Giving Thursday #6: Operation Christmas Child

 

For our 6th Giving Thursday, we hosted Ty's Cub Scout troop and created boxes for Operation Christmas Child.  Tyler and Megan had a great time picking out toys for their "friends" and actually started to get over the fact that they couldn't keep them for themselves.


We started with this video and talked about how different Christmas can be in different parts of the world.  Since we were focused on being a citizen for the meeting, we talked about how we don't just need to be citizens of our town, city, state, or country, but also of the world.  It was a fun night and a project I'm definitely interested in doing again next year.

Halloween 2012

Our Halloween (or should I say Halloweens) was great this year.  A party at the gymansitics "parent's night out," trunk-or-treating with the Cub Scouts, and learning how to trick or treat in our new neighborhood (most do it in cars or golf carts...and everyone sits out at where the street meets their driveway) made for lots of candy collection and a good deal of variety.  Tinkerbell and the ninja had a lot of fun.

Click here for more pics.

The first joint soccer season--Fall 2012

Tyler and Megan had a lot of fun playing for two different teams with the same name (and we had lots of fun watching them).  Click on the photo below for more.

Giving Thursday #5: Making Giving Boxes

After a short break due to a couple weeks of travel for work (although Jeff did do some activities with the kids, but I'll let him write about those), we continued our new tradition a few days ago with an activity that will hopefully encourage ongoing giving:  Making giving boxes/containers.  I got this idea from a fellow Big Hearted Families pilot family.

The idea is that they decorate the containers and put them in their closet to collect toys or clothes that they'd like to give to someone who needs them.  We started with a video to give them a bit more perspective about how many people throughout the world have so much less than them and closed with a reflection activity shared on the Big Hearted Families site. 

After the small protest that arose after I explained that they should go through their closets and play room to see if there was anything they'd like to donate, I was very surprised when I went upstairs and saw quite a bit in each of the containers.  I was also happy to see Ty's reflection below.

Ty's picture of himself taking items out of the closet and putting them in his donation box.

Giving Thursday #4: School Kits for Church World Service--They're asking for it!

As part of our participation in Big Hearted Families, we continued our "experiment" with another "Giving Thursday."

This past Thursday we embarked on a slightly more costly activity and packed school kits for Church World Service.


He wanted to make it educational :)

She loved that it was pink

The kids really enjoyed decorating the bags (especially with the iron-on decorations) and were able to get a bit of a sense of how it is for kids across the world who don't have the ability to grab the school supply list and spend fun time (well, sometimes it's fun) in the store choosing what color notebooks they want this year.

However, I think the highlight of the night came when exhausted from the day, I asked them if they wanted to do Giving Thursday on Friday instead.  They immediately got the "that's not fair" expression on their faces and said, "No!  We want to do it today!"  When I asked Megan why she liked GT, she said, "Because I like giving things to people and helping them."  Not bad for four weeks into the experiment...hopefully their enthusiasm continues.

Here are some more details for our fourth GT:

Intro/education:  Heart to Heart video by Church World Services--shows the path of their kits from packing to unpacking with the recipients across the world.

Guidelines for activity:  CWS website

Reflection/extension:

• Discussion around the following questions
• Why do you like having new school supplies?
• What would it feel like if you weren't able to get them
• Reference to a book from Doing Good Together's Kinder Book Club which Tyler really liked when we borrowed it from the library a couple of months ago--One Hen, How One Small Loan Made a Difference

Giving Thursday #3--Color-a-Smile

This Thursday we continued the experiment with Big Hearted Families and colored pictures for a great organization, Color-a-smile.  It's such an easy project to do (most kids love to color) and can have a great impact.  If you're a parent with kids who love to color, I highly recommend looking into sharing some of your kids' artwork with those who need a bit of cheer.

During our activity, I made an effort again to encourage reflection.  To help kickstart this reflection, I like to start with a short video whenever possible.  This week, since one of the organizations that Color-a-Smile donates the drawings to is Meals and Wheels, and since we have a personal connection to MOW having volunteered for them a few years ago (a fond memory that Tyler talks about often), we watched a video about hunger among US seniors.  When Ty saw that Texas was one of the top 10 states in terms of the number of hugry seniors he gasped loudly. 

As they colored, we talked about how it feels when we're hungry and we tried to imagine what it would feel like if you were hungry and didn't know where your next meal would come from.  We also talked about how when you're hungry you might not be able to give your unique gifts to others (the key understanding that I mentioned was my goal for this effort last time).  Megan was much more involved in this conversation (and the activity) than the last two and I'm guessing our conversation will pop up again sometime when I least expect it.  Finally, we talked about how this activty may "fill someone's bucket," tying in a favorite new book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today.

A good time was had by all and I'm looking forward to seeing how and when our conversation may pop up again.

Oh, and as a special treat...here's a video that Tyler insisted we create when we were talking last week about needing a theme song for Giving Thursdays.


Coming up next week:  Creating School Kits for Church World Services

The "Giving Thursday" Experiment

It is vital that when educating our children’s brains that we do not neglect to educate their hearts.
--Dalai Lama

Over the past few years, I've started to think a lot about the importance of developing empathy in Tyler and Megan.  I feel like one of the most important perspectives that I can share with them is that they are not alone in this world and that there are many people in the world who have less than they do in one way or another.  Although I know (from books like Born for Love) a lot more than my actions impacts the development of empathy, I also know that we can play a very important role.

This interest has led me to wonderful organizations, such as Doing Good Together and Little Helping Hands, among others.  I've been in communication (and volunteering in whatever way I can) for the wonderful women leading these organizations.  However, even though I've thought alot about taking action and getting involved in family volunteering, I've failed to make it a habit and my best intentions have been remained just that...intentions.

However, recently I've had an opportunity to change that.  Last month, both organizations have been part of the launch of a new program to promote the development of empathy in children, Big Hearted Families.  I signed our family up to be a pilot family for a year. 

I share this mostly so that you all (or the 3 of you who might read this blog) can help to hold me accountable.  After learning a good deal about habits, I realized that I needed to give myself a trigger/cue in order to turn my intentions into action.  So I've decided to institute what Tyler has named "Giving Thursdays."  Each Thursday, I pick the kids up a little early and we either go to a nonprofit or complete a service project at home. 

Below are pictures from our first two Thursdays.  The first Thursday we made cards for the older adults at The Friendship Center and last week we made no-sew fleece blankets for Project Linus.

What the pictures don't show are the conversations that we have reflecting on the experience.  I'm very eager to help the kids understand that we do not help others because we're better than them.  We help because we are all special creations that have unique gifts to offer and we want to make sure that everyone (even those who may be struggling) have the best chance of offering their gifts to the world. 

Enjoy the pictures and stay tuned for more reports on our Giving Thursdays.  Hopefully, we'll one day realize the benefits...as Szalavitz and Perry state in Born for Love, "...raising children in a way that fully expresses empathy may be the key to cultural productivity, creativity, and security."

Making cards for The Friendship Center--When I asked what they liked best about older adults, Tyler responded: "They know all of their manners already."



Making blanket for Project Linus