Photo courtesy of glassybaby
Mission-driven glassybaby opened a pop-up storefront last week at NorthPark Center in Dallas. It’s the art-glass votive company’s first storefront outside the Pacific Northwest.
Each glassybaby vessel, whether it’s a votive, drinker, rocker, vase or an ornament, is individually hand-blown by artisans in Seattle, Washington, and Montana. Each is a one-of-a-kind piece of glass art with a name and meaning to signify something special, such as hope, courage, strength and gratitude.
The company has donated more than $15 million to organizations helping people, animals, and the planet in the last 20 years, a glassybaby press release stated. Half of glassybaby’s 2024 giving supports the B+ Foundation, a group that helps children and their families battling cancer.
A portion of sales from the NorthPark Center store location will support Cancer Support Community North Texas, the release stated. The organization offers support groups, individual counseling, healthy lifestyle activities, social events, resources and children’s programs.
The votives are available in more than 400 colors. There are many collections from which to choose – including a holiday series.
The Seattle-based company operates a manufacturing facility in Montana where it trains glassblowers. The NorthPark store joins other retail stores located in Seattle and Bellevue, Washington, Lake Oswego, Oregon, and Livingston, Montana.
Company founder Lee Rhodes is a three-time lung cancer survivor who started glassbaby in her garage 20 years ago. The company is on target to be a $30 million brand this year. Rhodes had the idea while undergoing chemotherapy when she lit a candle in a piece of art glass and felt healing from it, and wanted others to feel the same.
It’s on Level One near Nordstrom.
Mike Wesley is the new vice president of marketing for Dallas-based Maggiano’s Little Italy, a Brinker International press release stated.
For the fifth time in the last seven years, a team of Texas Woman’s University’s undergraduate kinesiology students took the top overall prize at a NASA-sponsored statewide design competition.
Team Pleiades, was the only kinesiology department and the only all-female team represented at the two-day competition, which wrapped up Nov. 14 just outside of Houston. The majority of the 19 college teams in the competition are engineering students.
“It’s a huge bonus to have an all-female group with a STEM focus,” stated Rhett Rigby, interim director of the School of Health Promotion and Kinesiology and the design team’s faculty adviser, in a press release. “It was the only health-focused project … ours had one of the most direct applications, most direct connections, to life in space.”
For the last three years, TWU teams have focused on the topic of mitigating muscle atrophy in long-duration space flight for their projects at the Texas Space Grant Consortium Design Challenge. This semester’s team discovered new ways to address the loss of skeletal muscle mass in astronauts, specifically in the lower limbs.
The team’s solution was to design and test a compact blood flow restriction device that can be implemented during resistance training workouts in microgravity.
In addition to the overall first-place finish, the five seniors took first place in peer review and presentation and second place in the poster/best model category. Team members Erin Rocha (team lead), Hannah Schnettler, Karolyn Skoby, Josey Salazar and Makiyah Brittmon received scholarships from TSGC for their project.
“They’ve put in thousands of hours worth of work to this combined, and it’s nice to see the fruits of their labor come to fruition,” Rigby stated.
The TSGC Design Challenge gives students an opportunity to come up with a solution to help solve a research objective of importance to NASA. Teams have an option of choosing their own space-related challenge, and the last several TWU teams have gone that route, honing in on the muscle deterioration.
Lengthy space flights wreak havoc on astronauts’ muscle health. Weight-bearing skeletal muscles, such as the quadriceps and soleus, are especially prone to atrophy because of their larger size. The TWU team cited research that shows there is a 20 percent decrease in the size of these muscles in the first five to 11 days of space flight.
The Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 teams created exercise devices for astronauts to use in space flight. This semester’s team created a blood-flow restriction device (nicknamed HALO for Hypertrophic Aide by Limb Occlusion) uniquely designed for resistance training in space flight.
Blood-flow restriction is a technique that uses a cuff to partially reduce blood flow to a limb by applying pressure to major leg and arm arteries while exercising. It is used in physical therapy rehabilitation to help people train or recover from injuries. When using this method, users exercise at a low intensity level, mimicking the effects of a high intensity workout.
