The site was founded by a woman named Jacqueline Wilson, who had her first biological child at the age of 39. She also founded WritRams.com, where she has the Give Back Initiative.

The Give Back Initiative spotlights non-profit and charity groups, organizations, and individuals working to make the world a better place. Each week, she features a new organization, group, or individual making changes locally or globally. Recent posts spotlighted people like Jason Bass, a man who is running the first marathon of his life to not only get in shape but also to raise money for a Make-a-Wish wish. Another person who was featured was Betsy Moats, who gives an opportunity once a week on her blog for military men and women to share their stories. There are no pictures of starving children in Africa. There are pictures of people doing things, big and small, in their own ways, to help others.

The older you get, the more you realize how truly pressing the needs of those around us are. The older you are, the more likely it is that you’ve seen of loss, that you’ve felt loss in your life, and that you have an idea of what it must be like for those who’ve lost all. You also realize how truly close those needs are. You no longer finish your dinner thinking just about the starving children in Africa, but the starving children in your own city.

To not to be overwhelmed in the face of such need, but to bite off a chunk and say, “I will do what I can do” takes a little bit of courage and commitment. To do something, in the midst of a busy life, for someone you don’t know, takes a charitable frame of mind. But it doesn’t require the moving of a mountain, just an open heart and eyes. And Jacqueline has that. She said, “I resolved a couple of years ago that I never wanted to be a bystander again and not help people when I know they needed help.”

So she keeps her eyes and ears open, and does things like buying a kids meal for someone who appeared to need it at a McDonald’s, and buying bedding for a family in need at Christmas. As she shares examples of kind people and great nonprofits, she can’t help but increase awareness of the problems they are seeking to address. And as she writes about what she’s done, she can’t help but inspire even the most stolid person to action.

What are you and your family doing to give back? As you grow older, how are you becoming more aware of those who are in need?

Sole Hope provides closed toe shoes for people in Africa. I liked their mission. I liked that they worked both globally and in my hometown and I loved that providing closed toe shoes was a project in which my family could participate in together.

Sure, there were some steps involved in creating fabric shoes and a video to watch, but how hard could tracing and cutting be? In fact, this family project would be so simple and fun, that I invited friends to our night of making shoes, and turned it into a party.

Our friends could come, bring their kids, work for a couple of hours, teach our children a little something about giving, and outfit an entire African village in shoes. It would be a fantastic night.

But things didn’t really work out that way.

See, the jean cutting scissors my guests brought to the party weren’t really fabric scissors, and the pinking shears were non-existent, and the little, plastic, heel pieces were difficult to cut out, and oh, the whole idea of creating an entire shoe out of matching fabric was completely lost.

After an hour and a half of sixteen adults and a handful of kids working together, we created two pairs of shoes.

As adults filed out my front door and I looked at random pieces of material scattered around my home, I fought feelings of disappointment. Luckily, my nine-year-old skipped by.

“I can’t believe we made two pairs of shoes tonight!”

I smiled.

Maybe creating hundreds of perfectly made shoes wasn’t the goal. Maybe the goal was learning about new people in a far away place, stepping outside of our usual life, and rallying friends for a cause, and maybe teaching kids about giving isn’t about a perfect finished product, but about the act of giving itself.

Can you think of a time when your good intentions went wrong, but you learned something anyway? How did you turn it into a positive situation?

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Can one beyond blessed family move from addicted to themselves to devoted to others? The author of this post shares honestly at Amy L. Sullivan about her family’s attempt to become less me, me, me focused and more others centered. Amy writes for print and online publications and is also writing a nonfiction book about serving others.

My two younger children loved the idea of having their houses put on the website for RMHC. I was able to visit one of the houses in California last month and I told my kids about all the wonderful things this charity is doing to help families. The kids knew this was for a good cause and so we all tried to make a really special house together.

Making a gingerbread house with the Wilton kits is super simple. They provide you with pre-made walls, icing, and colorful candy.

My kids wanted to create their own design. My daughter bought a slightly different kit and was able to create a really cute house as well.

Our gingerbread houses didn’t turn out like the picture on the Wilton box, but they were made with love. This is exactly what the RMHC does — they create a house that helps families feel love, support, and peace.

Have you ever made a gingerbread house? What baked treats do you love to make during the holidays?

