Ten Ways to Imagine a Better Life

1. Imagine a child in India not contracting leprosy, though their parents and family before them have had the disease for generations, and gaining vital skills because you contributed $30 to Rising Star Outreach. (link to Becky Douglas MMAD post).
2. Imagine a mom in Papua New Guinea not dieing in childbirth because you helped provide a $10 clean birth kit.
3. Imagine the feeling your son or daughter might get after reading a really good book because you started a kids' book club.
4. Imagine being the person that comes up with the idea that solves a social problem here or in another country, just by playing the Evoke app.
5. Imagine the amazing feeling your daughters would get if they were able to host a pajama party that benefited other children in need.
6. Imagine a mom in Africa not having blisters and dirty feet because you made or donated a pair of shoes to Sole Hope.
7. Imagine a baby you help save by becoming a member of One.org, which helps provide mosquito nets to hospitals. That baby may grow up to be someone who unites and uplifts the whole African continent.
8. Imagine an orphaned child in Romania finally feeling like someone cares about them because you participated in a golf tournament to help raise money to facilitate their placement in a foster home through Bridge of Love Romania.
9. Imagine the relief an American man being treated for cancer feels when he has paid the rent he would otherwise not be able to afford because you bought a glassybaby votive.
10. Imagine the positive vibe generated when a teenage girl decides to make comments that uplift others, instead of being mean because of the training she received through Ivy Girl Academy.

How Will You Give to Others This Week?

• Have you ever done any of these things? How did it go?
• What other acts of service have 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.

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12 Ways You and Your Kids Can Serve Others

Today we are talking about 12 ways you and your kids can serve others. Get ready for some others-centered fun.

1. Walk across the street and welcome a new neighbor.
2. Write thank you notes to people who serve you: a teacher, the garbage man, local fire fighters.
3. Tour a facility that helps people in your community such as a local food bank.
4. Participate in a Craft Hope Project.
5. Learn about the life of someone in another country.
6. Sew a blanket for Project Linus.
7. Read 77 Creative Ways Kids Can Serve.
8. Start a change jar and let your child pick a cause your family can support.
9. Offer to read at the library’s story time.
10. Go to Volunteer Match to find a local service project.
11. Read about teens making an impact at Generation On.
12. Plan a party with a purpose.

What family activities do you and your kids love to do that help those who are in need?

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.

The post Family Activities: 12 Ways You and Your Kids Can Serve Others appeared first on Mom it Forward.

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.

The post Giving Organization: Sole Hope Provides Closed Toe Shoes to People in Africa appeared first on Mom it Forward.