The official Dancing Deer Baking Company Blog

COMFORT FOOD

From smallest girlhood,
well into teen years,
now with accelerating age,
cookies have comforted me.

My grandmother’s “receets”—
her only tangible legacy—
made chewy molasses cookies
a family legend.

Any self-respecting nutritionist
recommends a handful of oatmeal cookies
heavily laced with raisins
as a healthful breakfast.

Cookie-baking lessons are
the first for young cooks.
Holiday cookies decorated by small,
eager hands are treasured by all.

All chocolate addicts appreciate
that melting madness called “Toll House.”
At desperate times, some of us will
finish a batch from the bowl, unbaked.

Named “biscuit” by our British mothers,
accompanied by tea,
cookies are the highlight of a civilized day
or ought to be.

Children of careering mothers
will settle for an after-school
welcome—a treasure-hunting dive
into the cookie jar.

I’m still wearing on my small frame
the globular residue
of every comforting cookie
I ever ate.

Barbara J. Rios, Santa Cruz, California ©

It’s 6am and I’m still on Trish Time. Back in the comforts of my own home, I no longer have to figure out the route, make the energy drinks or the peanut butter sandwich Trish takes with her, get the GPS working, or the videos downloaded, or work the checklist to make sure she has everything she needs before she rides off.

I can take a moment to breathe, and consider the journey.

There is the business of the day.

It began as I described above, with the tasks necessary to get Trish on the road on time. Making a peanut butter sandwich is easy; figuring out how to stay within miles of Trish, driving an RV through tight lanes and poorly marked streets in the rain, not so much. The morning often involved recalculating the route for any number of reasons, which meant that I got on Google Maps, Beth read the directions of the planned route, and Trish tried to reprogram her Garmin, the nifty little piece of technology that points Trish in the right direction down to the street, but never really shows the big picture. Needless to say, Trish never got lost, but we did. Often. That was tough on Trish, needing warmer clothes or food and we’re no where in sight. It was tough on me, because I hate bad signage. And there is lots of it out there.

Read the rest of this entry

Zach and Jennifer at refine + focus were kind enough to put together this beautiful montage of The Mother's Day Ride recounting the faces of family homelessness and positive impact that shelters are making on their lives. We are very proud to share it with you and continue to applaud Trish for her efforts to raise awareness of this critically important issue.



refine + focus was instrumental in coordinating all of the social media aspects of the ride and we are very grateful to them for their efforts.

Home!! OK so I did this crazy thing and miraculously arrived home safely on the wings of so many people who made it possible. Now what I’m thinking about is how to use this foundation to do more to end homelessness - after catching my breath.

HUGE apologies and thanks to the friends who arrived at the Commons expecting the event to be there. It was moved at the last minute, appropriately, to Project Hope and because of security issues the decision was made not to publicize the new location. We had a wonderful homecoming with the Mayor, Undersecretary of Housing Tina Brooks, One Family and the Deer family and friends. The Governor was unable to come due to the passing of his mother-in-law yesterday – very sad news and we are all sending our warm thoughts to Diane, Deval and their family.

HUGE apologies also that while naming my list of thanks I somehow forgot to shine a light on:

• UPS which delivered all the Gingerbread Houses and supplest to the shelters up and down the East Coast

• Our great vendor Arcade Snacks which supplied all those fruits, nuts, chocolate and candies. They also supplied me with power food and think personally ate a case of dried apricots and mixed nuts.

• Two volunteers who jumped in to man the logistics, do the outreach in 14 cities, manage content posting on the blog from the home base -- Lindsay Interland and Kate Brown – very talented young professionals who were extraordinary. I‘m still wondering how Beth landed them and impressed with the way they stepped in so seamlessly.

• Two friends of Beth, Amy Catlin and Kim Ludlow who volunteered to round out the road crew and joined us for about a week each to do everything from driving to technical solutions. You really can’t imagine how enormous a contribution that was unless you’ve been on a similar journey. It was a completely intense and exhausting 24/7 commitment. These people are angels as well as smart and talented. We just wouldn’t have made it without them.

Please forgive me for not calling you out at the ceremony today. The danger in remembering this now is that I’m likely to wake up in the middle of the night and forget another important sponsor or supporter. So you may be hearing from me on this topic again soon. At the moment I’m running out of juice and about to shut down.

Today’s ride started unofficially at 3:30 when I awoke and listened to the pouring rain. We weren’t actually pedaling the final leg until 5:20 AM and arrived n Boston 125 miles, 8,000 feet of elevation, 9 hours, 6,000 calories and many moments of riding camaraderie later. Some time mid day we began to dry out but the sun didn’t really come out from the clouds until pretty much the very moment we were over the city line n to Hyde Park. The first dry pavement I had seen in 9 days however showed itself back n Pomfret, CT. Very welcome sight. Having had only three 20 mile pulls on the entre tarp this long haul over a hilly course in imperfect weather conditions actually was a breeze because two great riding friends were pulling the whole way. Thank you Ashley and Scott! Also Beth and Kim hung in there and drove at 16 miles an hour for the entire day (which I am sure I would not be capable of doing myself) to make sure we arrived on time with none of the travel surprises or hiccups that are commonplace.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be home with my son, clean and in my own bed.

I’m looking forward to being back at work tomorrow on the cookie selling side of Dancing Deer. We have lots to do and I miss everyone.

New England Cable News reports on Trish's return to Boston after 15 days and 1,500 miles.



Read the entire story here.

CLICK HERE to watch the NECN interview with Trish before setting out on a 15-day, 1,500-mile mission to promote positive social change.

As of September 2008, there are about 2,000 families and 2,900 homeless individuals in Massachusetts shelters.

This is an increase of 143 families and 93 individuals from September 2007.

17 days: The average stay in these shelters.

In 2007, 27 homeless families were moved to motels and hotels, because the shelters were over capacity.

In 2008, this number skyrocketed to over 500 homeless families.

Many of the 19,666 people on the Boston Housing Authority's waiting list are homeless, indicating that public housing is also limited.

Source for statistics and chart: "Homelessness Hits Record High," Boston Globe. Click here to read the full article.