February was a wonderful month full of hugs, feeding the homeless and our new event “Operation Sack Lunch & After Work Social”. Now twice a month you can help provide food to the homeless – once a month as we serve food at the Good News Kitchen and once a month via Operation Sack Lunch and Social.

Coming soon I will be organizing a cooking/serving event opportunity where we will go to the Lincoln Park Community Shelter to provide, prepare and serve dinner for 35 residents of this shelter.I’m sure you have a favorite comfort food, ethnic or vegetarian meal you would love to share with the LPCS guests one weekend. Stay posted to the calendar for details. I recently became a Night Supervisor at LPCS and had my first overnight experience. It’s truly a home environment complete with meals.

Ways to serve LPCS besides food: Acetaminophen and Excedrin, men and women’s gently used clothing and shoes, personal care items, bus passes, breakfast items, coffee, tea, magazines, movies, twin bedding and blankets for their bunk beds. I would be happy to drop off any items you would like to donate, so just let me know.

Gives Back Ideas: We are always looking for Co-Organizers so please contact me if you have a gives back idea you want to help bring to the PF community.

Global Free Hugs IV is off to wonderful roll, with people from all over the world participating. We need your help to contact more huggers!  Do you have friends or family in another part of the world?  Do you have Facebook friends from other parts of the country or world who you could invite to participate?  Send them the Link to Positive Focus.  Send them one of the many YouTube videos of Free Hugs Events.  It’s a wonderful free warm gift to share with anyone who passes you.  I cannot explain the warmth and love I feel when a hug is shared with a total stranger. Instant friendships are made and the world is somehow different.

Hugs to you and I look forward to seeing you at a PF event soon!

Cathy
cathy@positive-focus.com

Upcoming Gives Back Events:

Operation Sack Lunch After Work Social, Tuesday March 16^th from 6:30 to 9:30pm at Cathy’s House on Wells Street in River North.

Free Hugs Event, Sunday, March 21 from 1pm to 3pm at the Old Water Tower on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

GIVER PROFILE:

NAME:  Cathy Landerholm

CITY:  Chicago

I volunteered at these PF Events: Free Hugs, Feed the Homeless, Sack Lunch Social

I volunteer because: I get an enormous positive feeling to be able to give back in ways that make a difference to someone’s life.  Where financial donations are not always possible, I can do much by volunteering my time and efforts.

My favorite volunteer experience: Getting to know the guests at the Rogers Park Kitchen. They have become like family to me.

When not volunteering, I like to: Cook, go to outdoor festivals, backpacking trips, skydiving, camping, fishing, hiking, beach volleyball, Opera!

You might be surprised to know: I used to teach ballroom dancing at Fred Astaire Dance Studios and in 2005 I ran the Chicago Marathon for the first time and did it in 6 hrs and 19 minutes. Yes!

What our Givers are saying:

Food Service:

I loved that everyone enjoyed the food, the smoothies and the biggest blast was the assembly line to prepare the 30 lunches. Lots of laughs for all

Such a great idea to make food for the homeless while getting to know each other too. Thanks Cathy for putting this together.

Good News Community Kitchen now looks to Positive Focus Members to answer the call when needed. I am so proud to be a part of a group with so many dedicated members who know the need in our community, and would give up their time when needed. We all get so much out of this.

Free Hugs:

A little cold weather, but was comforted by warm hugs!

It was cold, but as always still a great event.

The best, as always!

Its a wonderful opportunity to spend a couple hours on a Saturday or Sunday, greeting people from all over the world, sharing a smile, a laugh and most certainly a hug. This really does have a profound affect on so many people, including yourself! That’s what keeps me going month after month.

Haiti Fundraiser:

The sale of some very beautiful artwork brought in some much-needed funds for Doctors Without Borders and we had a great time socializing, eating, and being entertained.

Awesome event for a great cause! Kudos to Rossi and everyone that helped arrange this event.

Thanks Rossi for hosting this event for such a worthy cause.

