The courageous home schooler and the student who was accepted to law school! 16 Dec 2008
This story actually began seven years ago when the school operated out of my house. Jason had just failed the 7th grade and was having a rough time. His mom heard about my home schooling service and signed him up. It was a "disaster" from the start. Jason tested out years below grade level, yet claimed that he knew "everything." When I would quiz him on basic definitions, he did not know them, did not care to know them, and in some cases had a complete opposite idea of what the word really meant. Jason did not see the point of using a dictionary, as he "only wanted to pass the tests." I can recall vividly one instance when his mother turning purple and yelled at me for "wasting his time by making him look up words." And I can recall me saying over and over how I would not back down from making sure this boy understood his words. Both son and mother were very upset and began looking for another school.
The mother asked me to test Jason a month early so that we could get a present time assessment of what he needed. And shock of the century...after making this boy look up his words hour after hour and day after day with much resistance...he was up to grade level in all subjects!! (Can I hear a "DUH! I told you so!") The test results totally put an end to the resistance and the mother apologized. Jason completed the year testing above grade level and returned to public school.
Jason ended up becoming friends with my kids and even started to call me "Mom." Last year Jason showed up at my school,H.E.L.P. Miami, looking for a job that would allow him to attend college. I told his mom that I would hire him but only give him the refuse-to-look-up-words-know-it-all-kids. She laughed. (I was not joking...I gave Jason a few tough ones!) Jason has worked as a tutor in our middle school and has helped many kids with their math and grammar.
Last week he was accepted into law school. He came to my office to thank me for "everything" and supporting him even when he was a punk. "Well done" Jason for doing well in school! I am glad you are part of my family and team!
Thank you to Fran Morrison for another box of books from California! The kids love them! Thank you to Sandy Cruz getting her coworkers to help provide gifts for a little girl's birthday! She was so happy and her mom was thrilled that she was able to host a party for her daughter. (Just wait until this family sees what we pulled together for Christmas! They will flip!)
And finally.... H.E.L..P. Miami is a non-profit organization. Your end of the year donations are a welcome gift that allows us to do more for the children in our community. Thank you!
Student that "cannot learn" wins at HELP Miami! 9 July 2008
Summer school has been in session for just four weeks and in that time H.E.L.P. Miami has done what 10 years of schooling could not for one of our students... we got a him to learn. (And oh my DOG...it was sooo simple!) I met this 10th-grader in June. He had failed the grade, which was just another loss in a chain of educational upsets. When he was younger, he was labeled and medicated against his will and his academics and attitude got worse. So here is this hopeless teenager in my office being "ordered" to summer school and not very happy about his situation. When I asked him and his mother why he was put on medication their answer was that he was "bored in school." (Can you imagine...a 10-year-old boy...bored...in school...being the basis of a "mental disorder"?) Anyway, the boy has struggled and struggled and now is being held back because he failed a class. He tested out around 5th grade in most of his subjects and was put on a study program addressing grammar and English (the class he failed). The end of his first week in summer school, he came into my office and said that he FINALLY understood Shakespeare! The second week he cleared up misunderstandings in grammar and handled a few things in math as well. This week he retested and has gone up three full grade levels in reading and language arts! He says he is learning...ACTUALLY learning! And get this...he is having fun! OH MY DOG! A STUDENT LEARNING SOMETHING AT SCHOOL...THAT'S CRAZY!!! Anyway, he is happy and so is his mother!
A note from Barbie Rivera 13 May 2008
Just two weeks ago a family came to see me with their teenage daughter. The girl is a real cutie-pie but very frustrated over her academic difficulties. The parents had tried everything and every school. At one point, the girl had been on a high dose of Ritilan but it caused heart problems so her mother took her off. Anyway, I sit with the girl and her parents and find out that the kid really did want to learn but really did not have any clue on HOW to do this. The girl wants to become a fire fighter yet told me that she really does not like to "do any work." In fact, her previous schools all complained that the kid just did not do school work. I kindly pointed out that her career choice was not for the meek and lazy AND that should my kitty ever get stuck in a burning building, I may need CPR if she was the one who was in-charge of the rescue! The girl ended up enrolling in the school even though there are only a few weeks left to the year. In just a week and a half the girl has become part of weekly debates, has joined our acting group and has taken on the role of a lawyer in a mock trial to be held this Friday. Her test scores were low, which is no surprise but she is responding super well to the attention she is getting. Her mother spoke to me yesterday and said, "I have a completely different child! She is so talkative and happy! She talks about the school all day and says that she wants to get her scores up and thinks that she actually CAN do this! I wish I would have found you when she was five years old!"
