I promised you in my last newsletter to preview some of the people who will be in The Best of us - 50 Inspiring People Who are Making the World a Better Place. Coming in November.

This issue I want to introduce you to a remarkable woman who is truly making the world a better place for children whose world has been shattered.

Her name is L.Ernestine Shields, and she is known in the Los Angeles County Dependency Court in Van Nuys, California as " The Teddy Bear Attorney."

Ernestine practices law there, where she began in 1988, after a career as a school teacher. Dependency court is where kids who are abandoned, neglected or abused in some way hear what is going to happen to them next. Its where they are assigned foster homes, and are torn from their parents who have either been deemed unfit or have been classified as abusers.

The first thing Ernestine noticed when she began her career there was the crying and the trauma these children suffered when they found out they aren't going to be allowed to go home again.

So she started with a simple gesture to assuage their pain. She started giving giving them teddy bears...yes, teddy bears.

At first she bought the bears herself, spending over $40,000 of her own money. As more and more judges in the Los Angeles County wanted her to supply teddy bears to them too, Ernestine established a non profit organization, Comfort for Court Kids.

Today she puts great care into choosing a special and appropriate bear to give to each child. Although the models vary every three months, every teddy bear has a smiling face, soothing eyes, and open arms. Some even have bandages on them to reflect the bandages on some of the abused children.

Since she started Comfort for Court Kids, (www.courtkids.org), over 500,000 teddy bears have been given to the children who so much need comfort and a loving gift. It is people like L. Ernestine Shields who truly make our world a better place. Donations are welcome, so pull out your check book and go to the web site listed above.

You can read the rest of the story, ( as Paul Harvey says) in The Best of Us when its published in November, and you will learn that Ernestine has also championed a drive to make sure that every foster child can have a library card, which until her intervention was impossible.

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Exciting News! If you haven't visited my website at www.drycreekpress.com lately, please take a look. The new cover for The Best of Us is on the home page, and there is information all of you will want to read about sponsorship opportunities. Who can be a sponsor? Anyone, and everyone! If you or someone you know wants exposure to the millions of people who will be reading The Best of Us book series, here's your chance. For as little as $100.00 your name or company name can be inside the book on a special page for special sponsors, and as a link on our upcoming The Best of Us web site.

For less than the price of a magazine ad, a Platinum Sponsor can reach millions of people, and even have their logo on the back cover of 10 Best of Us books!~

Please help me spread the word on sponsorships. This is a grass roots effort to publish up to 20 titles under the Best of Us banner. Best of Us Teachers, Best of Us Business, Best of Us Teens, Best of Us Survivors, Best of Us Medicine, Best of Us Around the World, and many many more. Chicken Soup for the Soul is our idol..we are going to one day be as wide spread as they are!

Tell your friends, ask them to subscribe, and be involved in bringing the positive news and positive people to the forefront of the negativity that assails us every day.

It was Margaret Mead who said,

" Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

May the best of everything come your way,
Bill Bailey