Roberta Simpson’s love of children pours
into her books.

And profits from her books pour into her passion to address children’s needs. A portion of every sale of Nana’s Bible Stories helps support children’s charities like the Make-A-Wish Foundation, granting wishes for children with life-threatening illnesses, and City Hearts, using the arts to reach inner-city kids.


From the city's most impoverished areas:
resucing children with creativity, discipline,
and hope

“Meet City Hearts—just one of the children’s charities we’ll introduce you to from our friend Jane Seymour.” Roberta “Nana” Simpson

Can art—art?—keep an at-risk child out of jail? Yes, yes, and yes!

To explain, I’ll tell a story. In l977, Sherry Jason was a new lawyer in the Public Defender's Office in LA. On a tour of Central Juvenile Hall, in a small storeroom, she watched, fascinated, as a boy received his first piano lesson. He was a natural, a prodigy. But at age 13, when most adolescents are finishing junior high, this young genius was awaiting placement in the California Youth Authority (prison for kids) for murder.The scene haunted Sherry. What if the boy with all that talent had met the piano before he met guns and gangs? As she advocated for her young clients and met their victims, the question grew in her daily

Sherry had always loved ballet—she’d begun teaching it in the family garage when she was 11 years old. The arts ran in her blood, and now it began to inspire new thoughts. In l983, she and her husband, Bob, transformed the empties Challenge Creamery building into a proscenium and dance studio—5,000 square feet of oak floors and 50 feet of mirrors. Family and family helped with money; they took out loans; Bob exhausted his retirement funds raising and padding the children’s oak dancing floor. Sherry paid the teachers out of her salary as a Public Defender and taught one ballet class a week. And the children of City Hearts came—from the most impoverished and at-risk areas of the community.

In April, l985, the LA Times ran a feature story of City Hearts, and donations began to arrive. Today, more than 19 years later, more and more children have relied on City Hearts to expand their talents and horizons. As arts programs are shamefully cut from school budgets, ever more needs and demands increase. City Hearts now serves more than 500 children a week in programs throughout LA and Ventura Counties.

Expanding Horizons, a project with Dr. Kathy Larson in Oxnard, is in its second year. New programs include drama, Shakespeare, photography, music, jewelry making, circus arts, jazz, and singing. As Sherry says, “Through the arts, we can and do inspire children away from gangs, drugs, delinquency and a lifetime sentence on Skid Row.”

NANA SPOTLIGHTS THE
MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION
Through Our Friend Jane Seymour

Actress Jane Seymour, a narrator of Nana’s Bible Stories on CD, is also a mother of six and well known for her work on behalf of children around the world.  One important case in point is the Make-A-Wish Foundation.  Among other things, Jane, also a fine artist, donates many of her paintings to the foundation, which sells the works and uses the profits to help fulfill the last wishes of dying children.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation formed in 1980 in response to the heartfelt wish of a little boy named Chris Greicius to become a police officer. From that beginning, it has grown into a global phenomenon—reaching out to more than 144,000 children around the world suffering from life-threatening medical conditions.

Not surprisingly, the Foundation’s work has a life-changing impact on not just the children it serves but the children’s families, referral sources, donors, sponsors, and entire communities.

A network of more than 25,000 volunteers serves as wish granters, fundraisers, special events assistants, and in numerous other capacities.  As the Foundation continues to mature, its steadfast mission is to grant  children of the past, present and future the opportunity to share the power of a wish®.