Me Ra’s popular 2-Day Dallas CONFIDENCE Workshop is coming up quickly. For nine years, she and Brian have had the opportunity to give numerous scholarships to moms who wouldn’t otherwise have the means to attend this special workshop. But this scholarship isn’t for just any mom. It’s a scholarship for a photography loving mom who is running on empty. Do you know a mom running on empty? If yes, keep reading!
SCHOLARSHIP for a PHOTOGRAPHY LOVING MOM
On September 17th & 18th, Me Ra and Brian will hold their 2-day CONFIDENCE Workshop in Dallas. This is a SOLD OUT workshop (get details for January’s workshop and Early Bird price here). Women are flying in from all over the US for September’s workshop. All levels of photography attend. All women with beautiful hearts.
It’s very common for each workshop to have a mix of total beginners AND paid pros from graduating seniors to young moms to published, paid women photographers to aspiring photo-loving grandmas. Yet, no matter how diverse the group is all the women have one thing in common, they desire solid confidence in their photography. That’s why Me Ra and Brian call this richly packed 2 days, the CONFIDENCE workshop. But not only is there three spots left to register for, there is also a reserved spot for a special mom. Me Ra and Brian have set aside a special scholarship seat for one woman.
This is a scholarship for a photography loving mom who needs a break in life. Do you know a mom who deserves a weekend getaway filled with photography confidence building, inspiration, creativity and laughter? Do you know a mom running on empty? If yes, keep reading!
QUALIFICATIONS
If you know a MOM who is;
A. Running on Empty
B. Lives near the DFW area or has air mileage to spend
C. Can arrange for a sitter and get the weekend free, starting Friday, September 16th, 7-9pm, for the Meet & Greet through Sunday evening, September 18th, until about 7pm.
D. Most importantly, is the perfect fit when you hear the words “Scholarship for a Photography Loving Mom”.
Nominate her TODAY!
DEADLINE
Nominations must be in by Tuesday, Sept. 6th at 9pm CST.
We will announce the winner in time for her to jump in and make all the arrangements. So make sure your nominations are all in by Tuesday, 9/6, at 9pm CST. If you are not familiar with this scholarship, read Me Ra’s description below and see what it’s all about! Moms are one of the most beautiful, powerful people in our life. This contest is all about acknowledging their purpose, even when they are Running on Empty (and they sometimes know it least of all).
Note from Me Ra:
“In honor of how wonderful moms are and all that they do and give, Brian and I keep one spot reserved in (almost) every CONFIDENCE workshop for a special mom like YOU! That’s right, you (or she) will get a free pass to the upcoming CONFIDENCE Workshop in the Dallas area! This is a $1249 value, wrapped in a weekend of inspiration and creativity. (Please note, we don’t provide room/board and travel.)
To nominate a mom, you must post a comment below telling us about the mom who you think deserves a big break in life! If you are a mom, you’re probably laughing because we ALL deserve a serious break. But the moms we’re looking for are the ones who have had a ridiculous amount of stress in their life whether from trauma or things just not going her way. She is a mom in your life that needs a serious blessing. She needs a serious surprise that gives her empty tank some fuel. If she is a woman that has miscarried, she is still a mom in my mind b/c I know her heart became a mother’s heart the moment she found out she was pregnant. Don’t hesitate to nominate her too.
I’m proud to say that some of our previous winners stepped out on a limb and nominated themselves. Take courage in them and feel free to nominate yourself if you know you need a serious break. Who knows, you may have your house remodeled Oprah! Yep! A previous winner went on to nominate her family’s story and home. You never know what will happen when you put yourself out there. And you are worth it. You are worthy of all the goodness life has to give. Let Brian and I bless you and your creative spirit with this special scholarship for photography loving mom.”
xoxo,
Me Ra
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WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
After the due date, Me Ra’s team will collect all the nominees, have a wonderful committee of former scholarship moms vote, and then announce the winner in the next week on Me Ra’s Facebook page! Choosing one mom is not an easy job. As one said recently, “After reading each story I’d say, ‘I’m voting for HER’.” Each one of you is so deserving.
Nominate the mom who is coming to your heart right now. Nominate her today, and together, let’s turn her day (maybe even life) around!