I am so very grateful to all of you who helped make this event a big success! Love

Our World:

I got lots of the big stuff picked up but much of the smaller litter was frozen to the ground. We’ll go back when it thaws a bit.

Inside activities for me this month – getting rid of some clothes and will donate soon.

Gives Back Events Offered:

Complete Details: of our Gives Back Offerings are on our events page, so check there and RSVP where your are drawn to assist. I promise you that it will be a worthwhile event and have you coming back for more!!

Free Hugs: Twice a month (1^st Saturday’s, 3^rd Sunday’s, and occasionally additional dates) we spread kindness by the simple gesture of a free hugs at Old Water Tower Park, Michigan Avenue and Pearson St.

Good News Community Kitchen: We meet at their Rogers Park location to serve food to the homeless.

Operation Sack Lunch & Social: Join us monthly for our kid-friendly event with a entree for the potluck food to include in the sack lunches we’ll be preparing to deliver to the Lincoln Park Community Shelter (LPCS). It’s a great time to get to know the PF community better as we eat, drink, laugh and prepare 30 sack lunches to deliver to the LPCS to distribute to their guests.

Our World: First Sunday’s of the month offering you an opportunity to help beautify your space in the world. It can be 5 minutes or five hours. Just imagine if everyone chipped in to clean up in their community from their personal home, neighborhood, city, etc.

RSVP: Although we appreciate you honoring your event RSVPs, when we are working with another organization that is counting on us to provide volunteers or other services it is imperative that you keep these commitments. Certainly emergencies come up, but if you need to cancel, please alert the event organizer ASAP so your position can be filled.

What are you dreaming about? What intentions have you set for living the dreams of your life? Although we all certainly want to live the lives of our dreams, sometimes those dreams seem so big and insurmountable that it can be overwhelming.  How do you stay focused and move forward in those dreams? How do you handle contrasting experiences that seem to be two steps backward in actualizing your dreams? You stay focused and move through those contrasting experiences by building a solid foundation on which to nurture, build, evolve, grow and allow your dreams to unfold in all their glory.

Foundation building can involve research, meetings, visioning, paperwork, people, places, money, and so on and on and on. Getting all the pieces together to create your dream can seem daunting and create uncertainty in even deserving them. Sure paperwork will most likely be needed as you want to meet laws and regulations. Sure other people, places, and resources might be needed. But the foundation I am talking about is the foundation of love, faith, compassion, and belief. Build YOUR foundation of ultimate belief in yourself, love for yourself, and trust in yourself, and as you build your dreams from that space, your foundation will allow those dreams to soar. Your unwavering foundation will see the contrasting experiences as growth opportunities rather than setbacks. Your solid foundation of love, faith, and trust will bring those insurmountable feelings into bite size doable tasks and fun tasks.

(S)he Said:

“Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.” ~ Nicholas Murray Butler

“The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.” ~ Zig Ziglar

“The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.” ~ Thomas Kemptis

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” ~David Brinkley

Soulful Links:

Foundation ~ Kate Nash

For the next week I invite you to build your foundation by:

Being gentle with yourself as beating yourself up for perceived failures, missteps, or misdeeds only keeps you in that space of lack. Honor those feelings, but don’t live in them.

Surrounding yourself with people who inspired and support you to be and live your best.

Loving you, others and life. When you work from a space of love, amazing experiences are grander and contrasting experiences are softer.

Mostly, my wish for you is a week of fully becoming aware of your inner power and letting it shine bright for others to emulate.

Until next time, reach for the stars, knowing your foundation is loving, trusting, sturdy, and fully supporting you! \

Keep living big, loving big, and laughing along the journey.
~Carol

PF NEWS:

BOOK CLUB [ We’re starting Michael Losier’s “The Law of Connection” on March 4th and it’s a good one! Those who attend the four sessions will have the opportunity to be involved in a teleconference with Michael. And don’t forget, we are hosting him in Chicago in September, so join us in March and be reading to meet him in September. To learn more about him, visit his website: http://www.michaellosier.com.

