccoli (note to self: "chopped" broccoli is NOT the same as broccoli florrets.  "Chopped" broccoli are tiny bits of broccoli stem in a bag.  For 89 cents.)
• Celery (for dipping in my peanut butter jar)
• Rice (brown rice.  That takes 45-50 minutes to cook.  I was impatient.  My rice was crunchy...)
• 3 red potatoes (my Dad showed me this awesome way to fry red potato slices in olive oil, with garlic powder and dill.  SO YUMMY!  Don't forget the ketchup with this dish.)

Everything cooked, it made two full meals with plenty of the rice/broccoli left over.


This is the last post about buying/cooking/budgeting food, as the Food Stamp Challenge is OVER TOMORROW!  yay!

Won't you be my neighbor?

In a few short months, my trusty (not to be confused with rusty) colleague John will be leaving me to fend for myself here at OASHF.  This makes me sad, because I play 20 questions with him everyday. And by that, I mean I bother him at least 20 times with random questions about best practices and advice.  So when he's gone, the desk next to me will be vacated, open and ready for a shiny new VISTA.

If you or someone you know is looking for a job in Columbus, Ohio, please email me at solinger@oashf.org.  You can start in November, working in a 15 county region in Central Ohio.

What was that you asked? Why would you want to apply for this position?  Golly, let me show you!

You will get to sit right beside me.  This is John's desk, from my point of view.  He is extremely neat.

This is my desk, for comparison.

You will have a great view!  Espcially if you like storms, this window is facing West.  For me, it's frightening.  For you, perhaps thrilling.  Either way, you can view all sorts of happenings 7 stories down on the streets of Columbus.

We also recycle.  This can is usually taken up mostly by my sticky notes. 

 

We have FREE COFFEE in our little kitchen down the hall.  And a microwave.  Perks galore!

 Do you know anyone who wants to be an AmeriCorps*VISTA for a year? The only job around where there is an asterisk in the job title. How cool is that?!

Lifting the Family Back to School Event

Last Saturday I attended a Back to School event in a low-income section of Columbus.  When I arrived, there was a line of families winding around the building, waiting to have access to the racks of clothes they could riffle trough to find some new school clothes.  There was a group offering free physical and booster shots, and there were bouncy castles to play in!

The best part, of course, was this:

Hello Benefit Bank Mobile Unit!  I was at the event with one of our Benefit Bank host sites: East Columbus Developement Company.  They are a great site in the middle of a very underserved neighborhood, doing great work in the area, and they wanted to advertise the Benefit Bank service. So we tag-teamed with Russ and Erin in the van, as they could do Quick Checks and refer people to our table to make an appointment if they were indeed eligible. 

I also got to meet the woman in charge, the lady of the day, the powerhouse behind organizing events like this and mobilizing the community: Pastor Sue.

She doesn't have a building or office to work out of as I understand, she just pulls together whatever money and people she can get and feeds/clothes hundreds of people at different endeavors.  I've heard a couple people talk about her, so it was great to finally meet her and be at an event that she organized.  Hopefully I can continue to work with her in the future, considering if she does end up settling in a building she would be a great Benefit Bank site! I find site recruitment is infiltrating my mind.  I see most non-profits, churches, or any place that potentially has contact with low to moderate income people, as a Benefit Bank site. 

Variety? absent. Ramen? present.

How is it that Ramen noodles are so cheap anyway? I feel like I'm being ripped off whenever I buy any other noodle package (that doesn't even include a flavor packet!)  Or, perhaps I should be wary about what those Ramen curly strings are made out of in the first place.

Regardless of any cheap noodle misgivings, I made Creamy Chicken noodles tonight for dinner.  I only bought a few days worth of groceries before, and haven't been back to Kroger since.  All I have left are vegetables and tortillas.

Considering I had a tortilla containing all the pictured above vegetables for lunch, and last night for dinner I gorged myself on scrambled eggs since I was absolutely starving after work, Ramen was my last option.