IMPORTANT
Don’t forget to let her know you’ve nominated her too! If I was a mom nominated I’d love to know my friends were thinking of me whether I won or not! Deadline for ALL nominations is Tuesday, 9/6, at 9pm CST. Nominations MUST be posted as a comment on this blog post. Nominations emailed, posted on other blog posts or FB may be overlooked. Please post all nominees in the comments to this post . Thanks! (Helpful tip: write out your nomination in Word or another writing program, then copy and paste over – just in case.:))
What do past attendees say about the CONFIDENCE Workshops? Take a look at Me Ra’s birthday post where over 100 women shared what a difference her CONFIDENCE workshops have made in their life. CLICK HERE to read their comments!
With spring and summer coming (can you believe it?!), make this one mom’s best year yet! Imagine all the GREAT photo stories she’ll capture this summer! Nominations are now open!
Excited for you!
Teresa
Workshop Coordinator for MK
*To get the Early Bird for January’s Confidence Workshop, register here!
p.s. We are always looking for baby and family models! If you live in the DFW area and are interested in more details on how to be one of Me Ra’s workshop models, email me at teresa@fioria.us.
Is you are ever in the San Diego CA area this would be awesome for someone like me! What an awesome for some lucky mom!
I would like to nominate my sister Shannon Sander. My sister is a military mom, which we know is already hard enough. She has 5 children, 4 of her own and one adopted. She decided to go back to school about two years ago and this year graduated with honors and both an AA and AS. She has been interested in photography for a long time now. She started with taking pictures of her beautiful family, landscapes, food and this year in her photography class she took this amazing exaggerated perspective photo. That’s when I knew this passion could turn into more than just a passion. Now this may all sound like, wow she doesn’t seem to be running on empty, but Shannon has had a crazy couple months. In about May, she found out her husband’s military job was being transferred to Fort Worth, Texas. She had to finish her degrees, find a house to buy, get all the animals (2 cats, 2 dogs, 1 lizard, a bunch of fish, and a turtle) ready to leave, get the children and house ready and drive all the way from New Windsor, NY to Fort Worth, Texas fourth of July weekend. She had to move all the way across the country, where she knew no one, and had no friends. Now if this wasn’t bad enough, after making it to the house and unpacking, her husband had to go back to NY to work for a while. She was all alone, in a new town, with 5 kids and a lot of unpacking to do. She has preserved through so much in the past and I believe this is just the break she needs. She loves photography, she loves learning and asking for advice, she deserves a break. Basically Shannon Sander is your woman. I know she would appreciate this and meeting some new people (hopefully some from the Texas area).
If you are ever in California this would be a dream for me… I’m praying for the woman who receives this blessing! So awesome! Wish I knew a mommy in Texas who could use this blessing!
Ok I am going to go out on a limb here and nominate myself. 🙂
I know there are a ton of moms out there with life situations that are so much harder than my own but after picking up your books from the library last week and then going to your site (which I bookmarked years ago) and seeing this I just thought it was serendipitous and that I should at least try.
I have been a mom for 19 years and have 4 children. Well 7 if you count the three I miscarried. Our youngest (whom we adopted) just started 1st grade, my oldest just left for college.
I studied photography at the University of Texas and it has always been my passion. And it has always taken a backseat while I have been raising this crazy big family of ours.
When my youngest started kindergarten last year I knew it was finally MY time.
But while I have been taking pictures of my kids for the past million years, my confidence just isn’t where it should be. I wouldn’t change being their mom and devoting myself to them for anything but I would love to do something for me, now that they growing up.
I consider myself a blessed person. Blessed enough to have a home, a husband and one son, who recently moved out. My nest is empty. But I have to say that after my mother passed away, my world changed. I spent 4 years caring for her through her cancer journey. She was my best friend and my heart died. I will forever be changed. Alone is how I still feel inside, most of the time, and it shows. I’m struggling with finding my place in life again. I’m a novice with my camera but I’m hoping the benefits of “photography therapy” can pull me up. Thanks for the opportunity you are offering. Any woman would love this. Your generosity is amazing.
I would like to nominate myself for this scholarship. I have been wanting to come to this workshop for years but as a single mom couldn’t justify spending the money on myself.
