NEWARK, N.J. /PRNewswire/ — Today, SKITTLES® is kicking off its annual Pride celebration by spotlighting the many interests, talents and hobbies within the LGBTQ+ community. Whether it’s a passion for pickleball, or yearning for yoga, SKITTLES is amplifying the importance of finding your community – because when you find your community, your colors shine.
SKITTLES® teams up with GLAAD, Meetup and five local LGBTQ+ community groups to celebrate how human connections can help us all “See The Rainbow.”
The brand also believes in uplifting the LGBTQ+ community and supporting those looking to find camaraderie with individuals who have similar interests. SKITTLES partnered with community-building platform, Meetup, to create the “SKITTLES LGBTQ+ Directory, powered by Meetup.” The directory consists of a wide range of LGBTQ+ groups, events, resources and more to help future friends across the country find their community. This simple to navigate landing page will help like-minded gamers, pickleball players, yogis, bookworms, birders and much more find their local community groups and events – all year-round.
SKITTLES has also released its annual limited-edition 2024 Pride pack, which celebrates the message of community. The pack was designed in partnership with female & minority-owned production company, NERD Productions and their talented LGBTQ+ artists, to illustrate the dynamic individuals and diverse groups that make up the LGBTQ+ community. For the fifth year in a row, SKITTLES will donate $1 per every Pride pack sold (up to $100,000) to GLAAD in support of its ongoing efforts to work through media to increase visibility for the LGBTQ+ community. The pack release will be followed by a year of celebrations of local groups and communities that help fans “See the Rainbow.”
“We know the LGBTQ+ community is one that is comprised of strong, dynamic individuals with a wide array of interests and passions,” said Gabrielle Wesley, Chief Marketing Officer, Mars Wrigley North America. “Our SKITTLES Pride pack and community celebrations are intended to inspire moments of everyday happiness by celebrating the LGBTQ+ community in a way that lets all unique colors shine.”
Designed with the colors of SKITTLES’ signature rainbow and with inspiration from inclusive Pride flags, the Pride pack features symbols of community, friendship, and several micro-LGBTQ+ communities as part of SKITTLES’ full year program – including roller derby, filmmaking and videography, marching bands and more.
As a show of on-going support for the LGBTQ+ community beyond June, SKITTLES is sponsoring five local LGBTQ+ communities across the United States to help shine a light on their organizations, members and how being a part of the community has helped them “See The Rainbow.” The five colorful groups include:
The Queer Big Apple Corps: New York City’s premiere symphonic and marching band that provides adults within the LGBTQ+ community and allies with a supportive and friendly environment for musical and artistic expression.
Reeling Film Festival: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival recognizes the important contributions that LGBTQ+ filmmakers have made to society, shines a light on the community’s struggles, and uplifts the community’s history.
Urban Bird Collective: Birdwatchers and stewards of nature, the Minneapolis-based group creates safe spaces that center BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities to enjoy the natural environment while building birdwatching skills.
Bay Area Derby: An LGBTQ+ friendly Bay Area derby league whose mission includes providing inclusive amateur athletic entertainment and competitive roller derby at all levels.
Las Vegas Gaymers: Las Vegas’ premiere gaming group that focuses on providing a safe community for queer and LGBTQ+ gamers.
GLAAD and SKITTLES are also coming together for a Pride Month Donor Matching Campaign, where GLAAD donors can receive a limited-edition hip pack featuring the signature 2024 SKITTLES Pride pack design. SKITTLES will match all donations up to $25,000 – the first 500 donors to make a matched gift of $75 or more to the matching campaign will receive the hip pack filled with SKITTLES and patches to personalize their hip pack.
“2024 is our fifth year partnering with SKITTLES, and we are thrilled by their unwavering support of the LGBTQ community,” said Raymond Dooley, VP of Marketing at GLAAD. “Here at GLAAD, we are proud to help the brand create connections for everyone this Pride, and always.”
While the SKITTLES Pride packs will only be on shelf for a limited time this summer, SKITTLES will continue celebrating the LGBTQ+ community past Pride month in June. For more information about SKITTLES Pride initiatives, including the various partnerships and spotlights of our five community groups, visit Skittles.com/PRIDE or follow SKITTLES on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
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ABOUT MARS, INCORPORATED Mars, Incorporated is driven by the belief that the world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today. As a global, family-owned business, Mars is transforming, innovating, and evolving to make a positive impact on the world.