Jill Greenlaw has a banking background. She gave that up 17 years ago when she got married and started having kids. She loved being a stay-at-home mom while raising her four beautiful children. A few years ago, Jill went back to work in sales. She recently joined the Mom It Forward team and is the Editorial Manager. Her interests include camping, motorcycling, boating, photography, reading, cooking, and traveling. Put her in flip flops anywhere warm and she is happy.

This year, my kids and I will be decorating a homeless Christmas tree along with homeless people in downtown Dallas. It will be a rewarding experience because they will remember the love, gratitude, and joy in the faces of the people they spent time with. They will also get a little bonding time with mom at the same time.

What’s your desire when it comes to giving? There are so many ways to give because there’s so much need. In America alone, thousands of homeless men women and children live on the street. 10,000 homeless kids are enrolled in Chicago schools alone. There are orphanages and homes for the elderly in every major city. In the smallest of towns, there are poverty stricken people who need a helping hand, or inspiring word.

A girl I know volunteers her time in a domestic abuse shelter. I lead homeless writing groups. Whatever your skill, or passion, you can use it to give back.

3 Ways to Teach Your Kids About Giving Back to Others

The following are three ways to cultivate giving:

1. Cultivate a sense of giving in your kids by making giving a normal part of life, not a random event.
2. Teach them to have a servants heart. Be open to new adventures and opportunities to serve others!
3. Allow your kids pick a needy child or family to give love, toys or time to in the New Year.

When I was contacted by an organization that has a school for kids and a clinic to fight aids in Africa, I was a little uneasy about it. I’m not Bono and I’m certainly not Madonna. They asked me to come over and possibly speak and teach curriculum to achieve life skills, something I teach in inner city schools of America.

Months later, the director of the center, flew over and shared the vision with me. He stayed at my home, met my kids, and talked about the HIV rate and how many of their babies are born with the disease. Him, his wife, and two boys live amongst these kids daily. Their mission is to try and save lives.

He shared stories my kids they will never forget. The deadly black mamba snake, lions, tigers, and how his oldest son catches snakes all the time, right outside their back door. It both frightened and exhilarated me to think of such a vastly different culture. Here was an non-imposing man, who went barefoot everywhere (including Home Depot) in Texas, as if it were perfectly normal!

Their center, the Sophumelela Center, provides education for adults, and children. It provides two meals a day for little kids who normally eat nothing, or a porridge soup. They are a dynamic, progressive, and growing organization that endeavours not to lose its personal touch. The outcome is for beneficiaries to move people to self-sustainability through their comprehensive battery of programs. Their vision is to see a society free from the suffering of HIV/AIDS and they will achieve this through their mission to provide medical care and treatment, education, social enterprise and development, and replication and partnerships.

When the director left, my six year-old said, “I really want to go to Africa.” I kept envisioning him running through the fields with black Mambas. This is not any American mothers idea of fun. But maybe I should be open to the possibility that God could touch my children’s hearts in ways my own plans could not.

Maybe I need to have a heart for Africa after all. What about you?

What’s your plan for giving this year? How will you get your whole family involved in giving back to those in need over the next year?

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Tammy Kling is a life coach, advocate for the homeless, and international author of 29 books including The Compass. Tammy is also the founderr of Write it Out, an organization that helps gang members, the homeless, and those living on the street write out their hopes & dreams via writers workshops, free journals and various other resources.

In addition to writing and coaching, Tammy is a mom of two boys, an avid trail and mountain runner, blogger, and adventure travel writer.

But at the end of the day, I’ve realized the importance of giving to yourself. Yes, it’s important to give back to our world but it’s also super critical to give to yourself.

I ran a 15k recently around a lake in grapevine, Texas. It made me feel strong and powerful. I am not a fast runner. In fact, I feel really slow. I outran runners ten years younger! It was no small feat! Running a 15 k on concrete would be a challenge, but this was on dirt trails and hills. I wondered halfway through why I was doing the run.

It was a veterans day race. My dad was a veteran. But no, I decided, I wasn’t doing it for him. Intrinsic desire is always important to be authentic. I knew that I didn’t need to do the race for him. He was just fine. I needed to do it for myself.

I wanted to quit that day.  I was tired, overwhelmed, exhausted and in pain. But today, now that it’s over, I can say I’m thrilled that I actually did something just for myself. I didn’t do it to prove anything. I didn’t do it for the kids. I just did it. And it made me feel better.

