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BE PART OF THE LEGACY

TAMPA BAY • FEBRUARY 23-24 2026

This FINAL encore experience will be unlike any other. Because like everything we do, it's been "reimagined" from beginning to end. It's not a virtual or hybrid event. It's not a conference. It's not a seminar, a workshop, a meeting, or a symposium. And it's not your typical run-of-the-mill everyday event crammed with stages, keynote speeches, team-building exercises, PowerPoint presentations, and all the other conventional humdrum. Because it's up close & personal by design. Where conversation trumps presentation. And where authentic connection runs deep.

From Sweet Dessert to Desert

Plant
Plant based
Plant based butter
Bought

Dark
Dark chocolate
Dark chocolate chips
Found

Flour
Flour and water
Unleavened flour and water
Boxed

Pan
Pan and parchment paper
Pan, parchment paper and oven mitts
Ready

Bubbling
Bubbling toffee
Bubbling toffee flowing
Poured

Flowing
Flowing voices
Flowing voices of joy
Heard

Streaming
Streaming lines
Streaming lines of people
Seen

Seeing
Seeing straight
Seeing straight ahead and back again
To watch
To watch out
To watch out for an attack

To survive
To survive plagues
To survive the attack of ten plagues

Looking
Looking for a sign
Looking for a sign of survival
To watch
To watch out
To watch out for water

Water
What is water?
Water is life
Life

Life
Life flows
Life flows in water
Flowing in water is a plant based basket

Basket
A basket
A basket made of plants
A basket made of plants and tears

Tears
Tears and sand
Tears, sand and sweat
Sweat
Sweat and salt
Sweat, salt water, and bittersweet tears
Sweat, salt water, and bittersweet tears of birth

Birth
Birth of secrets
Birth of secrets and servitude
Birth of secrets, servitude and freedom
Freedom
Freedom to pause

Pause

Pause to retell
Pause to remember

Pause to count
Pause to be counted

Pause to ask
Pause to answer

Answer
Answer a call
Answer the call
The call
The call for freedom
Freedom

Free
Free to drink
Free to drink water
Free to drink water from the well

Well
Well enough
Well enough to sing

Sing
Sing of freedom
Sing of freedom and dance
Sing of freedom and dance with timbrels
Freedom to sing and dance with timbrels across the desert

Desert
Desert of life
Desert of life and death
Desert of life, death and remembrance

Remember
Remember the ingredients
Remember the ingredients of your beliefs

Believe
Believe you can
Believe you can survive
Believe you can survive and thrive

Thrive
Thrive forwards
Thrive forwards with one step
Thrive forwards with one tiny might step
Steps count

Recount
Count
Out

You
You count,
Not
To
Forget

An original poem by Hope Blecher Croney

The 30days30works prompt was to do something backwards. My backwards was starting with baking desserts for Passover before cooking the first course of a meal during which we gathered to tell the story of an exodus.

I baked matzo toffee. The ingredients were plant based butter, dark brown sugar, matzah, dark chocolate chips, sweet raisins, and salty nut pieces

Hope Blecher Ed.D.
Hope Blecher Ed.D.http://www.hope4education.com
Hope Blecher, Ed.D. is an educator, author, artist, and community volunteer. Most recently, as an outgrowth of relocating to Sullivan County, NY, and her community volunteer projects, Hope founded Hope's Compass, a project through the Community Foundation of Orange and Sullivan Counties, cfos.org.  The link to Hope's Compass is Hope’s Compass Fund | Community Foundation of Orange and Sullivan (cfosny.org)  Donations will enable Hope to bring the Daffodil Project and the Dove-Daffodil-Dash arts project to other communities and engage people from 3-83+.  Also new, Dr. Barbara J. Smith and Hope collaborated on their new book, The Write to be Read: Informed Methods for Engaging Students as Writers, published by Rowman and Littlefield, Write to Be Read: Informed Methods for Engaging Students as Writers - 9781475873085 (rowman.com). Hope's 39 years of experiences in the classroom and in the administrative offices form the basis of her life's work, her perspective on volunteering, and her consulting. She remembers what it is like to work with students and that shines through in her preparations and the way the community projects are implemented. She looks forward to writing a children's book, perhaps in 2024. For now, she is broadening her work in the arts by writing poetry that she illustrates with collages, mixed media, and her photographs.

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