And another story that shows how much we care about our students. Adelita, the lead middle school teacher, noticed that one of her teenage students was really down. Adelita asked the student, Carlos, what was going on and the boy said that it had been exactly one year since his father passed away and he was sad but decided that going to school would be better than staying at home. Adelita got with Luisa (another teacher) and came up with a plan. Luisa came to Adelita's class and in front of everyone said that she needed help with her kids. Adelita chose Carlos be Luisa's "assistant for the day". Carlos did phonics flash cards, played games, helped with math and even did an art project. He was very willing to help and the younger students liked having him as a guest tutor. At the end of the day Carlos realized that Adelita made him an assistant to try to cheer him up and gave her a huge hug! (And I do mean HUGE; the boy is about 6 feet 4 inches tall!)
Thanks for reading!
Barbie Brown Rivera
A note from Barbie Rivera 7 April 2008
Subject: H.E.L.P. Miami & Visit from Psychologist
Okay, by now anyone who reads my updates should know very well that I have an "attitude problem." I never consider myself to be "nice," as I prefer to be effective, and the two concepts do not always mix. So here I am tutoring a kid in my office when into HELP walks a woman with her four teenagers. She had read about our program on www.elearnaid.com (an online dictionary store that has a page about H.E.L.P. Miami on it) and wanted to enroll one daughter in our program. I can hear the woman outside my office telling Tamara her story. Turns out that the woman is a psychologist and had adopted several children, who she promptly had labeled and put on meds. She was talking about these kids as if they weren't there...except they WERE there and could hear everything she was saying. "This one is horrible in math so she is on (name of medication)", "This one struggles in reading so is on (name of medication)", "This one just doesn't listen..." and on it went. The lady was fully aware of the side effects of the meds and said that the kids did not like the pills because they made them sick. Plus all the kids are doing horrible in school and none of them looked too happy to have their "difficulties" spoken of in front of strangers.
Clearly this woman was in need of a "reality adjustment" so I gladly gave her one. I started in by pointing out that her kids were RIGHT HERE and that I considered it not very professional for a trained psychologist to talk about her children like this. If as a professional you respect the privacy of your patients you should then extend the same courtesy to your own children...HELLO!
Next came her theory that all of the children were "learning disabled" and had various "attention disorders". In my opinion, if a child is TRULY learning disabled they could not learn and could not retain information. If these kids did fall into that category, they would not know how to dress themselves, use a cell phone or be able to send text messages. If the child can focus six hours playing a video game without interruption, there is nothing wrong with his attention. And to the best of my knowledge, there is no pill that guarantees a person will learn math, reading or any other subject. If the medication "was a real solution," her kids should not feel sick and should not be doing poorly in school.... HELLO AGAIN!! Does it not occur to someone that the difficulty in understanding math lies in knowing the meaning of the terms used in math? Or the child who struggles in reading may have not had a strong phonics foundation? I told the woman and the kids that unless they can properly define terms they will fall short on fully grasping the subject. I told the woman that I would not embarrass her by demanding that she give me dictionary definitions of words like, "fractions, decimal, comma, etc." but that when I tutor someone that is the approach that is taken. I let the lady know that problems with study are handled with dictionaries and practice (NOT medication) and that there are no harmful side effects to using a dictionary! HEL-LO said at the top of my lungs, with my hands on my hips while rolling my eyes!
Finally, I addressed the "poor behavior" she mentioned by saying that behavior is and always will be a true reflection of the way the child is being raised. Unfortunately, there is no short cut to good parenting and it is definitely not a spectator sport. (After spending just five minutes with the lady, I was feeling a bit "disordered"...her poor kids have to put up with her long-winded evaluations and excuses all day!)
By the time I finished the woman was a bit squirmy in her seat but the kids were all sitting at attention and had smiles on their faces. Honestly, I thought I'd never see this lady again as her hair was standing on end. Guess what? A few days later she came back and has since enrolled two of her girls in our summer program! Now hopefully the mother is seeing a qualified pediatrician about the medication issue, as it needs to looked into, especially if the kids feel sick. At any rate, the girls are super excited about starting and from my brief meeting with them I think they are going to do really well. I may even make an ally of the mom and we can help more kids like hers.