Sometimes legacy means becoming better so that you can be stronger for everyone you care for. What is it you can do today just for yourself? Get a massage. Run a race. Take an art or cooking class. This season, find ways to give to yourself.

This holiday season, what ways are you going to give back to yourself? How are you going to take care of yourself?

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Tammy Kling is a life coach, advocate for the homeless, and international author of 29 books including The Compass. Tammy is also the founderr of Write it Out, an organization that helps gang members, the homeless, and those living on the street write out their hopes & dreams via writers workshops, free journals and various other resources.

In addition to writing and coaching, Tammy is a mom of two boys, an avid trail and mountain runner, blogger, and adventure travel writer.

The Anti-Aging Elixir

Scientists and sociologists who study centenarians report that people who live past 100 have at least one thing in common. A connectedness to the world around them, and a heart for giving back. Centenarians have purpose to their lives. Their age isn’t a deterrent to trying new things!

Just look at Angelina Jolie or Sophia Loren. Even standing in the rubbish of an African ghetto, Angelina manages to look like the most put together starlet in the world. She is not photo shopped in that picture where shes wearing cargos and a black tank top, with her hair pulled back. She doesn’t even have on makeup. But it’s her wide, joyous smile that makes her seem so youthful. Princess Diana was the same way. Her face seemed radiant, as she held the hand of a sick child in a foreign land, unconcerned about her wrinkled clothes, or makeup.

Laboratory experiments show that positive moods reduce stress-related hormones in your body. This chemical chain reaction increases the immune function, promoting healing, and vitality. When you give back, you take the focus off of your own problems, in order to focus on someone else. When you look at the scientific data, you can see that your happiness isn’t an option. Happiness is a necessity, as important as air and water!

There’s a link between happiness and longevity. And not only that, it’s just one of many ways I can raise kids who have a global perspective on cultures and kids in other nations. You don’t gave to adopt 12 kids from different cultures to know how different cultures think. You can do it from the comfort of your own home.

Today I received an email about an entrepreneur I sponsored for kiva. The business owner in Latin America planned to use my money to buy llamas to fund a clothing business. Llamas! This was a great opportunity to teach the kids about the country, the animal, the business, and entrepreneurship. Kiva is a micro lending organization that offers small hopeful business owners in remote regions the opportunity to get seed money. You can donate 25$ or 50$. You can see who you’re giving to and where your money is going. And guess what? Since it’s a loan, your money comes back to you.

One proven way to find yourself again as school gets underway, is to make time for giving back. But it’s not just your physical beauty that will change. Mother Teresa lived to be 87.

The 10 Year Younger Challenge

Take the 10 Year Younger challenge today: give, give, and give, everyday for 10 days and see how healthy you can be.

When I worked in orphanages building swingsets in Brasov, Romania, there was no time to sit and dwell on any issues back home. And when I returned to the United States, the lifestyle the Romanians lived stayed with me. What was hard was to  envision spending $65 on a pair of jeans when it was an entire months salary for them. Giving back, gave me a healthy new view and was like a seismic shift for my heart.

If you want to live longer and look younger, do more for others. How will you give back to others today? This week? This month? This year?

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Tammy Kling is a life coach, advocate for the homeless, and international author of 29 books including The Compass. Tammy is also the founderr of Write it Out, an organization that helps gang members, the homeless, and those living on the street write out their hopes & dreams via writers workshops, free journals and various other resources.

In addition to writing and coaching, Tammy is a mom of two boys, an avid trail and mountain runner, blogger, and adventure travel writer.

For every sale that is made, the Haitian artisans who provide products to Macy’s will receive 22 percent of the retail prize for each item in the collection. This campaign has offered Haitians their first sustainable income since the devastation in early 2010. The income has helped to repair homes, pay school fees, and feed and clothe their families. Haitian men and women are working together, gaining confidence and hope for the future all while producing beautiful pieces of work.

The Prizes

This week’s giveaway is all about giving back. There are five prizes for five lucky winners (ARV total: $250):

• First Prize: Heart of Haiti Picture Frame
• Second Prize: Set of 3 Ceremonial Bowls
• Third Prize: Heart of Haiti Papier Mache Vase
• Fourth Prize: 2 Heart of Haiti Pendant Necklaces
• Fifth Prize: Hand Burnished Jewelry Hanger

Entry Requirements

For a chance to enter and win, please complete the following requirements and leave a separate comment for each on this post, including links to your original tweets.

