Ocean Springs News
Check back soon for more details but in the meantime reach out to Renea for more information.
Renae Garcia mobil number: 210-636-8822
February Update:

February Update:








February Update:
Our Chicktime Saturday workshop was spent in the gym! Eva spent the morning teaching our MinT Moms various yoga poses while teaching the benefits of yoga to the body. The session was followed with a healthy snack for all participants. Thank you for sharing your talent and enriching the lives of our MinT family! 

January Update:
Our January work shop was beyond amazing! So many talented children.
They created their own inspiration shirts with the help of leaders and volunteers. A delicious home cooked meal was served and can’t forget the dessert! This activity amazed the children! We can’t wait to do it again!




January Update:





January Update:





January Update:





February Update:



January Update:


January Update:
Our January workshop was awesome and we had such a great time!
We created vision boards, had a sparkling grape juice toast to the new year, and did a nacho and taco bar for the girls. Also, we had a great organization reach out to partner with us to sponsor the girls’ birthdays. Twisted Treasures donated birthday gifts to girls who have birthdays in January, and they also donated cornhole boards and a beanbag toss to the entire facility for the girls to use. They will be sponsoring the girls birthdays every month.
Yesterday, the girls felt so blessed to receive such kindness from people they had not even met. Thank you so much for your kindness and helping the girls feel seen and loved!  See you in February! 
January Update:
ChickTime, this past Saturday was inspirational, creative, and a whole lot to fun!
The girls of TruLight (and volunteers) created 2025 Vision Boards; all enjoyed dreaming up goals, to dos, and hobbies for the new year!
Would you like more info on how you, too, can connect with these amazing young ladies, every second Saturday of each month?
If so, send us a message; we’d love for you to join us!
January Update:
Thanks to all the volunteers that made it out this weekend and to Liz for organizing such fun stations!
The girls enjoyed smoothies and cupcakes and had a great time making various crafts. We also got to celebrate Lisa Brown’s birthday! Happy birthday Lisa!
January Update:


Welcome 2025!
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January Update:

January Update:
We started our year off at Saint John’s Program for Real Change getting our creative juices flowing with our annual Craftpoolza.
January Update:
Chicktime Converse welcomed Cathi and her daughter to our Saturday Workshop. Cathi spent time teaching our MinT residents how to crochet.
Our participants made scarves and cozy blankets during the workshop-which have come in handy with the cold weather that has moved in to San Antonio. Thank you Cathi for giving of your time and self with so much love! We appreciate you so much!
January Update:



December Update:


December Update:
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December Update:
HoliYAY with our favorite youth at Immerse Arkansas!! We were able to join them for a night out of basketball & fun!!
Homemade Christmas mix AND all your favorite fixings for a hot coco barwe are so proud of everything these youth are Overcoming & want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas
December Update:
Our Christmas Party at New Life this weekend was a hit! The rain caused us to move indoors, but it only allowed us to have more fun by all being together. There was Santa, lots of tasty treats, presents, games, and dancing. Thank you to all our volunteers that showed up to put smiles on the girls faces and to all that donated money or gifts to make this possible. Everyone seemed to have a blast! Merry Christmas all!

December Update
*What a night to remember!* Last night, Chicktime Conyers hosted our Christmas party, and it was truly magical! The evening began with an amazing spread of food, including sufganiyot (traditional Hanukkah donuts), Christmas punch, banana pudding, chips, dips, and an unforgettable hot chocolate bar.



December Update:




December Update:


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November Update:


November Update:
Thankful for this new month & for the Thanksgiving Holiday we spent with the youth at Immerse Arkansas It is a true honor to be able to serve#Food #Fun #Family
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November Update:
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BLIND CONTOUR DRAWINGS
Materials
~ Watercolor paper 9 x 12 (cut in half)
~ Black sharpie
~ Painter’s tape
~ Watercolors by OOLY
~ Fluorescent tempera cakes or fluorescent tempera paint
~Pencils/Pens
Procedure
Have two people sit across from each other. One person will be the drawer and the other will be the model and then they will swap.
Add painter’s tape to the entire border of each paper.
The drawer looks at the model the whole time and does not look at the paper. They draw the person as they see them WITHOUT picking up their pencil/pen.
Paint the shapes made by the portrait different fluorescent colors. (The painter’s tape is still on the paper)
After painting, remove the painter’s tape.
Have each person show their masterpiece. Discuss how even when we see ourselves at our worst, that we really are still works of art. Beautiful and gallery worthy!
Click here for the printable instructions for this project.
Interactive Cloud Lamp
MATERIALS
- Hot Glue Sticks
- 10″ White Paper Lantern
- Polyester Fiberfill
- Hanging Pendant Lamp Cord Set
- Flux Bluetooth LED Smart Bulb
TOOLS
- Hot Glue Gun
Step 1: Assemble the Lantern
Assemble the paper lantern according to the instructions that come with it.
There’s a hole at the bottom of the lantern that you’ll want to cover with stuffing, so I taped a piece of white cardboard in the hole with packing tape, so there’s something for the stuffing to attach to.
Step 2: Attach Fiberfill to the Lantern with Hot Glue
This is standard “polyfill”, or polyester stuffing, like you’d use for filling stuffed animals and pillows. If you’re in a craft store, there’s another similar-looking material called batting, which is what you put in a blanket to give it thickness. It’s pretty easy to see in the store that one of them is conducive to being stuffing (polyfill) and the other is a sheet (batting). Batting is much more matted and stuck in its form. But just in case, I bought both and tried them, and there was just no comparison: polyfill is the way to go.
The stuffing isn’t substantial, and you’re applying hot glue to it and then adhering it to the paper lantern. I found the best thing to do was shape the stuffing. It’s very malleable; honestly it’s kind of like working with clay. You kind of figure out the shape you want, then you drizzle the hot glue onto it, as opposed to having the tip of the gun against the stuffing. So you’re going to end up using a ton of it—more than you’d think you need for the weight of the stuffing.
Once you’ve put the glue on the stuffing, get it onto the lantern as quickly as possible. It’s a really forgiving material to work with. If you rip a big chunk off, you can mold it back into a cloud shape and make it work again.
Keep an oblong shape in mind and manipulate the stuffing to get that look. I found that keeping it in mind as I’m gluing stuff on and trying to make the stuffing thicker on two sides and thinner on the other two sides helps, and then after that just gluing more fluff onto those ends, kind of building off of that and pulling it out. When everything is glued in place, you can pull and fluff it out and manipulate it from there, too.
After you’ve gone from top to bottom or bottom to top, go back and pull the stuffing apart and see if there are any spaces where you can still see the lantern, to make sure you’re not missing any spots. If there are any gaps, glue a piece of stuffing there, because the stuffing tends to sag and shift and you’ll see the bald spots later, and your cloud will look very sad.
Step 3: Screw in the LED Bulb
Screw the light bulb into a hanging pendant lamp cord.
There’s the little wire bar that goes across the top that keeps the lantern open, and the light bulb and the head of the cord are too big to fit inside the paper lantern when it’s constructed with that wire bar intact. You have to unhook that and move it aside and get the light bulb in there, and then put the wire back in. It takes a little moving around to get it right.
Stick to an LED bulb for this project. There’s not a lot of space in the lantern, and LED bulbs don’t get hot like incandescent bulbs do. It would be a terrifying thing if all that polyfill went up in flames!
Step 4: Download the FluxSmart App
Smart light bulbs are connected to your phone, so you can use Bluetooth to turn it on, change the color, or even set an alarm so that you wake up to it turning on. You can program it to music so that it flashes with the beat, or if you buy a track with thunder on it, it will flash with the thunder, like lightning! It also has microphone sensitivity, so if you’re having a dance party it will respond to the sounds of the music playing and everyone dancing, which is what we did with my extended family on Christmas Eve!
Download a thunder and rain track to your phone. They are available for both iPhone and Android. In the FluxSmart app, there’s different sensitivity settings. I found that “jazz mode” was slightly more sensitive to the thunder—it lit up more and was a little more responsive, but it’s totally a preference. Play around with it! There’s also a big color wheel that changes the color temperature of the bulb. You can choose and save six favorite colors, or you can spin around on the wheel to get a random color.
You can download the printable instructions for this project here.