My boys start the scouting program at the age of eight and move through the various rank advancements until they receive their Eagle Scout Award. This usually happens around the age of 15-18.

My oldest son is 17 years old. He earned his eagle when he was 15 years old. One of the last things you do to earn your Eagle is to do a 10 hour Leadership Service Project. This takes not only organization, but a lot of support from your leaders, friends, and family.

The project plan must be approved by a unit , committee, and district leader. When choosing a project the scout thinks about who will benefit from the project, how will they benefit, and how many people will it take to complete your project.

When the earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, my son decided that he wanted to collect personal hygiene kit items forthe people in Haiti. He contacted a group called the “Helping Hands for Haiti Foundation” and received all the information he needed for his project. This organization has been helping Haiti for over six years. They have built schools, bought land, taught farming skills to the Haitian people, and many other projects over the years. Right now they were in need of providing the people with hygiene kits and my son was excited to help.

The kits needed to include several things; toothbrushes, tooth paste, soap bars, towels, and combs. My son’s goal was to assemble 100 hygiene kids. He distributed over 300 fliers around the neighborhood in hopes that we could collect enough items to reach his goal. The project took just over a week to complete. 

Together with his family and scout group my son collected enough items to make 200 hygiene kits. It looked like Christmas in our living room when we packaged all of the items together. The generosity of our neighbors was unbelievable.

We had left over items that we were able to take to our local homeless shelter. This was a great experience for my son and for our whole family. I am thankful for the Boy Scout Program and for the opportunity it gave our family to serve and give to others. I am also thankful for the “Hands For Haiti Foundation” and all that they do to bless the lives of other.

I have two more boys left that are working their way up the advancement ranks. As each one reaches the age to earn his eagle, I hope that they will have the same enthusiasm and spirit of giving as my older son. This was an incredible experience that will have an impact on our lives.

What charitable organizations have you worked with in the past? What are you doing to raise charitable children?

Jill Greenlaw has a banking background. She is married and has four beautiful children. Jill loved being a stay-at-home mom for many years. She is now working for Mom It Forward as the editorial/community manager. Her interests include camping, motorcycling, boating, photography, reading, cooking, and traveling. Put her in flip flops anywhere warm and she is happy. You can follow her on Twitter.

So, what will we do if there is going to be six more weeks of winter? Never fear, friends. There is plenty to do that will help you get through the next six weeks!

3 Ways to Beat the Winter Blues

Turn Off the TV and Computer

We know being active and maintaining a healthy diet are important parts of self-care, for ourselves and our children. Instead of watching the tube mindlessly or checking our Twitter account while munching on comfort food, let’s make a pact that we’ll be active every day this winter. Need inspiration?

• Have a snowball fight or build a snowman.
• Have a dance-off contest or set-up an indoor obstacle course.
• Play board games or Twister.

Get Crafty

• Make Valentine handprint cards.
• Make a living room A-frame tent.
• Paint the snow.  Fill bottles with food coloring and water; go outside and paint.

Do Good

Local heroes, the needy and sick, senior citizens, and children are just a handful of the people you and your family can connect with on a regular basis. Not sure where to start?

• Spread bread.
• Provide love, warmth, security and comfort to a child with Project Linus.
• Organize a makeover/fashion show event for a local senior home.

What does your family do during a long winter? What have you incorporated into your family that you did when you were growing up?

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Desiree Allen is a thirty-something single parent with two children. A native of Denver, Colorado, she lived there until 2009, when she moved across the country to northern New Jersey with her kids. She is doing her best to avoid ‘picking up’ a Jersey accent, but she’s not making promises that she won’t eventually start sounding like some of her new friends. You can find her blogging at Writing to Sanity and tweeting @writingtosanity.

The site was launched only three weeks ago by a network of over 400 mom bloggers from 15 countries—the United States, Canada, UK, India, Spain, Nigeria, Singapore, Netherlands, Pakistan, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Bulgaria, Jamaica, and the Philippines—who work with about eight international and U.S.-based nonprofit partners to voluntarily spread word about their new initiatives, advocacy campaigns, and fundraising efforts. The concept that compels MomBloggersForSocialGood is the rapid and wide dissemination of information about the good work being done by, and the needs of, the organizations working so hard to improve our world.

If there were one woman who would be THE Mom Making a Difference, it would be Jennifer James, MBFSG’s inconspicuous founder. She wrote, in 2010:

I, for one, admittedly have not been the type of blogger who concentrates on huge issues that plague our planet because in all honesty I feel too small to make a difference. I have perpetually been debilitated by the notion that since I really can’t make a huge difference I guess I won’t do much at all. [But] I finally hit upon an epiphany! Global issues about poverty and education, world hunger and sex trafficking, as examples, don’t need to be solved by me. Rather, they can be solved when intelligent, conscious people bring ideas and solutions to the table and then people like me (bloggers) move those ideas and solutions through the Net. That is where the power of change really happens. Similarly that is where I know my power to make small change lies as well.

