There are only 17 days to go until we Launch the Grow Foundation, for Naturally Better Kids at our event here in Melbourne! The Event is being held at a Mansion in Brighton, with an Organic 3 course meal, wine and entertainment included in the ticket price! We already have some incredible support and some wonderful items to auction in order to raise funds for families who really need it.

Tickets are still available, so if you are interested in coming along, see details on the Foundation page or send an email to growfoundation [at] gmail [dot] com.

Items being Auctioned on the night include:

HOLIDAY FOR TEN – 7 nights in a luxury home on a Fijian Island! 3 full Bedrooms & comes with your own private Pool, Pontoon and Golf Buggy! Supplied with a Maid/Cleaner for the duration of your stay! Just off the mainland (on Denarau Island), in a secure Gated community, close to the 5* resorts and fantastic restaurants of the Marina. Island-hop, Swim, Snorkel, Kayak, Fish, Golf – or do nothing! The choice is yours…

Five Course Private Chef’s Dinner For Eight! (at your house) Keeping up with Melbourne’s food & wine scene, this personal chef 5 course dining is sure to please even the most passionate foodie! Standard duration of the event is 5 hours

We are looking forward to a wonderful event!

Huge thanks go to our Supporters, who include the following:

It’s in our DNA. Mothers have an instinct for helping their own children, we’ve had it since time began.  It’s this instinct which tells us to push during contractions, the same instinct we have to comfort our babies when they’re upset.

But I believe the Mother instinct goes much further than this, to the degree that we should – and probably did originally know instinctively what to do for our kids to help them recover from ills. My theory is that in recent times these instincts have been bypassed, replaced with products promising to take care of the child for us. The Mother instinct is a dying art. It’s as if a distance has been put between us and our own children, a distance which makes us uncertain and more likely to refer to a professional than to try and heal our kids ourselves.

I remember when my first baby got sick for the first time – I freaked out and took her to our family doctor – a nutritional and environmental doctor (www.acnem.org) who errs on the side of natural remedies wherever possible.  His advice was to give our little girl vitamin C and echinacea*, which we did and she recovered quickly. The second and third times she became sick, again the recommendation was the same. So, when she became sick for the fourth time did I bother going back to the doctor? No, I gave her echinacea and vitamin C (in the correct dosages for a little baby) and she got better. In fact, my dear doctor did himself out of a job – our girls have hardly been back since!

This was just the confidence boost I needed, and from there I began to look into other natural remedies, developing a confidence to give these to my child when needed.

In my opinion, these Mothering instincts can be honed and fine tuned, all we need is education and some encouraging results at home.

I can honestly say from my own experience that gaining confidence as a mother has protected my children from many toxins throughout their lives. Our kids have never had paracetamol, I jumped on symptoms whenever they appeared and the convenience of not having to go to doctors is definitely an added bonus!

To healthy, happy kids!

*Vitamin C and Echinacea were recommended based on specific symptoms and dosages were carefully prescribed.

Melanie Avery is a Mother turned Author who researched for the benefit of her own children, and has now written a book to help other families.  Snap Melanie!

Melanie’s book, Let’s Party Additive Free, is simply beautiful. In it, Melanie explains the additives we should avoid for our kids and why, including details about some of the possible side effects. She shows us how we can make cakes, treats and take home gifts which taste great & look brilliant – whilst being naturally coloured. The photographs are stunning, and I find myself inspired to begin preparing for my little man’s 4th birthday coming up soon!

After 13 years of birthday parties in our family, I can absolutely relate to the desire to hold additive free parties for the benefit of our own children as well as friends. Apart from what these chemicals do to our little people, there’s nothing worse than a bunch of kids climbing the walls, ‘high’ on red cordial – and then there’s the ride home! I wish I’d had this book when my eldest daughter turned 1 – in my endeavours to avoid a list of nasties, I made her a fresh juice jelly cake which was a flop – literally!

Just to complete this fabulous resource, Melanie includes some great party game ideas. There’s even a shopping list complete with brands making it just so easy to create a perfect party – free from stress!

Let’s Party Additive Free has just been added to my collection of cooking books and, because I love it so much, I’ve also added it to my range of products available on this website. You can read more about it here.

Our article is out this week in Australia’s ‘That’s Life’ magazine!

I am in love with this boy. 11 years old, he says ‘How can I change these things?… I found out that there’s a movement for a better way… I’ve decided to become an Organic Farmer’.

KIDS can change the world! Please share and watch this – and Americans – vote him in as president!

I’m feeling very hopeful after watching this video and the last one I posted. Times are a changing!

This beautiful video says it all. I’ve joined the movement, will you join too?

Click here to read more about this fabulous movement. http://awakeupstory.healthychild.org/join.html

I posted recently about the forthcoming Launch of our exciting new project – the Grow Foundation, for Naturally Better Kids. The official Launch event is being held in November – you can read about it on the new Foundation page of this website.

