One of the books and web sites I am addicted to is: “I Like Giving” since the philosophy of the books and videos is to be passionate in the act of giving and reminding us that both big and small acts of giving matters. A challenge in the book was to gather friends and family and create a day of giving; which sparked us to create our own day of giving. The challenge we had was finding a volunteer activity; which young children could participate in. However, we finally found the Sacred Heart House, which was perfect for the event. On the “Day of Giving”, we provided different ways to participate. The first way to participate was to join in the volunteer event at the Sacred Heart House where we got to cook a dinner and feed the residents who were homeless and currently in temporary housing. The next way to volunteer was to create hygiene welcome packets for the Sacred Heart House to hand out to the new residents. The third way to participate was to donate to two different GoFund Me accounts for two families I know personally. The first family, one of the Directors of my daughter’s school, had just lost her battle to cancer. Unfortunately, she was only in her 30s and left behind a young husband and two small children. The next GoFundMe account was a consultant colleague of mine who just got diagnosed with ALS; which is the debilitating disease the ice bucket challenge was created to help.
Our Day of Giving, which definitely was sacred to all our hearts, will definitely be repeated in the future. I thank all of my friends who participated. As for Ryley, she helped me cook which included cooking chili, cornbread, and cookies. She also helped find and buy items for the welcome buckets and build each of the buckets. At the house, she sat and ate dinner with a few of the residents and played on the playground. We also had the chance to donate some of Ryley’s old baby clothes. Honestly, this was an event which I’ll never forget because I actually got to see the reaction to the clothes. Clothes, in which, I had my own memories. We left knowing the clothes were appreciated and will be part of a good family. Ryley asked many questions of why the residents were homeless and how we were helping them; which tells me she cared and understood what we did to give to others mattered.
