Our Story
International Peace Day
21 September 2019
As long time ”boy mom” friends we would often share our desire to help create a kinder, gentler world for our children and our children’s children. Together we saw the many challenges around our young students and neighbors dealing with playground bullying to wondering if their school would be next on the news due to a mass shooting. We wanted to do something! We became students of PEACE…
On September 21st, 2018 we enrolled in a year long webinar course, “Taking a Stand for Peace in a Volatile World” presented Dr. Scilla Elworthy, 3x Nobel Peace Prize nominee & author of The Business Plan for Peace and Sheva Carr, Founding CEO of Heart Ambassadors and HeartMath’s HeartMastery Program, and Co-Director of HeartMath Healthcare. Both women are long-time peace-builders and agents of change.
The course was held monthly with students from varied backgrounds from across the globe and was to be completed by September 21, 2019.
We learned about incredible brave non-violent peacemakers, heard from various guest speakers, learned that we all can have an impact on peace, had homework assignments, and given a final peace-building project to create impact on our own community.
One guest, Jeremy Gilley with the U.K. organization, Peace One Day shared his efforts that helped create the official marked calendar day of September 21st as Peace Day with The United Nations. Jeremy’s video of his journey inspired our local peace-building class project! (Learn more about Peace One Day and The Business Plan for Peace on our resources page)
During the summer of 2019 we were able to organize the 1st International Peace Day in Manhattan Beach. The support was truly touching and an incredible day of community. “Stand in the Sand 4 Peace & Climate Action” took place 9/21/19. We gathered on the sands of our city to spell the word PEACE with students and community members as well as collaborated with Heal the Bay to help with a beach clean up for World Clean-Up Day.
Our hope was to bring awareness to Peace Day and share in the global commemoration of PEACE with a photo that could be shared all-year long. With our class project completed, we were inspired to “build” on the efforts of so many long-time peace-building heroes and share our own years of experience in the community to educate on the critical need to unite for a better world for all. With the love and support of our families & friends, one year later we have co-created Stand 4 Peace. The video below was made to thank those who helped our PEACE vision project become a reality. Please take a look and we hope to spark more people to share in a vision of peace and show your support on 21 September. PEACE is Possible!
Donna Barney Nicholson
Meet Donna Nicholson
I have been teaching elementary school in Southern California for 26 years. Throughout my professional journey I have been very fortunate to contribute to the education of hundreds of children. I have been a part of many educational programs ranging from whole language and standards based practices to the common core and cognitively guided math instruction. Although programs may change and shift, one constant element remains key in the education of a child. In order to find success, they must do so from within their own consciousness. If the foundation within a child is balanced, calm and positively charged, they become a sponge, ready to soak up the knowledge all around. It is my intention to help children achieve and maintain this balance.
Donna is currently a 1st grade teacher at Pennekamp Elementary School and started The Mind Lounge project for Manhattan Beach Unified School District to provide a “peaceful” space for students.
Karen Wooldridge
Meet Karen Wooldridge
With over thirty years in the sport and wellness industry, I’ve been fortunate to work with industry leaders like adidas, FILA, Under Armour and Beyond Yoga.
Being the Vice President of Sales for a growing yoga company during a “yoga legging” fashion craze was all consuming and I allowed myself to burn out. After leaving the company, I dedicated myself to a 200-hour yoga teacher training that I did for myself, my loved ones and to better serve my clients in the future.
The experience of learning something new was exhilarating and the physical practice of learning the poses, body anatomy and philosophy was exactly what I was craving in personal development.
I am now utilizing this new information along with my years of corporate experience as a platform to consult, connect and mentor as the founder of The Kare N Connection. I want to see people flourish in all areas of their lives and believe how we care and connect at home and at school/work must be integrated with learning to embrace inner self-connection for peace to be possible at any age.
Karen is currently consulting, mentoring and devoting her time and support to local peace building efforts in her local communities and more.