Thanks for reading!
Barbie
A note from Barbie Rivera 5 March 2008
There is so much going on at H.E.L.P. Miami and it will be impossible to relay it all. But here is some good news:
Photography has been added to our curriculum! Once a week, a professional photographer, Fransico Gonzalez, comes in with equipment and holds a class for our future photographers. The students LOVE this class because it a complete hands-on activity. Francisco gives a lesson on one aspect of photography and the kids then get to work on that aspect. Thanks to modern technology, their pictures can be viewed instantly on Francisco's laptop and their work critiqued. This week Francisco's class is taking school pictures and all of our students and staff are getting professional portraits taken. Thanks to the mall management (who LOVE H.E.L.P. Miami) we were given an empty mall space to use at no cost for this week's pictures!
Speaking of the management at Miller Square Shopping Center where H.E.L.P. Miami is located, we are well liked and admired. In fact the mall does not want to lose us, as per the manager, "Barbie, everything about your school has been a plus! We see that you are totally full and we are looking at how we can accommodate your needs, PLEASE do not move yet!" H.EL.P. Miami brings over 100 people to the mall weekly, which benefits our fellow mall tenants.
The general look of our place is that of interested kids in a very busy atmosphere and this catches attention of people walking by. In fact a gentleman from NBC television, who happened to be at a lunch meeting in the mall, came by a few days ago. He wanted info about what we are doing and our program; he got his info and was impressed. The same day a gentleman from an African-American non-profit stopped by because he wants to put a literacy program (like ours) into churches across South Florida.
And as a result of a very thorough public relations campaign at the mall, H.E.L.P. Miami has received over $20,000 from Publix, WalMart and Target! The little bags of chocolates or home-baked blueberry pies that I pass out go a long way in making firm relations!
Here is one story that started off rough and is turning into a win: A few months ago a woman enrolled her children at H.E.L.P. Miami, as they were doing horrible in school and horrible at home. Poor grades and daily fights were the usual and the mom was at her wits end. Both kids had been on various medications for years but their behavior did not change. During a rather heated discussion on the subject of using drugs to modify behavior, the woman literally screamed at me, "The doctor's are right! The kids need medication to learn and to behave!" I pointed out that if that were true, that her children should be A+ students and be best of friends since they had been on medication for years! After that exchange I honestly did not think the family would put the kids in the school. But as it turned out, the pediatrician and the parents came up with a plan and the kids were taken off the medication. Three months later the younger child made the H.E.L.P. Miami Honor Roll with all "A's" and "B's." Both children are doing well in their academics and the mother says that home life is so much better. I have had a few family meetings with the kids and the mom to help with mild issues to a good result. The mom is now becoming outspoken and is taking action against the prior school for insisting on meds in the first place. The mother had me do a study skills lecture to her private tutor so that the tutor would use the same techniques from home. The tutor notices a HUGE change as well and says that there are no more panic attacks when something comes up that is not immediately understood.
So, well done to Nancy and Luisa too, as they have the children of the woman in their class. The kids LOVE their teachers.
Last minute win...this past January the high school students performed their first ever Improv Show. The kids were awesome and totally entertained the audience. One girl in particular stood out with her fast talking, hilarious body language and over the top energy. Her parents were literally floored with how well their daughter performed and how funny she was. That night the father approached me and said he was going to look into acting for his daughter AND to make a long story short...Shirin is now up for a part in a Disney sitcom! Fingers crossed that this goes right for her!
And finally, to all of the staff of H.E.L.P. Miami (Tamara, Adelita, Wanda, Jason, Carolina, Danny, Jenny, Luisa and Nancy)...not a week goes by without some student drama and you all handle it well. The miracles that you produce and the lives that you save everyday make this group a thrill to be part of! As our theme song goes..."We Are Fam-I-Ly"...thank you so much for doing what you do.
