Title: “Seasons of Service with Little Ones”
Exhibitor: Danise Heninger
Description: So you have "little ones" and just a little bit of money, and
you're thinking your opportunities to help others are
limited. Well I caught myself thinking
that too, so I set to work figuring out how to make this grand experiment of
motherhood a "service
project." We have done a food
drive, Christmas boxes for children in third world countries, trick-or-treating
as a service project, and we raised $100.00 to buy the fleece to make blankets
that we then donated. The first step in
all of these was to go to the Ultimate service planner, and a lot of prayer
went in to these projects...they needed to involve as many of the children as
possible, the children needed to be aware of the need we were trying to meet,
and they couldn't take mommy away from the other things she needed to do to
keep things in order on the home front. As I got looking at our efforts, I
realized we were doing one project every few months, so here are our ideas
for year-round service opportunities that won't make you wacky.
How To’s:
Spring Project
Winter Project
When my cousin was organizing our family reunion for the summer, she sent each family $5.00 and invited us to read the account in Matthew regarding the parable of the talents. Then she invited us to "increase" our $5.00 to see what we could do. We decided to make flowers out of chocolate candy kisses and put them in pots to sell to our neighbors and families for Valentine's Day. YOU COULD CHOOSE ANY FUN SEASONAL CRAFT that people might want to give as gifts to teachers or friends and family. We used the $5 to buy the "ingredients" to make a sample and then took it around to our neighbors and took orders, which they paid for in advance. Then we bought what we needed to fill the orders. We sold enough pots to earn $100.00 and we bought fleece for 10 blankets. (The timing was great-end of season fleece clearance.) Make sure you price the items so that you will actually make money-thereby increasing your "talents". The children were TOTALLY responsible for "selling". They explained that we were raising money for a service project, what we were doing, and how much the pots would cost. Very good experience
COSTS: Purchase of craft components-$5.00
Gasoline for Order Taking and Delivery-$2.00
(less if you walk with your children to do both)
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When traditional schools let out for the summer, area food banks find themselves with an increased need since school lunches are less available in the "off season". We made a cute flyer with a picture of our children all together on it that said, "CAN YOU HELP US?" Then we described the need and our plan. Our Goal was to donate 100lbs of food for each of our children. (4 children = 400lbs. of food). We set an end date, and delivered the flyer to people we know. Our bishop allowed us to put a "mini-flyer" with the ward bulletin. We made a big poster of a scale and put a little "arm" on it to measure the pounds of food we collected, and the children would weigh the food and move the arm. We had a little "thank-you" treat for everyone who donated, and when we went to the food bank our total donation was over 600lbs. So exciting. I had the children record their feelings in their journals, and it is a great memory for them.
COSTS: Photocopying-$5.00
Poster Board-$1.00
Bag of Candy for "Thank-You"s-$5.00
Gas to drive to the Food Bank-$4.00
TOTAL: $15.00
I HATE HALLOWEEN. Sorry, but I do. So when this opportunity to use it for good came up I jumped on it! Lenscrafters has a program that they sponsor, called SIGHT NIGHT, to collect used eyeglasses while you trick-or-treat. They send you the packet with ALL the information in it and you just go for it. WWW.SIGHTNIGHT.ORG THINGS WE'VE LEARNED-It is Very Important to go around the neighborhood before you trick-or-treat, and leave the doorhangers with all the information on them. Try to do a press release of some sort. Make A Difference Day is usually around this time, so we took our newspaper up on the offer of free exposure in relationship to community service projects. I dressed the children all the same (White Sweatshirts and Black Pants) and made them all "Volunteer" badges using the stickers that come with the kit from Lenscrafters, and they all wore fun and funky glasses. They came back from trick-or-treating talking about how many glasses they were going to be able to give, instead of how much candy they had been able to get. You let the organization know how much you collected and they send back a certificate with your family name and your accomplishment to put in with your other good "family stuff."
We have decided to take off on this idea and choose a different idea each Halloween. We have a need for books at our local shelters, so we are going to adapt the ideas to collect used books this year. We'll make our own door hangers, and volunteer badges, etc. to involve the children even more.
COSTS: Gas to drop the glasses off at Lenscrafters-$2.00
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There is an organization called Samaritan's Purse (www.samaritanspurse.org) that does a project called OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD. They take donated shoe boxes filled with goodies and deliver them to children in many parts of the under-developed world. You will need to go to the website and check out their philosophy to make sure it matches your family's, but we enjoyed this project SO much. We sat down with our children on Thanksgiving Day and talked about our blessings and the coming holiday season, and we discussed with them our plan for Christmas presents. Our family tradition has been three gifts each (like the three gifts of the Magi), but we asked each child if they would be willing to donate the cost of one of those gifts to children who have very little. They all agreed and we used that money to fill one shoebox from each of our 5 children. The organization asks that you send $5.00 per box for shipping, so we set that aside and went shopping. Involve the children in every detail-wrapping paper, contents (see guidelines on website), what picture to send, and what to write on the note you include with the box. All A Dollar was awesome, and we were able to get small donations from other school supply stores and local retailers.
We had such fun, but the best part was when we got a catalog back in the mail after Christmas showing photos of the children receiving their boxes. I was so touched by the pictures that I had tears in my eyes, and when one of my children shouted, "Look! There's one of our boxes-I picked out that wrapping paper." The tears were no longer in my eyes, they went all the way to the ol' chin. Surely, there is no way of proving if it was really our box, but as my children continued to look for their boxes and discuss the recipients, I didn't need any kind of proof. "We done good."
COSTS: This will totally depend on your family's circumstances. Do what you
can. One box lovingly prepared by a whole family will be a great blessing to the child who receives it. If you don't want to send your stuff far away, I am sure that local shelters would have a need for just this very thing.
To everything there is a season...and for families, the seasons of giving can be all year long!