After a year of hearing from families who are seeing improvements in their children using methods discussed in Naturally Better, this Foundation is the logical next step. Natural & alternative therapies are truly powerful in helping little children to combat neurological challenges. I live with this reality every day with my son.
The purpose of this not-for-profit organisation is to raise funds to support families who wish to follow the natural therapy path which we have found so beneficial for our son.  Specifics about the support we’ll offer will follow closer to our launch event date, but suffice to say that all proceeds from our events & auctions will be donated to families who really need this help.

I can’t speak for the way financial support systems work in other countries, but I do know that Australian families struggle with the costs of raising a child with a disability, even moreso when the family chooses to take this ‘road less travelled’.

“…This family’s journey reminds us that we have the power to be the masters of our destiny and we instinctively know that there is much we can do that is not necessarily the road most travelled.’
Deborra-Lee & Hugh Jackman

Despite remarkable results seen by more and more families all the time, ‘alternative’ therapies aren’t well supported, and when the parent is the one doing the therapy – as is possible with the methods we have used, well I know for a fact that there is NOTHING available funding wise.

SEEKING DONATIONS FOR OUR AUCTION
What we need now are products to be donated for our auctions, which will be held both on the night of our Launch event and on the Grow Foundation facebook page.  If you know any business people who have an interest in natural health, please tell them about this worthy cause. We will accept donations big or small!

These auctions will be ongoing, with all proceeds going towards families in need of support.

There are also opportunities for Sponsorship, now and ongoing.

FUNDRAISING BUNDLES NOW AVAILABLE
To begin our fundraising efforts, we have added 3 fundraising bundles to this website, with 50% of proceeds from the sale of these bundles going directly to families via the Grow Foundation.

Natural therapies are working wonders for children all over the world. Please help us spread the word!

Contact:
Sarah Delarue – growfoundation [at] gmail [dot] com
Facebook – Grow Foundation

Jenny McCarthy followed the biomedical approach for her son – diet, supplements, etc and he is now recovered from Autism. This is a fantastic story of a parent going public for the benefit of others… brilliant.

Last month I did a product review for Enviroblox, a fabulous new toy which our family loves! I couldn’t resist the temptation to add this product to our range of available products. You can read the product review here.

What are EnviroBLOX?

EnviroBLOX are  hybrid between modeling compounds and plastic building bricks.  EnviroBLOX combines benefits of structured building with freeform modeling.

Where are EnviroBLOX made?

EnviroBLOX are made in the U.S.A.

How are EnviroBLOX made?

EnviroBLOX are made up of a US patented high amylose corn starch formulation. The proprietary manufacturing process creates an  expanded, cellular, edible, water soluble, compressible and resilient activity/building material of low density.

How are EnviroBLOX packaged?

EnviroBLOX come in a heavy duty reusable zip polybag and a recyclable chip board sleeve
EnviroBlox is a toy every mother can love…even Mother Earth!

Visit the ‘Other Products’ page of this website to see the range of packs available.

I’ve been writing an article in my head for months now, about how toxic our world is, how hard it is to avoid the chemicals in our foods, our water supply and our air. Each week that goes by I read more about what industry is doing to our poor little planet – our chicken is bleached with ammonia, Australian salmon are apparently fed dyes to make the flesh ‘nice and bright’ and it is a rarity to find a cleaning product without some form of poison destined to kill our water creatures.

I think this week’s prize goes to this little beauty which popped up on my facebook newsfeed:

The caption read: “Say hello to mechanically separated chicken. It’s what all fast-food chicken is made from—things like chicken nuggets and patties. Also, the processed frozen chicken in the stores is made from it. Basically, the entire chicken is smashed and pressed through a sieve—bones, eyes, guts, and all. it comes out looking like this. There’s more: because it’s crawling with bacteria, it will be washed with ammonia, soaked in it, actually. Then, because it tastes gross, it will be reflavored artificially. Then, because it is weirdly pink, it will be dyed with artificial color. But, hey, at least it tastes good, right?”

As if Jamie Oliver’s demonstration of how chicken nuggets are made isn’t bad enough..

It’s pretty overwhelming really, and most overwhelming of all is the relationship between these toxins and our kids.

So with several drafts of articles rattling around in my mind and scrawled on pieces of paper around my house (as they usually are!), I found another article in my newsfeed recently, called ‘Toxins and our children’. The article was posted on a website called ‘Natural Vitality Kids’. Hmmm, nice website name – felt familiar, I read the article which went like this:

I watched this video, which I have now embedded below. The video – and the article on the Natural Vitality Kids website is so extraordinary, I felt completely under qualified to comment on this myself at all.

What is extraordinary about this to me personally, is the fact that Natural Vitality Kids is a website created by a man called Peter Gillham in the USA. Peter Gillham was best man at my parent’s wedding…The world works in mysterious ways!

I recommend you watch this video – even just some of it – and read the article at www.naturalvitalitykids.com It is truly mindblowing.

But in the words of a recent Australian TV ad campaign about terrorism, the key to all of this is to be alert, not alarmed! We have to all become aware of this, and to take actions that we can take at home, and teach our kids important life lessons for their future and the future of our little green planet.