Less than a year after she wrote those words, she got the opportunity to go to Kenya as a member of ONE Moms, along with MomItForward’s founder Jyl Johnson-Pattee . Jennifer says: “[That] trip changed my perspective on the world and challenged me to do more to help others.” And she has been doing more, along with the all the other members of MomBloggersForSocialGood. In the past three weeks, they’ve:

• Identified 12 areas of concentration: children, clean water and sanitation, communicable disease, education, environment and climate, fair trade, food security, HIV/AIDS, maternal health, non-communicable disease, women and girls, and workers’ rights.
• Grown by 100 members.
• Followed member bloggers on an insight trip to Haiti to observe Heart of Haiti artisans at work. These sponsored trips get MBFSG bloggers involved on “ground-level.”

Jennifer started MBFSG, but its power comes in the collective voice, the collective call to action, spread over 500 other blogs all over the world. That can’t help but make a dent in the problems of the world.

What charity work are you involved in? How is this making a difference in your life and the lives of others?

 

My daughter has been planning her birthday party for the last six months. Sometimes she bursts into her very own “Happy Birthday to Me” song. She’s pondered the flavor of her cake and birthday theme. She’s even created her own invitations, but the thing my daughter is most excited about in regards to her birthday party is hanging out with her friends.

One of the reasons kids love parties is because they get to be with their friends. Heck, it’s one of the reasons I love parties. That’s why throwing a party with a purpose is such a great idea. You choose an organization your kids are interested in. Teach your kids to be more others focused, and then gather your friends to garner support.

Last fall, we participated in an national event called The Almost- Sleepover. The Almost-Sleepover was a party held on the same day by kids all across the United States in honor of a local nonprofit in their hometown. Fifteen pajama-clad kids showed up at my house. We baked, made up dance routines, created art for a new children’s wing, wrote letters to sick kids, brought games to donate to sick children, and most of all, had fun.

Our Almost-Sleepover was a way my daughter could see how service and fun can (and should!) be combined. The result of our Almost-Sleepover was more than a couple crates of donated books and toys. In the end, the girls toured the local facility we donated to, and now, a couple families volunteer there regularly.

Changing the world? Not yet. Changing little hearts. For sure.

 What kind of party with a purpose could your family become involved in this year? How can you make your kids’ party filled with purpose?

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.

Collect

Teach kids to collect. Depending on the time of year, you can find agencies and churches collecting just about anything: school supplies, coats, shoes, glasses, blankets, and canned goods. You should be sure to jump on one of these already established drives.

Last fall, our family participated in a local food drive. We hauled out our wagon, walked around a section of our neighborhood, and asked neighbors if they wanted to contribute dry goods. The response was colossal and, in addition to all of the non-perishables, we also got to know our neighbors better.

Create

Teach kids to create. Paintings, pictures, and colorful creations made by little hands bring sunshine into homes of people who live alone. Organizations such as Color a Smile and Post Pals  encourage children to create mini-masterpieces and lovefilled letters.

Cash-In

Teach kids to cash-in. Using even the most basic supplies and a little parental help, kids can create cookie or lemonade stands, and turn quarters and dimes into tangible donations.

Two summers ago, my daughter and her friends gathered posterboard, markers, two pitchers of lemonade, and plastic cups. In under two hours, these girls turned a few supplies into $30.00. Then, with their new found riches, each girl decided to give half of her earnings to a cause.

Will dry goods, colored pictures, and $15.00 change the world? Probably not, but I’m pretty sure it’s changing my daughter.

How will you encourage your kids to give back this year?

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.

Except for the first video, all of them are fairly short. The are totally awesome so watch as many of them as you can!

10 Must-Watch Inspiring Videos and Movies

1. Watch Twelve Angry Men, a fascinating and thought-provoking movie about how we humans perceive justice.
2. Watch this short video from CreateTheGood.org about how to help others avoid investment fraud.
3. Watch this YouTube video about One.org and its efforts to prevent the unnecessary deaths of children around the world.
4. Watch and play this Fractured Fairy Tales game designed around literacy, with your kids.
5. Watch this YouTube video from the National Wildlife Federation about the relationship between sea ice and polar bears.
6. Watch this collage of inspiring acts in 2011 from Yahoo. Have tissues nearby.
7. Watch with your teen a cause video from DoSomething.org, to learn about various causes, like the fight to  prevent underage drinking.
8. Watch this video from RandomActsofKindness.org, from the Greater Good Science Center, about how science benefits the giver biologically.
9. Watch this video about the Amazing Shrinking Chip Bag, or a bunch of other cool, easy science experiments from SteveSpanglerScience.com.
10. Watch this video from PBS Parents about how to encourage math literacy in your kids.

How Will You Give to Others This Week?

• Have you ever done any of these things? How did it go?
• What other videos or movies have you seen that inspired you?
• How have others given to you this week and what difference has that made in your life?

How Else Can You Make a Difference This Season?

• Commit to do one act of kindness/service based on the week’s challenge.
• Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week’s challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
• Enter to win this week’s giveaway.
• Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.