Across our diverse and expanding portfolio of quality confectionery, food, and pet care products and services, we employ 140,000+ dedicated Associates. With more than $47 billion in annual sales, we produce some of the world’s best-loved brands including Ben’s Original™, CESAR®, Cocoavia®, DOVE®, EXTRA®, KIND®, M&M’s®, SNICKERS®, PEDIGREE®, ROYAL CANIN®, and WHISKAS®. We are creating a better world for pets through our global network of pet hospitals and diagnostic services – including AniCura, BANFIELD™, BLUEPEARL™, Linnaeus and VCA™ – using cutting edge technology to develop breakthrough programs in genetic health screening and DNA testing. For more information about Mars, please visit www.mars.com. Join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
ABOUT GLAAD GLAAD is the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization working to protect all that has been accomplished in LGBTQ representation in media, while leading the charge to create a world where everyone can live the life they love. GLAAD tackles tough issues and provokes dialogue that leads to cultural change through increased media accountability, corporate engagement initiatives, and advocacy programs that help to ensure 100% inclusion and acceptance of the LGBTQ community.
ABOUT MEETUP Meetup is an online event platform with the mission of fostering authentic human connection through shared experiences. Since 2002, Meetup has facilitated the creation and discovery of high-quality events and engaged local communities. Today, Meetup is home to 60 million members and 330,000 groups spanning 10,000 cities in 193 countries worldwide. Learn more at https://www.meetup.com/.
SOURCE Mars, Incorporated
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‘I’ll have a coke – no, not Coca-Cola, Sprite.’
Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesValerie M. Fridland, University of Nevada, Reno
With burgers sizzling and classic rock thumping, many Americans revel in summer cookouts – at least until that wayward cousin asks for a “pop” in soda country, or even worse, a “coke” when they actually want a Sprite.
Few American linguistic debates have bubbled quite as long and effervescently as the one over whether a generic soft drink should be called a soda, pop or coke.
The word you use generally boils down to where you’re from: Midwesterners enjoy a good pop, while soda is tops in the North and far West. Southerners, long the cultural mavericks, don’t bat an eyelash asking for coke – lowercase – before homing in on exactly the type they want: Perhaps a root beer or a Coke, uppercase.
As a linguist who studies American dialects, I’m less interested in this regional divide and far more fascinated by the unexpected history behind how a fizzy “health” drink from the early 1800s spawned the modern soft drink’s many names and iterations.
Bubbles, anyone?
Foods and drinks with wellness benefits might seem like a modern phenomenon, but the urge to create drinks with medicinal properties inspired what might be called a soda revolution in the 1800s.
An 1878 engraving of a soda fountain.Smith Collection/Gado via Getty Images
The process of carbonating water was first discovered in the late 1700s. By the early 1800s, this carbonated water had become popular as a health drink and was often referred to as “soda water.” The word “soda” likely came from “sodium,” since these drinks often contained salts, which were then believed to have healing properties.
Given its alleged curative effects for health issues such as indigestion, pharmacists sold soda water at soda fountains, innovative devices that created carbonated water to be sold by the glass. A chemistry professor, Benjamin Stillman, set up the first such device in a drugstore in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1806. Its eventual success inspired a boom of soda fountains in drugstores and health spas.
By the mid-1800s, pharmacists were creating unique root-, fruit- and herb-infused concoctions, such as sassafras-based root beer, at their soda fountains, often marketing them as cures for everything from fatigue to foul moods.
These flavored, sweetened versions gave rise to the linking of the word “soda” with a sweetened carbonated beverage, as opposed to simple, carbonated water.
Seltzer – today’s popular term for such sparkling water – was around, too. But it was used only for the naturally carbonated mineral water from the German town Nieder-Selters. Unlike Perrier, sourced similarly from a specific spring in France, seltzer made the leap to becoming a generic term for fizzy water.
Many late-19th-century and early 20th-century drugstores contained soda fountains – a nod to the original belief that the sugary, bubbly drink possessed medicinal qualities.Hall of Electrical History Foundation/Corbis via Getty Images
Regional naming patterns
So how did “soda” come to be called so many different things in different places?
It all stems from a mix of economic enterprise and linguistic ingenuity.
The popularity of “soda” in the Northeast likely reflects the soda fountain’s longer history in the region. Since a lot of Americans living in the Northeast migrated to California in the mid-to-late 1800s, the name likely traveled west with them.
As for the Midwestern preference for “pop” – well, the earliest American use of the term to refer to a sparkling beverage appeared in the 1840s in the name of a flavored version called “ginger pop.” Such ginger-flavored pop, though, was around in Britain by 1816, since a Newcastle songbook is where you can first see it used in text. The “pop” seems to be onomatopoeic for the noise made when the cork was released from the bottle before drinking.