I am definitely facing the "variety" issue.  On a budget, you not only are barred from a high quality/high flavor food options, you don't have a lot of food around the house to choose from.  If you have a limited amount of money to purchase food, which is a problem a lot of people have when they live paycheck to paycheck, you can't go on big shopping trips and stock up.  You only buy what you can eat now.  That leaves you with scanty options and an even less positive outlook on the next meal.  It's disappointing, frustrating, and disheartening when you know that all you have left are half eaten vegetables and three eggs, but you open the fridge and cupboards with a hope to just maybe find some tasty, filling option you forgot about.

Noodles and water.  It's dinner time.

The Chicken Wrap

I went out and bought $6.46 worth of groceries for two days, attempting to spend 3 dollars per day in the Food Stamp Challenge.  I planned a chicken wrap meal for two meals, so here is the first preparation.  I mainly photo-documented this because I was so intrigued/grossed out by the bagged chicken.

Step one: dump chicken in pan.

Step two: add diced onions and taco seasoning.

 Step three: Place a portion of the mixture into a tortilla, saving the rest for another meal.  Add lettuce that's been in the fridge for an unidentified period of time.

Yum!  Be thankful for you ingenuity and success in creating this cheap and surprisingly delicious meal.

I should note on here as well that the next night, the family I am staying with cooked pizza for dinner.  PIZZA!  I politely declined, as I had my leftovers to attend to. 

Food Stamp Challenge: Grocery Shopping

I went grocery shopping Friday night, armed with research from my fellow challengers of the past, outlining purchasing and saving strategies.  I most notably discovered that chicken is the cheapest source of meat/protein, and that you shouldn't be afraid of leftovers to stretch your budget.  Considering I love chicken and a I grew up in a very fiscally minded family (read: fridge is full of leftovers), I didn't think this shopping/eating experience would be that difficult.

Until I got to the canned chicken isle. 

Canned chicken?  My grandpa is a farmer and I grew up in rural Ohio, so I have seen chickens all the way from chicken coop to church chicken BBQ.  But in a can? It just seems wrong.  I opted for chicken in an airtight, sealed bag, which seemed less unnatural to me than canned chicken.  Lesson 1: Exploring different packaging options is important in saving money.  Especially if I am just shopping for myself, I can't buy expensive fresh chicken or a big bag or frozen chicken breasts as I usually would. 

From the bagged/canned chicken aisle I grabbed some Taco seasoning and tortillas.  I couldn't pass up Ramen, at 18 cents a packet, as it seems like the quintessential cheap food purchase.  Planning for breakfast, I grabbed a half carton of eggs, and decided an onion would supplement my chicken tacos AND my eggs wonderfully.  After navigating the "peeled onions" (how nice of them! how expensive of them!) and avoiding the ever sneaky organic labels, I found a cheap white onion.  Off to the checkout to see how I did, purchasing enough food for two days.  Lesson 2: Purchasing taste boosters like Taco seasoning and onions will drastically help improve cheap food quality.

This is a pseudo-challenge for me, considering I already use the Ohio Direction Card (aka SNAP, aka food assistance, aka food stamps).  It is a work SUPPORT program and food ASSISTANCE, so I'm not always constrained to the 3 dollars a day regulation.  I use it, as hopefully others do, as a leg up to self-sufficiency during my time of low wage employment.

It also helps (at least at Kroger) to bring your own bag.  I believe it's a 3 cent credit on your total.  I have a couple big bags from Kohls that I keep in my car and use whenever I shop.

With my Kroger card discount, I totaled out at 6.46.  That's a little over my budget for two days...

It all evened out in the end, as I got a meal Saturday afternoon at the Lifting the Families Back to School Event.  I was working this event with a volunteer who is on cash assistance, meaning he is earning 50% or below the FPIG.  I told him about the food stamp challenge, and we both concluded as people on strained budgets, that we would accept free food whenever we got the chance.  I guess that's not part of the official challenge, but I think letting go of pride and being creative in ways to attain food is a part of the challenge in any capacity.  Lesson 3: Know when to follow rules and when to bend them, especially when free hot dogs and cookies are involved.

