Clients in the News – January 2020

• “Hunger doesn’t go away once the holidays are over, in fact, January and February is a time we see a lot of need from those who are really having trouble making ends meet,” said Joanna Warner with the Maryland Food Bank. So MFB is joining forces with the Enoch Pratt Library throughout January, to help restock its shelves with nutritious food for the one in nine Marylanders who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Visit the local CBS station’s website in Baltimore to learn more about this initiative and how you can help.

• The JFK Library Foundation recently announced a remarkable addition to its collection—a heartfelt, handwritten letter from Jackie Kennedy to JFK, shortly after the birth of the couple’s first child, Caroline. In it, the First Lady comments on the ups and downs of their marriage and her strong feelings for her husband. Visit The Boston Globe’s website for excerpts.

• Lots of news from the The Kennedy Center: Tony-winner Rachel Bay Jones takes on the starring role of Diana in Next to Normal, now through February 3.  The White House Historical Association podcast, The 1600 Sessions, recently featured the Kennedy Center’s President Deborah Rutter in a fascinating discussion of the origins of KC, as well as the Center’s history with the White House over time. Listen here. And lastly, the Kennedy Center’s Chinese Lunar New Year celebration is in full swing, from now through February 2 with exciting events for the whole family. Visit KC’s website to get in on the fun.

• The best part about Society for Science & The Public’s involvement in the Regeneron STS competition—the nation’s oldest and most prestigious STEM competition for high school seniors—is reading about what these amazing kids have invented. This year is a great one for big, life-changing ideas like targeting cancer via signaling pathways, developing a mobile application for stroke diagnosis, and identifying an improved method for trace level arsenic quantification in water. Visit The Society’s website for details on these projects and the finalists—more than 50 percent of whom are female this year!

• The National Endowment for the Arts’ podcast recently featured National Museum of the American Indian Director Kevin Gover. It’s a fascinating chat, covering, as the NEA puts it, …The mission of the museum to celebrate the art, culture, and history of Native peoples as vital and sustaining while unraveling the myths that have been engendered about Native peoples through popular culture. Listen at the NEA’s website.

• Ellen Stofan, the first-ever female director of the National Air and Space Museum is using her bully pulpit to champion diversity and encourage kids to pursue STEM. Visit the Guardian’s website for details on Stofan’s initiatives, including the new She Can summer camp, and a museum redesign that honors diversity in aerospace discoveries across the past 100 years..

• The Monterey Bay Aquarium has sent out an SOS to help save the South African penguin. With its population down 97%, MBA is taking steps to stop the slide to extinction. In 2019, the Aquarium joined the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Invest in the Nest campaign…raising money to place 2,000 artificial nest boxes on the beaches in South Africa and Namibia. Visit MBA’s website to find out how you can join MBA to help these creatures bounce back.