A note from Barbie Rivera 29 Jan 2008
High school students had the shock of their lives when they discovered that, as part of an
economics lesson, they actually had to put the data to use and 'think' with financial
planning. High school teacher, Nancy, and her sidekick Danny (assistant tutor) came up
with an awesome assignment where the high school students will have pretend jobs,
spouses, kids, pets, the works. Nancy and Danny held a series of games/raffles to
determine salaries, careers and husbands and wives! The kids groaned but were laughing,
especially when they discovered that they had five kids to feed. Nancy handed out the
project guidelines and my son Michael (now a single parent of four) said out loud, 'I am
a single parent! Why should I have to do all this stuff?' This is really hilarious as I AM a
single parent and have four kids so I called out from my office and offered the students
skateboards, guitars and tickets to see Iron Maiden in concert...actual items that I recently
bought for Michael. He seemed to get the point. My other son Adam is suddenly married
with five kids but as he is a millionaire rock star, he is not worried about finances; he is
just complaining about his wife...he is married to Shirin!! Anyway, the kids broke up into
their 'families' and using real estate magazines discovered how much housing costs.
They go on line to price insurance and cars and other items. The kids were a riot. In one
example, when my 16-year old son Michael returned to my office to find out how much
groceries for four children cost his eyes nearly popped out of his head. I explained that
not only do I feed my own kids but I feed the pets AND the weekend kids that spend the
night too PLUS the cost of pizza delivery, etc...At this point Michael decided that his kids
were not allowed to have pets or friends and no one will eat pizza AND his kids will not
want to see Iron Maiden in concert, as by the time the kids are old enough the members
of Iron Maiden will most likely be dead. The project is on a time line and will take the
kids to end of the school year...just wait till the Nancy-induced hurricane hits or a mother
in law has to move in due to an illness!!! I will keep you posted on the results!
A note from Barbie Rivera 28 Nov 2007
This week we wrapped up our first quarter tests with many good results.
HUGE win for a little guy that has been with us for 3 years. This kid was told that he could not learn and was impossible to manage. Medication was prescribed to address his situation but the meds offered no change. When he arrived at HELP Miami he had already decided that school and people were not for him. This boy could not read, write or do much math and he struggled with academics. He was only in the second grade and was "done with life!" He got off to a rough start at HELP, as he would become easily frustrated with simple tasks, and more than once his mom had to come pick him up due to anger issues. Rather than give up, we persisted and he slowly began to calm down, but he still took a loss whenever he was tested because he never scored higher than a Kindergartner. This school year this "tough boy" has become one of my morning assistants and helps turn on lights, take out trash and so on. He loves to attend morning meetings and offers advice for running the school (like doing away with all forms of testing.) I pay him weekly with cool stickers or a hip pencil. His tutor, Luisa, has him on our new Applied Scholastics Reading Program and he is doing well. Today I called him into my office to tell him he has done the impossible...every subject that he was tested on went up! He actually did not believe me so I showed him that he had finally tested higher than a Kindergartner and has a second-grade academic level, with third-grade marks in reading and math. This is a major, MAJOR win for this boy and his family! Now he has hope of catching up! Well done to him and well done to Luisa for hanging in there...I think you saved this boy's life!
A note from Barbie River 18 Oct 2007
This week's story is about one of my most favorite people on the planet...a student named Jose! Jose is a complete success story. He was an orphaned child with many physical issues. When he was a baby, Jose pulled in an awesome foster mother who ended up adopting him. We met Jose when he was 12 and unable to read. The experts told his mother that Jose would never be able to function above a kindergarten level but the mother refused to believe it. Long story short, Jose has been at HELP Miami for almost four years and can now read, write, do math, write book reports and is one of my hardest working kids in high school. Well last week Jose turned 16. He made it clear that he did not want to come to school on his birthday (as if it should be declared a national holiday) AND he most definitely did not want his teacher and I to DO anything. Well asking Nancy and I NOT to do something is an invitation to TOTALLY do otherwise. And we DID otherwise!
Jose came into school and found that we crammed his study area with blowers, horns, silly string, streamers and bubbles. We bought Jose a very cheesy "Birthday Crown" and told him that he be sent to the office if he took it off...hee-hee. I got all the high school students paper Spiderman masks, which turned out to be quite the hit and many wore their masks the whole day. Before morning classes began, the staff would break out singing "Happy Birthday to Jose" every time a student entered the school...it was kind of like an annoying doorbell. Right after roll call we had a special "High School Story Time!!!" Nancy read a really bad rhyming poem she wrote for Jose, "Hey, hey Jose! It is your birth-day! Elephants are gray! Hey, hey..."
and I read a book that I wrote about how Jose LOVES math, drives a super cool sports car and brings treats to school for all the staff. Tamara bought a phonics book and changed the words to make Jose the main character. Jose kept his head covered during most of this but was laughing! We noted that he did not take down one single decoration during the day, and per his mother, he couldn't wait to show off his books and poem to his family and friends after school.