1. Follow @HeartofHaiti on Twitter.
2. Visit the http://www.macys.com/heartofhaiti, look at the Heart of Haiti products and then come back to this post telling us which one is your favorite product.
3. Tweet the following:

• RT @MomItForward GIVEAWAY! Enter 2 win #HeartofHaiti handmade products collection @MacysInc (5 Winners) http://bit.ly/dWlEZw #gno PLS RT

• RT @MomItForward Macy’s #HeartofHaiti helps Haitians overcome earthquake devastation. Beautiful products: http://bit.ly/hRjE06 #gno PLS RT

Optional Entries

The following are two extra entries that are completely optional and will earn you one extra entry for each entry completed. Leave a separate comment on this post for each completed entry.

• Like the Macy’s Heart of Haiti page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/HeartofHaiti)

Terms and Conditions

Winners will be selected randomly through http://random.org. No purchase necessary to enter. Giveaway ends at midnight ET Wednesday, January 12. See all terms and conditions here. This giveaway is available to U.S. residents only.

The Prizes

Mom It Forward and Bing will reward one lucky winner with a $200 American Express gift card for their own use and a DonorsChoose.org $50 gift code to donate to the classroom project of their choice on www.DonorsChoose.org.

Entry Requirements

For a chance to enter and win, please complete the following requirements and leave a separate comment for each on this post, including links to your original tweets.

1. Follow @BingGives on Twitter.
2. Make Bing your homepage and the come back to this post and let us know that it is now your homepage.
3. Tweet the following:

• RT @MomItForward Join @BingGives #gno Twitter party Mon 12/20 (9-11 ET) 2 chat giving back http://bit.ly/gRi2nE PLS RT

• RT @MomItForward GIVEAWAY! Enter 2 win $200 Amex GC & $50 @DonorsChoose GC from @BingGives http://bit.ly/fc4cb5 #gno #BingGives PLS RT

Optional Entry

The following is an extra entry that is completely optional and will earn you one extra entry for this giveaway. Leave a separate comment on this post for the completed entry.

Like the Bing page on Facebook

Terms and Conditions

Winners will be selected randomly through http://random.org. No purchase necessary to enter. Giveaway ends at midnight ET Tuesday, December 21. See all terms and conditions here.

Bing believes every kid deserves a great education and this year, in partnership with DonorsChoose.org, they generated hundreds of thousands of dollars to public classrooms in need through various charitable programs such as “Our School Needs” and “Teacher Appreciation.”  To make the holidays merrier for everyone, Bing now has an even easier way for you to give back. With the “Bing Gives” campaign, all it takes is a simple click of a button and you can tell Bing to donate to DC.org on your behalf. Better yet, take it one step further by making Bing your homepage and you’ll receive a $5 donation code to redeem at DonorsChoose.org.

Party Topic

Join Bing and our panel of experts as we discuss how you and your family have given back and positively affected your community throughout the year and what you can do during the holidays to make more of a difference. The party will be held on Monday, December 20 from 9-11 ET (8CT, 7MT, 6PT). Click here to see details about the Bing giveaway and enter for a chance to win.

Party Details

• What: Girls’ Night Out (#gno) Twitter party (Click here to learn about #gno!)
• When: Monday, December 20 from 9-11 p.m. EST (8CT, 7 MT, & 6 PT)
• Where: Party with us on our very own Custom Tweetgrid! (Use hashtags #gno and #BingGives)
• Topic: Giving back throughout the year and the during the holidays
• Who: Brand Panelists: @BingGives @liztg @kittykatsmith @loriwildrick @SPGI10003 @CarolinaMartin, Community Panelists: @VolunteerSpot @plussizemommy @reallifesarah @complicatedmama @NoFlashCards @momtrends @mommymusings, Moderator(s): @jylmomIF @Dadventurous @troypattee and @MomItForward
• Party Favors: Click here to enter for a chance to enter the Bing giveaway
• RSVP: Use Mr. Linky below (enter the twitter URL and your twitter ID (e.g., http://twitter.com/jylmomIF).

RT @MomItForward Join @BingGives #gno Twitter party Mon 12/20(9-11 ET) 2 chat giving back http://bit.ly/gRi2nE PLS RT

Note: Mom It Forward accepts paid sponsorships for most #gno Twitter parties. During the parties, brand sponsors provide tips, techniques, expert advice, and information on party topics. Mom It Forward is grateful for the giveaway prizes, coupons, and discounts that sponsors also provide to the Mom It Forward community in conjunction with #gno Twitter parties.

