Flag Waving

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On my way to an assignment at the theater across the street, I saw these kids out waving flags.  Ran over there and made a quick feature for 9/11.

Dressed in red, white and blue, four-year olds Anna Alagood (front), Emily Aeschbach (left, holding a pinwheel) and Avery Carr (right, flag over face) and the rest of Janet Shoah's preschoolers at First United Methodist Church stand outside the chapel waving American flags in honor of the anniversary of September 11. "We started doing it on the first anniversary to teach kids to love America," said Shoah, who said she wants to instill patriotism in all of them so that they're proud of where they're from.  Shoah and her class also send boxes of supplies to the troops in Iraq, write them letters, send them pictures and right now they're making pillow cases with a child's hand print and a bible verse on each one.

Mmmm Cupcakes

Patti Reed has started Patti Kakes, a takeaway window in a Tyrone Gardens strip mall, serving up doses of pink sugary goodness in the form of yummy cupcakes, Amish-made ice cream and more. After a few hours at Chuck E. Cheese with his mom and brother, Jacob Coleman, 4, of St. Petersburg was treated to a strawberry ice cream cone, which he quickly devoured. Reed watches, as Coleman runs around with his toy rocket after ice cream.



The meatloaf cupcake is best served warm. It's a delicious concotion of Reed's homemade meatloaf topped with horseradish mashed potatoes, cheddar cheese and bacon, for $2.95.

Best cupcakes ever folks. Seriously. If you're in St. Pete, GO!

Her store is at 970 58th St. N, St. Petersburg.

Ayiti!

I don't know where to start. Haiti, even on a good day, is an exhaustive assault on the senses. Even on its worst, you know it's not the people of Haiti that are the problem.

I'm trying to find the words to describe being there for a week, covering the aftermath and the relief effort following the earthquake. There is an overwhelming amount of death permeating everything, but little signs of life that that give you a glimmer of hope. I'm still processing all that I saw and experienced, and am having a hard time finding the words for it all. So I'll just show a few pics for now, and hope they speak to the humanity of this tragedy, and why we should all care.