Free stuff!

My sister has an obsession with goody bags and always has. I tease her about it, but perhaps I shouldn't cast stones, especially after the pleasure I got from the freebies at the conference I attended earlier this week.

When we signed in at the hotel, we were each given a really spiffy Department of Defense briefcase-style notebook to hold all of our papers. Isn't this sweet?



It has so many little pouches and folders for ultimate organization. One thing that isn't immediately obvious in that picture is that it also has a compass:



I'm not sure why it has a compass, but it does. Perhaps because convention centers don't generally have trees inside, thus making it impossible to navigate using the old moss-on-the-side-of-the-tree method. It's not just an office supply; it's a survival tool!

The conference itself was a really great experience. The whole point was to discuss ways to help public school systems in certain places prepare for the influx of military schoolchildren who will be headed their way over the next few years due to BRAC. ("BRAC" always makes me think of that insurance duck on TV, but it stands for Base Realignment and Closure.) Each community sent a team made up of people from various backgrounds--school board members, military commanders, superintendents and other administrators, parents (hey, that's me!), etc.

Tuesday night's dinner speaker was particularly noteworthy. We had the privilege of hearing Gary Knell, President and CEO of Sesame Workshop talk about some of the work Sesame has done on behalf of children of deployed military personnel.

Sesame Workshop and Walmart have put together an educational package geared towards young kids and their parents to help them cope with the strains of deployment. We each got a copy of the DVD that features Elmo dealing with the deployment of his father. You can watch the video yourself here.

Or you can wait until December 27th and watch Cuba Gooding, Jr., host a television special that "examines young American military families struggling with the sacrifice of long-term deployment" and "captures the extraordinary courage and touching vulnerability of both parents and children, who have embraced Sesame Workshop's effort to produce materials that will support their families." We got to see a snippet of the special, and by the end everybody in that ballroom was teary eyed.

I told Mr. Knell that I've sat through a lot of after-dinner speeches in my time, and his was by and large the best.

And look! We even got free toys to go with our dinner! How's THIS for a "happy meal"?