See my latest post to view how I cooked what I bought!

HealthPath Event

VISTAs across Ohio are working on a partnership with the Benefit Bank and HealthPath, which provided funding for outreach and events to introduce the presence of HealthPath in the region and to roll out our new campaign: "Do You Know Someone..."  We all know someone who has in some way been effected by the economic downturn; a friend, neighbo, or relative that has lost a job or needs assistance in some way.

One of these networking/information events, organized by another VISTA, was held this week in one of my counties.  Clark county is on the West edge of the Central Ohio region, and the county seat where the event was is Springfield (I drove past it every time I travelled back and forth to school, never thought I would have any personal investment there!)

Look at all these people!  Notice they all get a mug that is shaped like a little flower pot (Second Harvest Foodbanks = distributing produce =  Flower pot. Genious), as well as a laptop bag. There were a little over 40 people in attendance, including the mayor of Springfield, an assistant to a Senator, two county commissioners, a couple city commissioners, the director of Job and Family Services, the regional coordinator of the Second Harvest Foodbank in Clark, Champaign and Logan counties, and representatives from social service organizations that are integral in assisting the citizens of Clark county every day.

We even got free lunch.  (This was before the Food Stamp Challenge, don't give me those accusing looks.  No cheaters here!)

The representative from HealthPath awarded Keith, the regional director of Second Harvest Foodbanks, a check for his Foodbank to help feed Clark County.  

I was on the opposite side of the room, ready to sign people up for training webinars if they wanted to become a site, and taking pictures from my phone.  So we are all going to imagine how exctiing and wonderful that check presentation was, in light of absent artistic photo capturing skills.

It was so great to have a lot of the people I have been trying to contact all together in one place.  My projects are all picking up speed, the next couple weeks in August are going to be a whirlwind of site visits and meetings.  Especially since I will be moving into my NEW APARTMENT in a couple weeks.  woohoo!

Peanuts and Obesity

Not only am I earning peanuts (read: low wages) at my job, I am eating them too.

Lunch on my first day of the Foodstamp Challenge:

My lunch with a friend at Subway was canceled, so I stuck with my peanut stash for sustanance.   And when I say stash, I truly mean that I keep baggies of peanuts and wheat thins in my desk drawer for my snacks.  I feel like one of the older ladies from church when I was growing up, they always had a drawer in their house with some hidden stash of goodies.

So now my snacks have become my meals, which I think is also a relevant concept for those trying to buy food cheaply.  Some people may see a disconnect between obesity and hunger, but I believe (and bet you can find many more reports on) they are linked.  Compare the price of a gallon of milk and a liter of soda.  If you were strapped for cash and had thirsty children, what would you do?  Some people would consider pop, junk food and fast food special treats, but to others it becomes a regular diet.

With this challenge, we are limited to one dollar per meal.  Where would you go to get a meal for one dollar?

How many of you thought of the McDonald's Dollar Menu as your solution?  When I worked at the Boys and Girls Club in Hamilton, parents (strapped for cash and time) would send their children with McDonald's takeout for lunch.  While I grew up with my mother packing chipchop ham sandwiches, carrots, a Little Debbie snack, and a thermos of chocolate milk, some kids' bodies have to deal with processing McDonalds, pop, and other foods that can be very filling but very unhealthy.  Hence hunger + no money = obesity.  Kind of strange, but it looks like the reality of the situation.

I am making the decision to truncate this train of thought on hunger.  It's cruel to record and analyze food in society when I am hungry.

Foodstamp Challenge, Commence!

nourishedkitchen.com

The Foodstamp Challenge begins today at the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks.

Which means that I am only allowed to spend $3 per day on food, the same amount that someone surviving on social services would spend.

Which means that I am going to have some trouble finding a $3 Subway sandwich when I meet a friend there for lunch.  Which means I'll have to spend $5 for a footlong (are you singing that jingle in your head now? *evil laugh* What a catchy song...), which means I can essentially only spend ONE dollar tomorrow.  The rules say I am allowed to use condiments and spices that I already own.  Ranch dressing has a lot of fatty goodness, right? 