A jingle for Faygo touts the company’s ‘red pop.’
Linguists don’t fully know why “pop” became so popular in the Midwest. But one theory links it to a Michigan bottling company, Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works – today known as Faygo Beverages – that used “pop” in the name of the sodas they marketed and sold. Another theory suggests that because bottles were more common in the region, soda drinkers were more likely to hear the “pop” sound than in the Northeast, where soda fountains reigned.
As for using coke generically, the first Coca-Cola was served in 1886 by Dr. John Pemberton, a pharmacist at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta and the founder of the company. In the 1900s, the Coca-Cola company tried to stamp out the use of “Coke” for “Coca-Cola.” But that ship had already sailed. Since Coca-Cola originated and was overwhelmingly popular in the South, its generic use grew out of the fact that people almost always asked for “Coke.”
No alcohol means not ‘hard’ but ‘soft.’Nostalgic Collections/eBay
As with Jell-O, Kleenex, Band-Aids and seltzer, it became a generic term.
What’s soft about it?
Speaking of soft drinks, what’s up with that term?
It was originally used to distinguish all nonalcoholic drinks from “hard drinks,” or beverages containing spirits.
Interestingly, the original Coca-Cola formula included wine – resembling a type of alcoholic “health” drink popular overseas, Vin Mariani. But Pemberton went on to develop a “soft” version a few years later to be sold as a medicinal drink.
Due to the growing popularity of soda water concoctions, eventually “soft drink” came to mean only such sweetened carbonated beverages, a linguistic testament to America’s enduring love affair with sugar and bubbles.
With the average American guzzling almost 40 gallons per year, you can call it whatever you what. Just don’t call it healthy.Valerie M. Fridland, Professor of Linguistics, University of Nevada, Reno
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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(Family Features) For those who have served in the U.S. armed forces, transitioning back to civilian life can be a challenge. However, community support can help make the transition easier for many veterans and provide those who offer that support – particularly young people – with rewarding opportunities and insight.
Take, for example, Daniel Finney, who started volunteering at a local Department of Veterans Affairs hospital where his mother worked when he was 13 years old. At first, his mother simply wanted him to learn from the veterans and their experiences, but volunteering changed the trajectory of Finney’s life.
He volunteered almost daily for the next 10 years, even inviting his friends to join him at the hospital. From that experience, Finney built valuable skills and chose to pursue a career as a physician’s assistant.
“I chose to volunteer at the hospital not only because it was a great opportunity, but because I wanted to give back to our nation’s heroes who I felt were too often overlooked,” Finney said. “In addition, volunteering with dedicated health care professionals allowed me to discover the actual purpose for my current career path.”
Not only did Finney reap personal rewards from volunteering and make a real difference in the lives of veterans, he also received tens of thousands of dollars in college scholarship money from DAV (Disabled American Veterans). The organization annually offers $110,000 in scholarships to student volunteers to be used toward accredited higher learning, including universities, colleges, community colleges and vocational schools.
“I look at this scholarship as another door opening up,” Finney said. “This has allowed me to do so many things. One of them is to pay for college. I want to continue to be a civil servant wherever I go. I want to continue to help veterans, whether that’s a part of my job or whether I’m still volunteering. It can be working at a hospital or helping with a food drive for the homeless veteran community. It can be anything. I now have that desire ingrained in me to continue to serve our veterans.”
These scholarships are open to students age 21 or younger who have contributed a minimum of 100 cumulative volunteer hours credited through DAV or DAV Auxiliary. Students can be nominated or may apply with the inclusion of an essay on what volunteering for veterans means to them. Learn more at DAVScholarships.org.
For students, or anyone interested in giving back, consider a few other ideas for supporting the nation’s veterans.
Express Your Gratitude
Simply saying “thank you” can go a long way in expressing gratitude to veterans. Whether it’s through a handwritten note, a heartfelt conversation or a public acknowledgment at a community event, showing appreciation can help veterans feel valued and recognized for their service.
Raise Awareness for Veterans’ Needs
Learning about the challenges veterans face, such as service-related health issues, homelessness and underemployment, then advocating for supportive legislation and programming can go a long way toward improving their situations.
For example, Amelia Marcum, another DAV scholarship recipient, developed a Native American veterans resource guide designed to provide veterans with key information about federal, state, community and tribal-based programs. She worked closely with Vietnam veteran and North Dakota state Sen. Richard Marcellais to bring the guide, which is now used by five tribal veterans resource service centers, to fruition.
