Abstract Thursday : : Stars of Hope

In 2007, a New Yorker named Jeff Parness, whose business partner was killed on 9/11, started Stars of HOPE as a way to pay forward the outpouring of kindness his community received after the Attack on the World Trade Center. Since 2007 his organization has delivered more than 80,000 hand painted stars bearing messages of kindness and hope to communities affected by disasters

Stars like this one, which says COURAGE, spotted by the Fountaingrove Parkway as we drove through this morning to Pilates, were painted last weekend by people who were affected by the mass shooting in San Bernardino in 2013.They were distributed in Fountaingrove by Parness, a traveling companion who survived the Pulse nightclub attack in 2015, and a woman who lost he home to theTubbs Fire in October. One of them was quoted in the paper this morning. "You feel really alone when you go through something like this. You want to stay strong for everyone else. This is just a total stranger doing something kind for you...."

After our pilates session in Windsor we went to the Barlow to look around and have lunch. The street was lined with little decorated trees, their root balls still wrapped in burlap. They were donated by one of our favorite nurseries in Sebastopol and will be collected after the holidays and planted in the burn areas. I put a picture of them in the extras.
 
It's a bit of a stretch to call this shot 'abstract", occasioned as it was by being taken at 45 mph through the car window. But it is definitely colorful, especially against its backdrop of burned trees and a standing portion of retaining wall.
Fountaingrove Parkway is  a busy the only route over the hill from one side of town to the other. Slowing for a shot is further complicated these days by myriad trucks hauling debris, bulldozers and earthmovers and burned out cars.  It is not very easy to slow down, even if OilMan had been willing.... Thank you, Ingeborg, for continuing to host this challenge.