This is just like the 30 Hour Famine.  I'm hungry already.

Hopefully this will raise awareness and encourage policy makers and other people who may not be aware of the difficulties people have with food insecurity to try the challenge themselves.  It's been done before in a couple instances, like back in 2007: Lawmakers Find $21 a Week Doesn't Buy a Lot of Groceries

http://www.ashleycecil.com/

Leather Bound (Note)book

This is like my 5th post in the past two days, so if you are an ardent reader of my blog, don't forget to scroll down and check out earlier entries!

I absolutley had to do a special post on the newest addition to my OASHF swag/professional toolkit.

I'm definitely moving up in the world, as "I have many one leather-bound books binder, and my apartment desk smells of looks like rich mahogany." #anchormanfans?

Family and Civic Engagement Plans

Do you know a teacher/administrator in a school district in Central Ohio that are looking for ways to fulfill the school's Family and Civic Engagement Plan requirements?  

Here is an over of what the House Bill says for schools:

HB 1 establishes family and civic engagement requirements for Ohio’s schools, families and communities. Together, schools, families and communities work to ensure all children have supports needed to graduate from high school prepared for additional educational experiences, the workforce and a healthy life style. Ohio’s goal is to have high-performing family and civic engagement teams and county family and children first councils that effectively and systematically connect all children, youth and families in need to school and community-based services and programs.

The Benefit Bank is actually a perfect tool for schools to use to support their students and families.  Coordinators don't even have to create a work plan for implementation, as Benefit Bank administrators already created a Template based on District Comprehensive Continuous Improvement Plan (CCIP) that your school can use.

You can check out this webinar the Ohio Department of Education posted about the Benefit Bank as a suggestion for school districts: 

http://education.ohio.gov/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?Page=3&TopicRelationID=428&Content=88803

Direct Mail Outreach

The radio DJ this morning inquired of his listeners: "Are you working at a job that has nothing to do with you college major? Then you're probably a Gen X-er!"

Well guess what Mr. DJ, even though it is true I am not exactley in a position that directly relates to my major, I am still integrating components of public relations.

Look!  It's direct mail!

Do YOU want to know more about the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks and the Benefit Bank before your organization becomes a site?  If you live in Central Ohio, let me know, and you will receive this sweet packet:

Mid-Ohio Foodbank Tour

Considering my last post was so long, I'll make this one short and sweet.  And include pictures!  Above is front view of the Mid-Ohio Foodbank, affectionalty abbreviated as MOFB from here on out.

First, check out their impressive website: www.midohiofoodbank.org

It was truly a fantastic facility in every way.  It is one of the 12 member foodbanks that my organization heads up, so it acts like a distribution center to smaller food pantries and soup kitchens across mid-Ohio.  They just moved in to this facility in the past year, it was previously a matress factory.  Think of a huge warehouse of matresses, now full of bulk food!

As soon as you walk in you can actually see in to the warehouse, through three story high bay windows in the lobby.  Cool!

The best part is that they are LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified Gold.  See here for more information on that distinction.

THIS is the overview from the MOFB site on how their facility is designed.

Our favorite college football team, the Ohio State Buckeyes, loves the MOFB too!

Colloquium with a Clergy

 I am doing some site recruiting in the rural areas of my region, so residents will have more options and better access to public benefits where they already “live, work, play and pray.”

Speaking of praying…

While in Springfield at a nonprofit I was referred to my contact’s church to visit as a potential site.  This isn’t uncommon, there are a good number of Christians in the non-profit world, and sometimes at the end of a site visit they will do a little “Oh by the way, here is the name and number of my church,  we already do this, this and this to help people in our community, can you talk to them about the Benefit Bank?”

So I called up the pastor I was referred to, on a whim that he might be at the church and available to meet.  He was. I went.

