In December the kids and I were at one of our various activities in downtown Denver and we noticed some homeless men on the corner, right next to McDonald's. We were driving through the drive-thru to get a drink anyway and I debated whether or not I should buy them food. I was worried about offending them in some way by assuming they were homeless (which was pretty clear by the way they were dressed, but you never know how people will react.) I was so conflicted about it I even sat in the parking lot and called Ryan at work to ask him what he thought. By the time I finally decided to buy the men lunch, they had walked away. This experience has stayed with me. I really wish I had just acted on my initial impulse to serve.
This year our family goal is to be more service oriented. We have talked about the scripture verse found in the Book of Mormon, "I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants." We have decided to try to find ways each month to do some or all of those things. I had all these high hopes of working in soup kitchens and volunteering in shelters and stuff, but apparently there is a minimum age to work in most of those places and it is quite a bit older than any of my kids. So we have had to scale back our plans a bit.
In January we collected bags and bags of clothes and household items to donate to multiple thrift stores (clothing the naked in a manner of speaking). The idea for our first February project came through a friend of the girls. We have been getting bombarded by requests to buy Girl Scout cookies, which we don't eat. But their friend's mom suggested buying the cookies and donating them to the Children's Hospital! So we helped out two causes in one (feeding the sick/hungry Thin Mints and helping out Brownie troop 2155whatever!) Definitely small and simple things, but we are just getting started. We have even bigger plans for the coming months which I am soooo excited about!
I would love it if any of you have any ideas or thoughts or suggestions about some practical hands-on things we can do as a family to send them our way. I really want my kids to get a sense of how blessed we are and how important it is to share that with others.
3 comments:
Great goal! One thing I have heard about but don't know how hard it is to arrange is signing up to be bell ringers for the Salvation Army at Christmas time. I don't know how or when to sign up, but I think it sounds like a cool experience!
Sandy has done meals on wheels with her kids for years. She takes even her littlest with her. You might want to look into that or ask her about it.
Okay, I've been thinking more about your post today since I commented earlier. I read about this a while ago and it might be something your kids could help put together: http://www.iammommahearmeroar.net/2011/09/wake-up-wednesday_21.html
Your kids could have some sort of garage sale/lemonade stand/bake sale fundraiser this summer and donate the proceeds to water.org. Or you could work as a family all year to save money/make money and use it to buy something from the heifer project.
You could grow some food in your garden to donate to the food bank. You're growing the plants anyway, so maybe you plant one more of each and donate the fruits.
One thing I'd like to check into is maybe making little holiday tray favors for a senior center. I remember my mom doing this. They usually can't take treats because the patients are on special diets, but maybe something to decorate their food trays? I remember as a YW going to decorate the rec room at a senior center.
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