I am the mother of two boys, ages 5 (soon to be 6) and 12. My oldest has just started middle school and my youngest started kindergarten. They play baseball during the fall and spring. Between school, baseball and church activities we stay busy all the time. We also love to travel even if it’s only in our own backyard. The metroplex is full of history and I try to teach it to my boys.
The boys will tell you I try to capture every moment that I can thru my camera….sometimes to their dismay. They are forever my models and are so great to be so accomadating. Their pictures line the walls of our home.
I love photography! I have been taking photos since I was able to hold a camera and push a button! In junior high when I was able to process my 35 mm film in a dark room. In high school, I even toted around a Kodak disc camera in my back pack. My friends and family know that I always have a camera in my hand.
This is such a great opportunity for a mom to fellowship with other ladies who love photography and get to spend time learning how to make their pictures turn into keepsakes of memories.
Dear Me Ra & Brian
I would like to nominate my wife, Monica, for the Running on Empty scholarship for the September 2016 Confidence Workshop. I hesitate submitting this nomination a little for two reasons. First, I am sure that there are many other moms who are also worthy and in need of the validation and the boost that your confidence workshop offers. Second, each of the things that drains my wife is also a blessing – but with its own challenges. I would hate to imply that she resents any of these things or does not appreciate the blessings the Lord has given us in our life through each of them.
Monica is a very strong woman who gladly lives her life out in service for others. She is the mother of ten children, ages 1 through 16. As our family grew, she felt led to share the security and blessing of our home, so in 2009 and again in 2012 we adopted from Ethiopia. A blessing, but with its own challenges. For the past 11 years, she has been educating our children at home. This year is her largest year yet, as she prepares to homeschool our eight school–aged children from kindergarten through 11th grade. Again a blessing with its own challenges. Four years ago, our daughter was born with a cleft lip, but no other apparent special needs. We brought her home, and soon afterward my wife found our daughter blue and not breathing in her swing. Monica was able to revive our daughter and rushed her to the ER. We soon discovered that our daughter had a host of special needs, including missing part of her brain and a cranial issue that required a trach to ensure she had a reliable airway to breath and a subsequent feeding tube to overcome eating difficulties. Our daughter’s life and recovery have been a miracle to watch, though it has also come with many surgeries, hospital stays and regular specialist visits. A blessing with its own challenges.
Monica is also a wonderful wife and a generous friend, blessing her friends in their own times of need way more than we could ever bless her in return. Being close to her, I see that this comes at some cost. With the constant outward flow of blessing others, I see Monica getting drained. She could definitely benefit from having the blessing of this confidence workshop flow into her.
I know that such a blessing would not remain within her, as she has talked about wanting to learn photography so she can bless other families. We’ve been blessed by photographer friends who gave us the gift of professional photoshoots to celebrate our adoptions and to capture the beauty in our family during an exceptionally difficult season in our walk with our special needs daughter. We’ve also seen photography bless a close family friend prior to the death of their son with terminal cancer. This is the way she would use an improved skill in photography.
I know your decision of who to bless with this scholarship is a difficult one, so I appreciate you taking the time to consider my nomination of my wife, Monica.
Thank you,
Brad
I’ve got to admit, it’s hard to write this out when reading some of the above submissions….even I’d have to vote for Monica….or Shannon Sander….or… 🙂 But, here is my self serving submission anyway, because I am, indeed, a mom running on empty.
I came across this scholarship opportunity today in a moment of chaos, and it just spoke to me. I am depleted. And while I look at the last two years of trying to divide my time and attention between a new baby, four older kids and my husband, in addition to the house and the chores, I can see that it goes deeper. Confidence is something I have always struggled with. And having confidence in my photography is just an extension of that. I have enjoyed photographing my kids, dreaming of the someday that I could do ‘more’ with it. But there is always something or someone who needs me (and my money), and despite being so thoroughly blessed in my life, some dreams just have to sit on the back burner. As I enter midlife I’ve been facing a lot of realities about the insecurities I picked up in childhood, the baggage of my parents’ divorce, and the way those feelings have permeated my mind and my marriage and I wonder whether those ‘childhood’ insecurities ever go away. As my girls get older, I want to be a strong role model for them, more than just a housewife. I think a workshop like this could be that missing piece that propels me to the next level with my photography, but also the next level of personal confidence and satisfaction as a wife, mother, and woman.