NEWLY ADDED EVENTS:
03.03 Compassionate Communication with Shantal
03.04 I Can Do Anything with Shantal
03.14 Whirly Ball with Rashida and Huzefa – you need to sign up by this weekend to guarantee a court.

PF CALENDAR:
Check out what we’ve recently added and what’s coming up soon. We’ve got so much going on, and we’d love to see you join us! RSVP HERE and please update your RSVP if plans change so we can best prepare and allow others to join.

7-DAY PF OUTLOOK:

FRIDAY:
Join Dave for Friday Night Lights - an informal fun focused group to play moderate skill level and very good natured volleyball each Friday night in February.

SATURDAY:
Join Preston for OCEAN OF DEVOTION – Sound Healing Gong Concert. Ocean of Devotion is a gentle-but-dynamic 70-minute acoustic group concert meditation.

SUNDAY:
Open day – or at least right now it is. 

MONDAY:
Join Carol for POSITIVE + get a dose of positivity added to creating your dreams and desires in this supportive, fun, and informative group coaching session that meets twice a month.

TUESDAY:
Join Preston and Emily for Synthesis - a small weekly meditation that offers an opportunity to safely explore individual and group consciousness.

WEDNESDAY:
Join Marilyn for a study/support group discussion on THE SEDONA METHOD: can show you and your organization how to tap your natural ability to let go of any unwanted thought, feeling or belief in the moment.

Join Shantal for COMPASSIONATE COMMUNICATION: a new support & study group based on Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s work and book, “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life.”

THURSDAY:
Join Carol and Steffani for BOOK CLUB – THE LAW OF CONNECTION – Michael Losier is a LOA expert and gives you the tools to incorporate into your life. It looks like we’ll be able to have a teleconference with him after we finish the book too!!

Join Shantal for I CAN DO ANYTHING Expressing your authentic self to create the life you love!

FRIDAY:
Join Carol for PF FUN – FUNKADESI @ WILD HARE: “This ideal party band … also bears messages of togetherness … The rhythms of Indian Ragas and reggae have striking similarities, while the Latin, African and contemporary funk that’s spicing this one-sound, many-voices stew fits the all-world melange to a tee. Whatever your background, there’s music here for you.”

ON THE PF HORIZON:
(Check the calendar for details)

6th:
Join Carol for Free Hugs
Join Preston and Emily for Give Peace a Dance

7th:
Join the world for One World
Join Lena and Chris for Living In Attraction Discussion Group

8th: Open day – or at least right now it is.
9th: Join Rossi Tuesday Teachings – Eckhart Tolle and Course of Miracles – an ongoing group discussion.

10th: Open day – or at least right now it is.

11th: Open day – or at least right now it is.

PF EXTRAS:

VISIONING: We’re excited to let you know that we are currently looking for a space for Positive Focus Place that will allow us to have a physical location for our events, workshops, services and a book store! Tax free donations will be used for this space along with our programming. Although we are in the incubator stage, it could hatch before you know it through intention, belief, and amazing possibilities! If you are interested in helping us manifest this vision, please email pf@positive-focus.com or click here to donate on our website.

Our Vision: To spread positivity globally through virtual and physical communities allowing people to see love over fear, abundance over lack, diversity over differences, and peace over conflict.
To inspire and empower each person we see through personal demonstration and shining a light to their inner power.
To see the world as 1 person 7 billion times rather than seeing the world as 7 billion people.
To be kind, compassionate, and have lots of fun and laughter along the journey.
To personally demonstrate a quote we hold close to our hearts:
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” ~ Gandhi

Positive Focus, a 501c3 non-profit organization headquartered in Chicago, inspires and empowers people to live a life of fulfillment and positivity with unconditional joy, love and abundance through the provision of Service-Charity, Mind-Body-Spirit, and Fun-Social events, workshops, resources and services. For more information, visit: www.positive-focus.com.

Have a fantastic, positively-focused outlook, and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Shantal and your PF Events Team