When you donate to charity, you are giving a little part of yourself away. Your gently used household items and food donations are clothing the needy and feeding the hungry.

Everything on this man and the puppies is donated from suburban moms! Jacket, shirt, puppy collars, puppy food, blanket, and puppy bag — you can only imagine how happy this made the man.

What items will you donate to charity? How will you teach your children to be more charitable?

Photo courtesy of flickr.

Tammy Kling is a life coach, crisis management expert, and advocate for the homeless. She is an international author of 37 books including The Compass. Tammy is also the founder of The Homeless Writers Project, an organization that helps those living on the street write out their hopes & dreams via writers workshops, free journals and other resources. Tammy is a mom of two boys, an avid trail and mountain runner, blogger, and adventure travel writer

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.

To start, we invite you to go to your closet or your kids’ closet right now and pick out five things that haven’t been worn in a year, put them in your car, and do the following:

1. Take them to your local women’s shelter, to help women who have had to flee their abusive partners, many times only with the clothes on their back.
2. Donate to Goodwill, which sells your clothing donations to help fund job training programs, employment placement services and other community-based programs for people who have disabilities, lack education or job experience, or face employment challenges.
3. Done to Salvation Army, which helps rehabilitate adults who have fallen on hard times and can also pick up your donations.
4. Donate to The Women’s Alliance or Dress for Success. See this post for more information about them or other ideas on where to donate used clothing.
5. Make a simple little girl’s party dress, if you have seamstress skills. If you don’t, buy an inexpensive dress, and mail it to your local children’s hospital.
6. Host a one-time book club at your house with three or four friends, and choose a book that ad-”dress”-es an important contemporary social issue.
7. Call a local assisted living center and ask if there is someone who has an approaching birthday who might like a couple of visitors, and take balloons, etc. to dress up their room or wheelchair.
8. Find the address of the publisher of one of your favorite books, and pen an actual letter of thanks to its author, like this woman did.
9. Grab any non-dress shoes (i.e., running shoes) that you haven’t worn in a year but that are still in good shape, and donate it to One World Running, an international program promoting an awareness of health, fitness and nutrition by providing running shoes to those in need in the United States and around the world. Here’s where you can take them.
10. Help acquaint your kids with the dress of other cultures by helping them play this “Buffalo Parts” game about Native American wear or breaking out some cardboard, ribbon, and felt to make simple versions of these Russian clothes.

How Will You Give to Others This Week?

• Have you ever done any of these things? How did it go?
• What other ideas do you have for providing others with clothes or doing service involving the word “dress”?
• How have others given to you this week and what difference has that made in your life?

How Else Can You Make a Difference This Season?

• Commit to do one act of kindness/service based on the week’s challenge.
• Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week’s challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
• Enter to win this week’s giveaway.
• Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.

Currently there are over 300 Ronald McDonald House’s world wide.  173 of these homes are located in the US. The facilities are available to families that have children who are seriously ill or injured. It provides a “home away from home” where families can stay for days or months depending on their circumstances.  The homes are close to medical facilities so that families can be close to their loved ones while receiving treatment. Providing stability is one of RMH’s main goals. It is a home with a cooked meal, a private room, laundry facilities, a play area, or a common family room where families can get to know and lean on each other for support. Donations help the RMH provide the resources these families need while they are living there. They have blankets, toys, food, books, bedding and personal hygiene items for all their guests.

We had the opportunity to talk with the Lopez family while we were visiting. Their 7 month old son Sebastian has had heart problems since birth and is being treated at the hospital in Loma Linda. I was touched by their story as they talked about the many trials they have had with their son’s health.

Mr Lopez shared his struggle of trying to figure out how to work and take care of his family at the same time. His wife and son needed to be close to the hospital while he tried to focus on providing financially for his family. The RMH was able to provide a place for his family to stay while their son was being treated. He talked about how wonderful the staff had been to his family. He didn’t have to worry about his wife going to the hospital late at night with out him because the house had a shuttle service that would take her wherever she needed to go.  Mr Lopez said, “At first I didn’t feel like this was my house.”  ”After awhile the RMH wasn’t just a house we were staying at, it became our home.”  As we toured the facility it was evident that there was a strong spirit there. It was a home to so many families that needed its walls to protect, care and nourish them.

How can we help?

Karen told us that they have many volunteers in the Loma Linda house that make her staff’s job easier. People donate their time cooking, performing music, cleaning, and reading to the children. The opportunities are endless for each of us to serve a local RMH. To find volunteer opportunities go to rmch.org

Right now Ronald McDonald is having their annual fundraiser for #giveahand!. You can go to any local McDonalds and purchase a hand for 1, 2 or 5 dollars. 75% of the donations stay locally and the rest go to help houses in other countries. If you purchase a happy meal, a percentage of the monies will also go to help the RMH. They hope to collect millions of dollars every year during this fundraiser to help families get the stability and resources they need.

What charity is important to you? How do you teach your children to be more charitable?