This was a complete cold call, so I started with the basics of Second Harvest Foodbanks and on a very surface level what the Benefit Bank is. (Think application consolidation tool, reducing barriers to public assistance, helping low income families access food assistance, etc). 

I paused to see if he had questions.  Not only did he not have any, but he had something to add to the discussion.

He pulled his Bible across the table, immediately flipped to Timothy (“one of the letters that Paul wrote…” he tells me. Thanks.)

He points his finger to the bottom of the page and reads aloud “If a man will not work, he should not eat.”

After a meaningful pause he looks up at me, and then starts explaining his views on public assistance, the sins of laziness, compassion, and liberal idealism. 

The funny thing is, I agreed with a lot of what he was saying.  The way he approached it seemed very confrontational and judgmental, but he was basically just explaining hard love.  You know, if you love someone that is addicted to a substance that is destroying them, the loving thing to do (according to him) is to not give them assistance.  Open the door, offer support and help, but don’t let them walk through that door and give handouts to let them sustain a life of destruction.  True compassion can be hard to put into practice.  Life is hard, right?  Cheating makes it easy, and handouts are cheating.

He also spoke about the current ideology of our nation, what he kept calling the liberal mindset, of REACHING OUT to people for help.  This went against his ideals work ethic: If people aren’t going to work or even try to earn something for a living, we shouldn’t just hand them free stuff.  If people are going to fall to the sins of laziness and not work, he said, that we don’t want to help them.  We want to offer a rope of help, but they won’t grab on we won’t go chasing after them. 

I think his terminology is really what got me confused.  I feel like I am always throwing around terms like “reaching out,” but not with the goal of touching and pulling in everyone (willingly or unwillingly) that I deem needs help.  Reaching out, to me, is just opening that door.  Creating awareness that there is a helping hand, there is support, there is a way out.  So when he demonized terms and ideas that I have been acting on, but in the next breath stated another solid ideal that I hold, I didn’t know what to make of it.

I concluded, about an hour and half into the conversation, that it sounded like his church would be a great referral site.  In that way, if they deemed a family/ person a “candidate” to get help from the government to aid in survival efforts, they could refer them to another Benefit Bank site that would take them through the process.

He proceeded to then ask what the next steps were to actually becoming an official site (not a referral organization).  “I need to make sure of something,” I began, trying to figure out how to word my concerns.  “If you are an official site, you can’t deny people signing up for benefits.  Anyone who comes to you, even if they don’t have a job or may perhaps seem lazy, would have to have access to your services if you are an open site.”

“Well of course!” He exclaims.  Apparently, the simple act of making the effort to collect their documents and seek out help in meeting with him would be enough on their end.  His problem comes if he has to seek people out, if he would have to “chase people down” if they didn’t come to him for help.  I explained that none of our sites “chase people down,” that most sites serve people who are coming to them anyways, and if someone misses an appointment there is no obligation on the site’s part to wrassle them up, sit them down, and make sure they get benefits.

“Good,” he says, “because we’re living in a liberally minded nation where people are trying to reach out to everyone to help…”

Do you see where I was confused?  How I agreed with what his thoughts are, but didn't?  Even the public benefits themselves are called “work support,” you can’t survive on them alone.  They are meant to help when a family is down on their luck, when they are in education, job training, or looking for a job.  I am all about walking beside someone, teaching them self-sufficiency, not giving handouts, etc.  We even spoke today about the plight of the working poor.  He pointed out that even though the Bible says Christians should help the poor, the definition of “poor” should be seen as those who can’t work, not those who won’t work.

He did ask if he could pray at the end of our meeting.  I obliged, and I spent a couple minutes listening to a heartfelt prayer of a man trying to help his neighbors according to scripture, a man with strong opinions, a big heart, lots of energy, and a man who has given me a lot to think about.

What do YOU think about the Christian/scriptural basics of helping the “poor” in our nation?

It's Official!

Don't adjust your screens folks, and don't grab your reading glasses.  You are correctly viewing my very official Community Trainer certification.  I requested a neon sign advertising my position for over my desk, but this is all I got.  Oh well.