“There’s no reason A-listers should have all the cool stuff, right?” Resa Troyer asks while we’re talking about the motivation behind her thriving business, Resa Design.

Defined by clean lines and solid colors, Resa’s dream of providing moms with baby and toddler stuff that qualified as “cool gear I wasn’t embarrassed to carry around,” is a reality.

Resa Design officially launched more than 3 years ago, but was in the mind and hands of mom, Resa Troyer long before that. “I have been sewing since I was five and always been an entrepreneur of sorts.”

Before she officially started her business, Resa had begun to make baby blankets and give them away as gifts. She’d had a hard time finding gifts she felt matched her mom-friend’s sense of style and that difficulty continued as she searched for baby items during her own pregnancy, “I couldn’t figure out why everything was geared towards a baby that could care less what color his diaper bag was or what print was on his blankets. What I did find available was expensive and therefore not available to me.” So, Resa started searching for great fabrics. It wasn’t long before the requests started coming in and Resa began to sell her creations.

In addition to the fancy, soft fabrics, Resa has taken the ‘practical’ into account. She explains, “Our accessories were all designed out of needs I had as a new mom: a changing pad that actually covered the gross bathroom stall changing table, a burp cloth that was cute, absorbent and didn’t have farm animals on it, or a bib that didn’t hang to baby’s knees and still not soak up the gallons of drool.” And she aims to keep her items affordable, but that definitely doesn’t mean cheap! Resa says with a smile, “More important to me than price is quality. I am a bit of a perfectionist and will have a product redone as much as I can to make sure it meets my high standards.”

A business that once allowed her to set certain days during the week as ‘work days’ now requires attention every day. A tough balance for this mom of two little ones, but she manages. “What started as a hobby is now a full time job.”

Resa’s hard work, attention to detail and eye for beautiful designs now benefits another very special category of moms.

In addition to being an entrepreneur, Resa has also always been a giver, “it is part of my DNA. It is a huge part of the values we instill in our children and part of our mission as a family.” So, joining forces with Operation Shower – an organization that provides a ‘baby shower in a box’ to military wives – was a natural fit.

“I love the idea behind Operation Shower.  I can only imagine what the moment looks like when the giant brown Operation Shower box arrives at an expecting mother’s door.  She opens it up, and dozens of adorable baby items are neatly packaged and ready for her baby.  Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall at that moment?”

First learning about Operation Shower on a blog, Resa fell in love with the idea of getting involved.  Finding out OS’s main offices were in her own city, and then leaning that they loved the idea of gifting boutique-style goods to deserving moms made them a ‘match at first sight’.

Resa began by making a few ‘quiet’ product donations for boxes being sent out, but has since established an online registry for Operation Shower.  As you purchase a burp cloth for yourself, you can easily add a burp cloth for a military-mom-to-be.  All the products on the registry are sold at ‘cost’ – so about half-price and they are shipped free of charge on your behalf. Resa explains, “For as little as $4, you can send a Resa Design product to a military mom-to-be.  That’s like skipping ice-cream at the grocery store for a week.  It is totally doable.”

Resa specifically chooses to do this kind of ‘mom-it-forward’ gifting, instead of celebrity gifting, since she would rather, “our gifts be a real, true blessing to someone, and not just another baby gift”.

Three other companies have joined Resa’s efforts, Julian and Co, Little Allouette, and Wet Happened.  In April and May, Resa did a Mother’s Day drive, donated 20% in goods to Operation Shower for every $50 purchase and was able to cover over 25 gifted items. These items were given as part of Operation Shower’s Mother’s Day event at Ft. Hood and Scott Air Force Base.

The online registry is up year round.  Tribute cards are also available if you would like to make a donation in someone’s honor. Be sure to visit Resa Design and Operation Shower to learn more.

About the Author: Danielle Smith is a mommy to two smart and sassy small people, as well as the founder and primary author of ExtraordinaryMommy.com. You can catch her hosting a brand new live show, The Spin Cycle, on MomTV.com every Wednesday at 9pmEST. She also hosts a show on Blog Talk Radio and contributes to WhyMomsMatter. Danielle is thrilled to be contributing to MomItForward – as ‘giving back’ has always been an important part of who she is and what she hopes to teach her children