Children's Book By San Diego Mayors Raises Funds For Domestic Violence Shelters

November 23, 2020 at 10:12 AM PST

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 00:37 Speaker 1: 00:59 Speaker 2: 01:04 Speaker 1: 01:16 Speaker 2: 01:26 Speaker 1: 01:36 Speaker 2: 01:45 Speaker 1: 02:03 Speaker 2: 02:07 Speaker 1: 02:31 Speaker 2: 02:42 Speaker 1: 02:52 Speaker 2: 03:02 Speaker 1: 03:21 Speaker 2: 03:33 Speaker 1: 03:51 Speaker 2: 03:54 Speaker 1: 04:02 Speaker 2: 04:12 Speaker 1: 04:27 Speaker 2: 04:32 Speaker 1: 04:48 Speaker 2: 04:50 Speaker 1: 05:04 Speaker 2: 05:14 Speaker 1: 05:24 Speaker 2: 05:31 Mayors of several San Diego cities have collaborated on a children's book, all in an effort to raise funds for domestic violence shelters around the County. The book is the brain child of a nonprofit organization called the purple project, which donates supplies to the shelters. The book is called Penny's adventure in San Diego, and it follows the flight of a butterfly around the County visiting some of San Diego's most beautiful and beloved landmarks. Joining me is Jordan canola, founder of the purple project and Jordan. Welcome. Thank you very much for having me now tell us about the book. What is it about The book is compiled by 14 different mayors of San Diego County, who all wrote a chapter in the book playing as penny, the butterfly in their city and bringing joy to sad animals and children. So the books basically is about a butterfly migrating from Colorado to Mexico because it's getting really cold and, uh, Colorado and on her way, she's getting tired. So she decides to rest and explore our beautiful city. Now, what, what are some of the landmarks in the book that the butterfly visits on her way to Mexico? Honestly, there there's some pretty good ones. Um, in ocean side, you have the ocean side pier lemon Grove, they chose their lemon. That's the top of Mount helix. Um, she goes to the wave waterpark. Now you say that mayors of most cities in the County participated in writing the book, they got a chapter each, how did they coordinate with one another? So basically what we did is the per project. We wrote the beginning and we wrote the end and we gave the members essentially the meat of the story to write as where the butterfly goes and how she helps people. Okay. So they were given some prompts on that. Now your nonprofit supports domestic violence shelters. How does it go about doing that? We do a lot of fundraisers and we sell items off our website. And with that money that is raised, we purchase items of need. So for example, the Y WCA reached out to me and they said that they needed kitchen and cooking supplies. So what I did this weekend is with the money we sold from our water bottles, as I bought them kitchen supplies and had it shipped to their house. Now, why did you choose to help the shelters in that way? I chose to help the shelters just because grants are grants. Aren't always guaranteed and donations might not be enough, especially with such a great need. And unfortunately the amount of cases we have in our community. And I want to provide a way that we could build up support for those who are actually helping those that are going through domestic violence. We could have just, I guess, supported one local shelter, but I want to come up with a system where we could be most effective. Now we've heard reports that the COVID shutdowns have increased instances of domestic violence, have shelters around the County experienced that to your knowledge. There have been, yes, there have actually been three cities that have experienced quite a bit of an uptick in domestic violence. And that is actually Santi alcohol and national city. So has your organization seen, uh, requests for donations increase as some of the shelters become more crowded? Um, we definitely have had more, um, shelters reaching out to us in the beginning since we've been around for a little over a year now in the beginning, it was us reaching out, asking people what their need is. And lately I've found it's more people messaging us, which is wonderful. It's what we want, you know, so it's just another Avenue for us to provide support. And I'm willing to take on that challenge. What do these shelters need? What do they tell you that they're running low on? Uh, is it, is it something different all the time or is there a one or two particular things that they always need Different each time? Because our goal at the purple project is meet the most basic need. And sometimes it's diapers. Sometimes it's food sometimes as it is, this case is kitchen and cooking supplies. So there's never the same thing that we buy twice in a row, but there's a consistent list. Why create a children's book as a fundraiser? I thought it would be the best way to bring the community together, as well as raise money, without having to ask people who don't have it to give. And of course you must have a impediment in that you can't have an actual fundraiser these days where people get together. So the book is like almost like a substitute for that. Yeah. So it's our goal to get it into local book, um, bookstores and to some preschools and no one from the purple project gets paid. No one's on salary. All the money that comes in, we just used to support our local shelters. And as I said, you could, can't do an in-person fundraiser. Why not do a virtual event? We did do a virtual event, um, a couple months back, uh, may the fourth be with you, which was really fun, but I just got the feeling that a lot of people don't want to do any more virtual events. Since a lot of people are working with zoom as their nine to five. Now it's just very draining. It feels who, who Do you think this book would be good for? I honestly think it would be good for children as young as four to probably even 10. I would've really enjoyed this book growing up, just seeing all the landmarks and places that I've been with, my family and my friends. It's just really heartwarming. Okay. So people listening to that, they want to help out and they also want to find out what happens to penny, the butterfly. Um, how can people get ahold of the book? So if you go to thinking purple.org/support, um, you'll be able to order off the website and we're currently working on getting it on Amazon and local retail stores as well. Oh, great. Okay. So I've been speaking with Jordan kennel, founder of the purple project and Jordan, thank you. But thank you so much for having me.

By KPBS Public Media

The book is the brainchild of a nonprofit organization called the Purple Project, which donates supplies to the shelters. The book is called “Penny’s Adventure in San Diego” and follows the flight of a butterfly around the county, visiting some of San Diego’s most beautiful and beloved landmarks.