Thanks to everyone who came out on Friday night to witness the antics and music that made up the Jeff Caylor band. Thanks especially for allowing me to transform into “Ms. Gardner: Math Teacher” for 3 is a Magic Number. Gold stars…

This Friday night, Jeff Caylor is throwing a CD release party at Jimbo’s Take 2.

He’ll have real copies of his debut album “Okay” for sale. (Up until now, the album has only been available online.)

I’m playing with the band and happen to be in the loop on some of the cool things that will be going down. High-tech, low-tech, clouds, a tricycle and ninjas. Okay, maybe not ninjas. But the show is going to be really fun, probably packed and will require audience participation.

Starts at 7pm with Chris Como opening.

Orphans don’t really have a lot of mementos.

(The types of things that most of us take for granted from childhood: yellowed photos, weathered stuffed animals with the occasional Kool-Aid stain, favorite storybooks, shaky old videos from our first birthday parties. Although I usually turn red when my parents bring out the bulging albums from my kid-hood, I’m so thankful that I don’t just have to rely on fleeting memories and can instead look at tangible evidence that my haircuts really were that bad.)

The Memory Project, a non-profit founded in 2004 by Ben Shumaker, aims to change this. He was inspired after talking to man in a Gautemalan orphanage:

Having grown up in an orphanage, this young man did not have any pictures from his earliest years or any parents to share memories of his youth. Consequently, he felt that much of his childhood had been forgotten, and he shared this feeling with a group of university students working at the orphanage.

Simple in its scope, The Memory Project solicits the help of advanced artists capable of creating “memory portraits” of orphans. Once a partnering artist receives the orphan’s photo, she is required to create a lifelike portrait of that child which will be sent back to the partnering orphanage as a gift. Below are some beautiful examples:

The Memory Project has also expanded to include Books of Hope. An opportunity for young artists/writers at any level to create uplifting and personalized storybooks for impoverished children. Currently, books are being accepted for children in India who have been rescued from slavery and Uganda for children who have experienced brutal civil war.

A simple way to make a creative difference in a child’s life.