Ever since I was a young girl, I wanted to be a ‘real’ photographer. My mother taught me the basics of using a 35mm camera when I was a child and my love of photography grew from there. It became my preferred tool, artistic instrument, companion, friend. I remember the excitement of waiting to get rolls of film developed and then rushing to buy as much more film as I could afford to see what I could photograph next. After high school, my love of photography took a backseat to academics and I spent much of my young adulthood in college and graduate school getting a degree in a ‘practical’ field (social work). Even though I still loved photography throughout all those years, I never believed I was good enough at it to actually turn it into a career- so I didn’t even try.
After I finished my formal education in 2001, I was still at a loss as to what I wanted to be ‘when I grew up’. I began to explore the art of photographing children and was smitten. It became my ideal job that I was always working towards starting… someday. In the meantime, I worked as a nanny, house sitter, dog walker, etc., and lived with my sister and her husband and new baby. That was 15 years ago. Since then, I have been blessed to marry the love of my life and have three amazing children. I have been fortunate to be a stay at home with my children for ten full years now! I’ve never had a job or career that I could attach to my sense of identity and self worth and I feel like I’ve been searching for that my whole life- something I’m good at, that I really enjoy doing and feel is my calling. My most incredible and rewarding title has been as a wife and mother- no question. However, I feel that I’m capable of so much more. I believe that photography is my gift to share with others.
I have been ON THE VERGE of starting a photography business for over a decade! I have no reason not to actually go forward and do it except my severe lack of confidence in myself and my abilities. My feelings of inadequacy as a mother, wife, daughter, sister, and friend have carried over into my love of photography. Though I love photography more than ever, I still have this nagging feeling as though I’m just not quite good enough to be a legitimate (meaning profitable/professional) photographer. I correct people when they call me one and tell them I’m still just an amateur. People want to hire me to take photos for them and I still have a hard time charging them. I am consistently devaluing and undermining my talents and skills. But I’m tired of playing small. I know I’m better than this. I owe it to myself, my family, and all those who have believed in me over the years, even when I didn’t believe in myself. I am an exhausted, running on empty, photography loving momma. With your help, I can became a confident, successful, energized photographer and mom! Thank you so much for providing this opportunity! I know it will be a blessing to the mom you choose. Good luck to everyone!
Hi!
Just now I was stopped to write here for you, and perhaps be the luck one to get the scholarship for this coming one in Dallas. Yes, I am voting for myself (LOL)!
Like you can tell almost on the dead line I got to sit down and write this note, I am an on going mother that just keeps going, there is always something to do for the kids or for the hubby and for the house, many time for others too, usually when is time to do for me, I am too tired and exhausted and I pass on my turn.
So this time I want to do differently and reach for my turn, and actually embrace it.
I love art, I love to do art and I am always creating in my mind, I almost always see things through “lenses”, I am not a professional photographer, I draw and paint, I take pictures for total fun, and what surprises me, is that people like my photos, more than my art in paper, so that is the reason why I would love to learn more from you Me Ra, it will be a bless.
Does anyone know who was selected? I know it’s not me but I’m just so curious!
We have a winner! CONGRATULATIONS Shannon Sander! She will be joining us this coming weekend in Dallas. To all of the nominees and their friends and family, THANK YOU for submitting these wonderful ladies and please continue to nominate them in the future.
Hi ladies!
I wanted to personally thank you for all your beautiful, powerful nominations. Since I’ve been in the midst of crazy travel, I asked Teresa Rish, our wonderful Workshop Coordinator, to announce the scholarship recipient. But I wanted to thank you myself for being a part of this. The recipient is picked by a panel of past recipients. I decided years ago to stay out of the process because I want to have you ALL come! Each one of you is so deserving.
I believe in perfect timing. And I believe in not giving up. If you weren’t picked for the upcoming workshop, I invite you to apply again for future ones. We had one recipient who nominated herself three times. And when she was finally picked to come, it was uncanny to her how PERFECT the timing was. There’s no shame in going after something you know your heart and creative spirit need. Feel free to nominate yourself in the future as much as you’d like!
Brian and I are so glad we’ve been able to do this for almost ten years. We don’t plan to stop! We wish you each the very best and are honored to know your stories and you a little more.
Much, much love,
Me Ra