Kelly Bonanno

Your soulful coach for wellness, clean beauty & eco lifestyle Savvy | Sexy | Beautiful | Healthy | You

Kelly

By 3 Comments

Fitness & Fundraising

Jog-a-Thons ~ A Fun & Healthy Way To Raise Money $$$

Last Friday was the annual Jog-A-Thon at my kids’ school. It’s a fun day and a smart way to raise money. It’s fitness based; the kids get exercise, have a blast and parents enjoy being involved. It works fitness into fundraising instead of material goods. They even have a DJ blasting music so the kids can get their groove on while they run.

With all the budget cuts over the past several years, fundraising is essential to keep certain programs alive. The monies raised from the Jog-A-Thon fund programs such as Visual and Performing Arts, PE Specialists, school­ assemblies, classroom instruction and technology assistance, upgrades and support. These programs are vital to our children’s education.

In order to reach their goal, the school requests that each student raise a certain amount of money by either asking friends and family to sponsor them with a certain dollar amount per lap or the family can simply make a flat donation, no need for sponsors. What’s great is that it’s a one shot deal and you don’t need to sell wrapping paper, cookie dough, magazine subscriptions, etc. How many times can you hit up your friends, co-workers, grandparents and neighbors to buy stuff? It’s a never ending cycle because everyone has kids who need to help raise money for their schools and some schools make those type of fundraisers extremely competitive.

With the Jog-A-Thon, each child is asked to raise the same amount of money. The only competitive part is that the kids aim to run as many laps as they can. If your child’s school is looking for fundraising ideas I highly recommend a Jog-A-Thon. If you have any good fund raising ideas, please share them!

By 7 Comments

How Pure Is Your Honey, Honey?

Sweet, thick, golden, dripping honey. We’re told that it’s a healthy replacement for sugar, it soothes a sore throat, even helps calm a cough but many brands are contaminated. Yes, contaminated. Can consumers trust anything on store shelves anymore?
Imported honey has been found to contain heavy metals and animal antibiotics that could potentially make people sick, particularly children. Ingesting unnecessary and harmful antibiotics also builds antibiotic resistance. Much of the problematic honey is sourced out of China. Big surprise. They attempt to dodge high import taxes by shipping it to the U.S. through other countries such as India or mislabeling it, a practice known as ‘honey laundering.’
A study done by Food Safety News found that 76% of the honey sold in grocery stores and nearly 100% of the honey sold at big box chains did not contain any pollen. When pollen is removed from honey, not only does it lessen the health benefits but there is no way to trace where the honey actually came from so you can’t be certain it’s safe.
The FDA has done nothing about this issue despite the fact that public health groups, several members of congress and the honey industry have all requested that they put standards in place for over a decade. This is another area where Europe is ahead of the curve. Over the last 2 years, 27 European countries banned honey imported from Asian countries because of this problem.
In many cases, honey from China is also most likely diluted with high fructose corn syrup and rice syrup. How do you know your honey is pure? Buy USDA certified organic honey made in the USA. Go local if possible, but at the very least, make sure it is made in the USA.