And since I am talking about Jose, I want to throw in a very warm acknowledgment to his mother Luisa, who started working at HELP Miami a couple of years ago and who is an awesome teacher. She goes the extra mile with the kids and really makes school fun. Luisa trained up on our new Applied Scholastics Reading Program and the kids just LOVE it! Thank you Luisa for bringing us Jose and for doing an incredible job as a mother and as a teacher everyday.
A note from Barbie Rivera 3 Oct 2007
This week we had an unexpected visit from a social worker concerning one of our students that is in foster care. Medication is pretty much mandatory for children in the foster care program but the foster parents in this case refuse to medicate, which is causing many waves within the system. Anyway, a social worker comes by to check us out and see how her assigned foster child is performing. This woman saw the child working and laughing in her group.
When the girl saw the social worker, she jumped up and brought over a few workbooks to show off. The woman commented on all the happy faces and stickers which made the child just beam! The woman was VERY impressed so began asking me questions about the HELP program. She told me that HELP Miami is only organization that she knows of that promotes a drug-free education. (Like seriously...we are the ONLY school in South Florida that does not label and medicate kids.) She further commented that the way we talk to kids is very positive too. (Meaning we treat children with respect and think that they matter.) Then under her breath, she says that she really does not believe in medicating kids but does not know what else to do. So I gave her a heart-to-heart talk on how we as adults must take action. I gave her some information and a DVD to watch for homework. She is recommending other clients to me and I may take on tutoring her child too as the kid is having trouble learning to read.
A note from Barbie Rivera Sept 2007
This week we enrolled a young girl who is in the Miami-Dade foster program. Her parents have been absent since she was 4 years old. Unfortunately, most foster children are put on mandatory medication and this girl was no exception. Lucky for her she has foster parents that are alert and aware enough to research medication. The medication that this girl was prescribed was for seizures, something that the girl did not suffer from. The foster parents insisted that she be taken off the medication and they succeeded.
However, the pressure from the "powers at be" to medicate was still very strong and there was at least one teacher that refused to teach the child if she was not medicated first. The parents were told, "Why do you care so much? She is just a foster child." All that is going on is that the girl cannot read and prints some letters/numbers backwards. The foster parents held their ground and refused medication. The girl was then transferred to a "behavior class" full of children with severe emotional problems. The girl did not react very well to the change, and because the parents still refused to medicate, this 8-year-old girl was Baker Acted1 (which means she was taken by force to a local psych ward.) Can you imagine?...I mean this girl maybe weighs 60 pounds and is taken by force!? Per the foster mother, the hospital offered to keep the child until she was 18! The foster parents got her out of the psych ward and took her out of the "behavior school." As the child receives state funding for her education, the mom began searching for private schools that were against labeling and drugging children and she found H.E.L.P. Miami. The girl has been here for almost a week now. There have been no "episodes," no "drama" and no "upsets." She has made a few friends and loves her teacher (who herself adopted a boy via a foster
program.) The girl's handwriting has straightened out and her letters and numbers are neat and printed correctly. The girl is very happy, as is the mother, who is working out enrolling her other children at H.E.L.P. Miami too.
Next was a visit from a licensed psychotherapist. This man is both a teacher and a therapist who has had it with the drugging of children. He quit working for a psychiatrist, as medication was the only "solution" offered to the youth that were being serviced. The man thinks that labeling and drugs are a moneymaking industry that is destroying our future. Why is he so outraged? His own son has been labeled. I met this kid and he is sharp...probably sharper than many adults and asks awesome questions. He wants to know EVERYTHING and WHY and HOW but he is 8 years old and cannot read. Per the father, the teacher cannot handle the boy's questions. (I find it refreshing, as he is not a child who could be easily manipulated.) This kid starts tutoring tomorrow and begins full time school next month.
So WOW! It is always interesting to me to put faces with statistics. I hear that children get Baker Acted1 and now I met one. And let me say this, if I put this girl in a room of 10 kids, you would NOT be able to pick her out.
