Community Magazine December 2013

Art Station Offers New Party Venue TheArt Station is the community’s newest and most unique party venue for BOTH kids and adults. Since its opening on Avenue U and East 13th St. just a few short months ago, Art Station has hosted lots of fun-filled parties for kids with exciting activities like Paint‘n’ Cookies, in which children create canvas masterpieces with the addition of cookies to munch on throughout the session! Kids’ parties can be customized to include other activities such as t-shirt painting, mosaics, jewelry creation, or plaster painting, depending on the preferences of each child. Karaoke, face painting, and delicious food can accompany ALL party activities. Adults have also have taken advantage of Art Station’s wide range of unique, fun opportunities by throwing Paint ‘n’ Wine parties in which partygoers create versions of famous paintings in just two hours with the addition of wine to celebrate the occasion! Don’t have a celebration but would still like to participate in art creation? Art Station has plenty for you to do every day by simply walking in to the store. Available options include mosaic, wood painting to create frames, boxes, trays, and other functional items. Plaster painting of over 100 varieties offers something for every person’s creative taste. (They even added Hanukah-themed plaster such as menorahs and dreidles!) You can create jewelry such as bracelets and necklaces from over 50 types of beads in different colors and sizes. Regular sessions of their famous Paint ‘n’ Wine, Paint ‘n’ Cookies, Mommy ‘n’ Me, and Toddler Club run several times a week for all ages to enjoy a more structured art session. While participants bring their own food, staff is always available to help throughout the process of every craft they have to offer! Looking to purchase a unique gift for a loved one, or have a specific supply that you need for school or art project? Two floors of art gifts and supplies can keep one busy for hours! Furthermore, Art Station has an in-house custom frame shop and hosts silent-bid auctions so customers can own beautiful framed paintings created by local artists. Whether you are simply spending time with a loved one or having a large celebration with lots of friends, Art Station is the perfect setting. When people celebrate by creating art, they create great memories which guests will never forget. To book your next celebration at Art Station, or if you have any questions about what the store has to offer, call 718-645-4545 or visit the website at www.NYArtStation.com. Their store hours are: Sunday-Thursday: 10am-8pm, Friday- 10am-3pm and Sat-closed (Shomer Shabbat). SAFE Foundation Warns of the Dangers of Hookah Hookah bars litter Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn and draw young crowds into their smoke-filled atmospheres. Attractive, colorful, glass hookah pipes and their accompanying tobacco can be easily purchased in the many Middle Eastern grocery stores in the neighborhood, as well. What most do not know is that hookah can create an addiction to nicotine and expose a person to a host of other dangers. Hookah facts: • The hookah is of Middle Eastern origin. It has many names. Some of them are: shisha, nargeela, argeela, goza, lula, lulava, chillim, hubbly bubbly, and galyam. • Hookah is a single- or multi-stemmed water pipe with a water chamber that vaporizes sweet, often flavored tobacco. The smoke is filtered through water and drawn through a rubber hose to a mouthpiece. • Some think that hookah is a safer alternative to cigarette smoking and that secondhand hookah smoke is less harmful than secondhand cigarette smoke. This is not true. In an hour-long smoking session of hookah, users consume about 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke consumed by smoking a cigarette. And hookah users exhale twice as much carbon monoxide in a single hookah session as cigarette smokers do, posing serious dangers. • Hookah is not sanitary. While hookah cafes and bars provide disposable plastic mouthpieces, they may not properly clean the pipes between uses by different groups, which may put hookah pipe smokers in danger of contracting herpes, hepatitis, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. • Hookah is addictive and it can easily kick-start a smoking habit. Hookah tobacco contains nicotine which affects the chemistry of the brain. Physical and psychological dependence develops, causing withdrawal symptoms when the smoker stops, such as cravings, irritability, headaches, insomnia, and nervousness. • Hookah is toxic. Hookah smoke has toxic compounds, including tar, heavy metals, and cancer-causing chemicals. This type of smoking is linked to oral cancers because of the chronic irritation to the lips, tongue and mouth caused by exposure to tobacco toxins. • Alcohol is sometimes added to the water, and drugs are sometimes used instead of tobacco. • Hookah is used to target young people who are most sensitive to becoming addicted to nicotine. This is why it is so heavily advertised to students. If you or someone you know needs help, please call our confidential, toll-free hotline, 24/7 at 1-866-569- SAFE (1-866-569-7233). Have a question? E-mail us at: ask@thesafefoundation.org . Learn more about The Safe Foundation; get helpful tips, information and resources at www.TheSafeFoundation.org . Community Chest KISLEV 5774 DECEMBER 2013 93