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Gift Giving

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Siemens' Holiday Giving Campaign Helping Children, Seniors

The more than 2,600 company employees in the metro Atlanta area, including many in Alpharetta, collected toys and gifts for more than 1,000 children and seniors.

More than 1,000 children and seniors are getting a brighter holiday with the efforts of Siemens and the company's employees. On Friday the gifts were collected in Alpharetta for distribution through the Children's Restoration Network, the Forsyth Family YMCA and the Forsyth Senior Center. "We've actually been running a holiday giving campaign since 2005. It's really grown since 2009, because that's about the time we went from being a very small location across two or three of our locations to all 16 locations where we have our folks based," said Cathe Reams, director of Communications for Siemens. Siemens is spread out across the metro area, she said, sometimes in full buildings and other sites with small offices. Siemens employs more than…

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Ten Magical Children’s Books For Gift-Giving

Patch asked newly-published children's book author Jo Ann Kairys to tell us about the most magical children's book on the shelves this holiday season. Here is her list.

Kids say and do the darndest things, right? And so often, they provide tender or hilarious or wonder-filled inspiration for picture books. One day I heard my granddaughters complaining about the rain as they thumped on the window. Eager to get outdoors, they waited impatiently for the storm to end. Suddenly, they pretended they were the rain. “SWOOSH! SPLAT! SWISH!” Their sounds were innocently poetic, perfect ingredients for a rhyming picture book. Putting it all together in story form is when the magic happens—a sound in just the right place, a vibrant image that brings the story alive, and characters who draw you right into their world. There are so many wonderful children’s picture books. I’d like to share a few that I think have that …

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