“Volunteering to serve the veteran community has been immensely transformative for me,” said Marcum, a direct descendent of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. “I discovered a profound sense of purpose in elevating support systems for Native veterans, a community that serves at the highest rates among ethnic groups yet often faces significant challenges in accessing the benefits they rightfully deserve.”
Support Veteran-Owned Businesses
Many veterans transition into entrepreneurship after their military careers, and your patronage not only helps their businesses thrive, but also puts money back into the local community. Look for veteran-owned businesses or use online directories to find veteran entrepreneurs when searching for specific goods and services.
SOURCE:DAV
(Family Features) Play is a universal language spoken by people of all ages. Through play, children learn to forge connections with others, build a wide range of leadership skills, develop resilience, conquer fears and navigate relationships and social challenges.
For babies and toddlers, play is about far more than just having fun; it’s about learning and building important skills, from cognitive and physical to emotional and social abilities. As children get older, play helps reduce stress levels, process difficult emotions, promote problem-solving and build confidence – skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Despite its importance, play is often undervalued and overlooked due to busy schedules, lack of resources or misconceptions about its benefits. Approximately 4 in 10 children ages 2-4 do not get enough responsive interaction or stimulation at home, based on estimates from UNICEF, and roughly 1 in 8 children under age 5 don’t have toys or playthings at home.
To overcome these barriers, it’s essential for parents and caregivers to recognize the value of both structured and unstructured play. Simple, everyday items – like kitchen utensils, cardboard boxes, leaves and stones – can be tools for imaginative play. Setting aside dedicated time for play, even in short intervals, can make a difference.
In honor of International Day of Play, consider these ideas to turn everyday activities into playful learning opportunities from UNICEF, which recognizes play as an important means to help children by providing access to evidence-based parenting programs and working with governments to prioritize play-based teaching and learning practices in schools and other learning environments.
Turn a grocery shopping trip into a scavenger hunt to teach kids about different foods, counting and categorization.
Role play or act out different scenarios you read in books or see in movies to help develop social skills and emotional understanding.
Make important language connections when getting dressed, such as identifying different articles of clothing and teaching colors.
Use bathtime to explore buoyancy and water with floating toys.
Play “I spy” while driving in the car or going for a walk around your neighborhood to help kids identify different animals, shapes, colors and elements of nature like trees, clouds and more.
Explore the kitchen through tasks such as choosing ingredients, measuring them and keeping time while cooking.
Use puzzles and building blocks to help develop problem-solving skills and hand-eye coordination.
Stimulate senses and promote fine motor skills through play with materials like sand, water or crafting dough.
Make sorting laundry educational by asking children to match socks by color or size, reinforcing their understanding of sorting and categorization.
Take turns doing the feeding at snack or mealtimes to build hand-eye coordination.
Find more ways to engage your children in fun, engaging play at unicefusa.org/play.
SOURCE:UNICEF
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Valerie M. Fridland, Professor of Linguistics, University of Nevada, Reno
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
“I look at this scholarship as another door opening up,” Finney said. “This has allowed me to do so many things. One of them is to pay for college. I want to continue to be a civil servant wherever I go. I want to continue to help veterans, whether that’s a part of my job or whether I’m still volunteering. It can be working at a hospital or helping with a food drive for the homeless veteran community. It can be anything. I now have that desire ingrained in me to continue to serve our veterans.”
These scholarships are open to students age 21 or younger who have contributed a minimum of 100 cumulative volunteer hours credited through DAV or DAV Auxiliary. Students can be nominated or may apply with the inclusion of an essay on what volunteering for veterans means to them. Learn more at 
(Family Features) Play is a universal language spoken by people of all ages. Through play, children learn to forge connections with others, build a wide range of leadership skills, develop resilience, conquer fears and navigate relationships and social challenges.
For babies and toddlers, play is about far more than just having fun; it’s about learning and building important skills, from cognitive and physical to emotional and social abilities. As children get older, play helps reduce stress levels, process difficult emotions, promote problem-solving and build confidence – skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Despite its importance, play is often undervalued and overlooked due to busy schedules, lack of resources or misconceptions about its benefits. Approximately 4 in 10 children ages 2-4 do not get enough responsive interaction or stimulation at home, based on estimates from UNICEF, and roughly 1 in 8 children under age 5 don’t have toys or playthings at home.
To overcome these barriers, it’s essential for parents and caregivers to recognize the value of both structured and unstructured play. Simple, everyday items – like kitchen utensils, cardboard boxes, leaves and stones – can be tools for imaginative play. Setting aside dedicated time for play, even in short intervals, can make a difference.
In honor of 