TWU’s prototype resembles a large blood pressure cuff. Instead of being strapped to your arm, this cuff would go on the upper thigh. Other components of the device include an airbag, a Direct Current motor, rechargeable battery, motor board and microcontroller. The team coded the HALO device to inflate the airbag to the desired pressure in order to achieve the partial reduced blood flow.
With this device, astronauts could lift smarter, not harder. They would be creating oxygen-deprived muscles while they exercise to stimulate muscle gain with lower weights. This lower load is also less impactive on joints while also lowering recovery times and enhancing muscle recovery, the press release stated.
North Texas nonprofits are kicking off the holiday season with a little more cheer, thanks to $100,000 in Season of Giving grants from Park Place Dealerships. The dealership group selected 21 recipients across the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area that make an impact in the community year-round.
“It’s been truly inspiring to learn about the remarkable work of numerous non-profits making a difference in our communities,” stated Tony Carimi, managing director of Park Place Dealerships, in a press release. “In addition to providing year-end grants, Park Place members will also volunteer with these nonprofit partners in the coming year, aiming to drive an even greater impact in the community.”
More than 700 nonprofits applied for the 4th Annual Season of Giving grants. Each recipient aligns with one of Park Place’s Four Pillars of Giving: education, medical research, advocacy or the arts.
Under its philanthropic arm, Park Place Cares, the Season of Giving program awards one-time grants ranging from $2,500 to $10,000. The initiative has granted a total of $400,000 to 86 local organizations, supporting the missions of nonprofits dedicated to bettering North Texas communities. Over the past 37 years, Park Place Cares has contributed millions of dollars to charities through ongoing outreach and support.
This year’s grant recipients represent a broad range of causes and communities across North Texas, reflecting the dealerships’ commitment to uplifting diverse missions and making a lasting difference. The charities receiving grants for the 2024 Season of Giving include:
Education
Pasos for Oak Cliff (Dallas)
Broken Halos Haven (Lewisville)
Claymore Operations (Coppell)
Little Hands Book Bank (Plano)
Gabby‘s Sanctuary Ark Inc. (Lancaster)
Gill Children‘s Services (Fort Worth)
Rainbow Days (Dallas)
Girls on the Run (Dallas)
Medical
Enabling Movement Foundation (Flower Mound)
David Nicklas Organ Donor Awareness Foundation (Grand Prairie)
Advocacy
Bikers Against Child Abuse (Fort Worth)
Lambie’s Love (Dallas)
DFW Angels (Dallas)
Serving Our Seniors (Richland Hills)
Metrocrest Services (Carrollton)
Patriot PAWS Service Dogs (Rockwall)
Streetside Showers (McKinney)
Second Chance Dog Rescue (Mansfield)
Arts
New Song Community Choir (Dallas)
Brown Girls Do Ballet (Fort Worth)
Youth Orchestra of Greater Fort Worth (Fort Worth)
Men of Nehemiah, a faith-based residential recovery program, will present a Christmas concert at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 17, at 121 Community Church on Ira E. Woods Avenue in Grapevine. It will feature a choir of men who are currently in recovery or are graduates of the program.
The concert is offered at no charge and is open to the public.
“We believe in the power of worship” stated Rand Carlson, Men of Nehemiah’s director of recovery and worship, in a press release. “These concerts are not just a celebration of the season but a testament to the resilience and transformation of the men in our program…Being a part of something that blesses the community also gives the men a sense of value, accomplishment and purpose.”
Some of the men came from successful careers and previously lived with their families in upscale neighborhoods. Others were living on the streets. Some were incarcerated prior to coming to Men of Nehemiah. Many have tried numerous recovery programs and relapsed.
The program helps each man deal with his addiction with the goal of reuniting a spiritually and mentally healthy man with his family and community. Men of Nehemiah uses a structure based on biblical discipleship, clinical counseling and military discipline.