She is actually very pleasant...and she is just 8! Which means that almost anyone could be Baker Acted1. And the little boy that has been labeled is kind of intense but HE is super fast and his communication is VERY smart.
Once he gets a grip of reading and has a few wins with it, I am certain he'll do fine in school.
So this is the part where I ask for money! We are actually almost solvent as an organization. However, our overhead is higher than most schools as we have a low student to teacher ratio PLUS we really go out of our way to service the needs of our students. Right now we need everything from art supplies to Uno card games. Your donations totally help us out. And as it is Halloween, send us $50 and I will send you a handmade ghost for your desk!
Trust me...it is a really cool ghost!
1 The Baker Act is a Florida law which allows a circuit judge, a physician, a clinical psychologist, a psychiatric nurse, a clinical social worker or a law enforcement officer to decide a person should be taken into custody and held for up to 72 hours for a psychiatric examination.
A note from Barbie Rivera August 2007
HELP Miami started the 2007-2008 school year with a BOOM! And even though we have just barely finished beginning of the school year testing, we are getting some really cool wins: I have a teenage girl that started at the end of last year. She should be in high school but only tested out around 5th Grade. She knew she was behind but still responded to help with a major attitude. With persistence and many words defined later, the girl starts the year.... still with the same everybody-stop-bothering-me attitude. As it turns out, this girl tested out really well...not ready for med school, but a huge improvement. So I sit her down and gave her a "What the heck?" talk.
She comes across as a gang member that could care less yet she IS so smart after all! I told her that she tested out very well and that she really could do something with her education. Her face lit completely up and she started to cry. "For real?," she asked. I confirmed my statement and showed her the test results. I did add that the "ghetto look" was not doing her any favors and that she owed herself more than that. That conversation was two days ago. Now this girl looks completely different; she actually smiles. She has some pride and hope and it totally shows.
In keeping with HELP's policy of providing our students with what they need and want, we are adding extra classes! Fridays from 3:15 to 4:30 is Drama/Improv Class. There is no charge for HELP Miami students. This class is for high school kids and is open for a fee to students not enrolled in our program.
Guitar Lessons will begin Thursday from 3:00 to 5:00! Leo Quintero will deliver classes to groups of five kids. As the Thursday class is almost filled, Leo will offer classes other days too as needed. Leo gave a short concert yesterday and the students were impressed. Leo's classes are not free but are open to students not enrolled at HELP. Kids need to be here and have an electric guitar with a few other odds and ends. Call me if you want to participate.
A note from Barbie Rivera Nov 2006
Our students are bright and interested in their academics...realize that 50% of the student body were previously labeled with learning disabilities (learning disorders) in prior schools any many kids were prescribed medication. To see these kids, who were told by "the experts"
that they could not learn actually participating in their education and having wins, is incredible.
Well done to the staff for their dedication to these kids!
I gave a parenting seminar. Before I even started the parenting seminar a man and his wife stood up and told their story..."Our daughter was born 4 months premature and is nearly deaf. School has been a nightmare for her since she was five years old. She started at HELP 2 years ago and I must tell you, we were nervous as the teachers were not certified, the students are put in charge of their education and Barbie does not give homework. This is totally against everything we thought a school should be. But Barbie pointed out that a change was needed and the "certified experts" were not getting a product. Plus, if the school did not work out, we could always take our daughter out. My daughter has been coming to HELP for almost two years and is a completely different human being...I mean totally and completely different! She is so relaxed and happy. She never liked books and now we go to the bookstore weekly to get her books as she reads so much. Just last week, on her own decision, she started to write her first novel. The words that she used to express herself give me chills." (At this point the man started to get watery eyes.)
He went on to tell the parents, "I do not know how this L.Ron Hubbard study philosophy works or why it works, but I can tell you that is does work and is the key to our children's future." Just so you know, this man's daughter had been labeled and told she would be "slow" for the rest of her life. This man's speech then started a chain reaction, with other parents giving their stories as well.
To get in contact with Barbie Rivera, please send us an email and we'll forward it to her.
Pictured above are the HELP Miami tutors, who have been awarded The President's Service Award. The woman in the center with the big smile received a Life Time Award for volunteering over 4000 hours. Well done and thanks! All received certificates, a letter from the President and a pin!