Creating a Season of Kindness, One Ripple at a Time

Since the recession began, it seems that the holidays have become even more commercially focused. It has something to do with the naked desperation in the hundreds of offers I've been receiving every day since Thanksgiving in my mailbox and inbox. For the last couple of years, corporations have literally been begging us to spend, invoking our responsibility as consumers to get the economy going again. Doesn't feel very festive to me.

So when Yahoo! asked for my help in a campaign that has nothing to do with spending money, a campaign to inspire people to do good to others and spread joy this holiday season, I was eager to help. Spreading kindness is exactly what we need to be doing more of nowadays.

“Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.”

—Princess Diana

Head on over to the Yahoo! Ripple of Kindness website and start your own wave. There's no need to spend money, yielding at a stop sign or complimenting a stranger at the supermarket on her vibrant scarf will do the trick. Bigger gestures like donating food or taking on a family's Christmas list are great too of course, but not necessary. The campaign is just about spreading smiles this December, making our world a better place.

Each time you do something that you feel good about, update your status at Yahoo! Others will like and share your action, and be inspired to start their own ripple of kindness.

To spread the word about this incredible program, Yahoo! sent a check for $100 to each member of the Yahoo! Motherboard to help get their own ripples of kindness started. I matched Yahoo!'s gift, and with the help of my kids, turned our $200 12 days of kindness this December.

Why 12 days? Well, it helps if you sing the 12 acts below to the tune of "on the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..."

12 Days of Kindness: $200.

DAY 1 - $40. On the first day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness was buying two goats to feed two Ethiopian families from Save the Children.

DAY 2 - $1. On the second day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness was giving $1 to a girl at my son's school who'd forgotten her money to buy hot chocolate.

DAY 3 - $25. On the third day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness will be loaning $25 through Kiva.org to a Peruvian woman who raises pigs to sell as oven-roasted pig at a local market.

DAY 4 - $0 - On the fourth day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness was spending an hour at my son's school volunteering.

DAY 5 - $25 - On the fifth day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness will be giving $25 to a Donor's Choose classroom to purchase a new books on tape player. 

DAY 6 - $0 - On the 6th day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness will be dropping off our old coats at the Salvation Army.

DAY 7 - $5 - On the 7th day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness will be buying a homeless person a cup of coffee.

DAY 8 - $0 - On the 8th day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness will be telling a friend what I admire most about them.

DAY 9 -  $50 - On the 9th day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness will be to donate $25 to Share our Strength to feed one child three times a day for a month.

DAY 10 - $0 - On the 10th day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness will be volunteering at our local food pantry.

DAY 11 - $0 - On the 11th day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness will be helping a stranger load their groceries into their car.

DAY 12 - $54 - On the 12th day of Christmas, my Ripple of Kindness will be taking on a portion of a local family's wish list.

How will you start your ripple of kindness? Local or far, big or small, everything you do to bring a smile to someone else's face will make a difference in someone's life.

Remembering Empty Plates on Thanksgiving Day

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones.

I hope your day is filled with second helpings of turkey with all the trimmings and glorious drooling naps on the couch. That's certainly what I hope to be doing!

On this day of full bellies and second helpings, it's important to remember that many in America go hungry every day.

Before pulling up a chair to your holiday table, take a few seconds to donate to Share our Strength or to your local Food Pantry, or simply pencil in a morning next week to donate a few hours of your time at your local charity.

Just as the holidays are the happiest time of year for many, they are also an incredibly difficult time for others.  With just a little effort, we can do so much to help.

Mommy, Do I Have To?

I'd been looking for an opportunity to bring some element of charity in my children's lives for a while. I wanted to show them how privileged we are in our little suburban enclave, so they could really appreciate it. After our dinner in New York City, we often would give our leftovers to homeless people or put some spare change in their cups, but these acts didn't seem to be significant enough. I wanted to find something more direct and less spontaneous that would have a greater part in our lives.

I thought I found the perfect solution when I joined the social services committee of the Junior Women's Club. I was assigned to be the contact person for one of the families the Club had "adopted" for the year. This particular family consisted of a single mother and her 10 year old son. I would have to check in with the family monthly to see if they needed any assistance. I would also have the pleasure of bringing over gifts to their house at Christmas and Easter.

I jumped into my role in earnest, talking to the single mother on the phone and compiling their Christmas wishlist. I eased the mother's guilt and encouraged her to not only include necessities but also fun things she longed for. She had no trouble listing her son's wildest desires: a ripstick, a Wii, and Ugg boots, but she restricted her items to size 20 jeans and a new Playtex bra. It took a great deal of gentle coaxing to get her to reveal that she would love some Rachael Ray cookbooks and some warm Ugg boots too.

We were all sitting around on the floor of our front room rediscovering our favorite ornaments when the doorbell rang. It was the president of the Junior Women's Club, loaded down with gifts for our social services family. She made three trips back and forth from her car in order to bring in all the items. I was amazed by the generosity of the club members. Over the next few days, more items trickled in and soon the entire list, including the Ugg boots, was complete. My children were giddy with excitement about this ever-growing pile of loot near the tree in our front room. Even though I kept explaining that they were not for them, they still found it thrilling.

On Christmas eve morning, I took Bella, my eldest, with me to play Santa. I thought the timing was perfect. Just before waking up to our annual day of consumer excess, we would shower a deserving family with gifts the likes of which they'd never seen before.

We drove up to the house, a run-down two-family home that Bella was amazed to discover was just down the street from her pre-school. We rang the doorbell, both of us a little nervous as we waited for the mother to make her way to the door. She opened the screen door with a loud creak and stepped down awkwardly onto the porch. Bella's eyes opened wide as she watched the largest person she had ever seen greet us. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when I greeted her with a hug. She was so grateful and thrilled to see the mountain of gifts we had brought over. She thanked us profusely and then turned to Bella and asked if she could give her a hug. Bella was so surprised by the request that she didn't respond and the mother took that as a yes. She pulled her into a hug and kissed her on the forehead, saying, "God bless you my child."

Bella was silent as we drove away. I kept up a steady monologue about what a nice thing we'd just done, and how without our help, that family would have had a very sad Christmas. At that point, Bella asked, "why would Santa nto go to their house just like ours? Does Santa not go to poor people's houses?" I spent the next few minutes trying to do damage control on the issue of unequal treatment by Santa. Then I started wondering whether bringing charity directly into our lives had been a bit premature.

Bella's next question made me realize that I definitely was not achieving the result I'd been hoping for. "Mommy," she asked, "can I never go back there? Do I have to? Will you make me? I don't want to." It turns out that direct charity was a little too intense for my shy child.

Amidst the Chaos... Carribean Food and Amazing Kids

I arrived at the Sheraton yesterday afternoon after a surprisingly quick road trip and ran up to my room, dropped my bag, and ran right back out again. In the lobby, I met up with Devra from Parentopia, Goon Squad Sarah, Anne-Marie Nichols, and Melanie Edwards from Modern Mami and we were spirited away by Jessica Braun from Quaker to an amazing event.

We headed to the Washburne Culinary Institute to have a cooking class on Carribean cooking with 60 8-11 year old kids from Chicago's inner city. The class was part of a Common Threads six-week camp where the kids had been learning all about cooking and nutrition. The chefs and camp counselors were amazing: caring, engaged, and enthusiastic. I could see the simple nutrition lesson that Chef Courtney was sharing with the kids sink in with every word. "Eating one color is boring! Eat the rainbow, it's more fun and more nutritious." "When you take off the chicken skin, you take out 50% of the fat of the chicken. See how easy it is to eat healthy?"

Our role was to volunteer and help the kids out in preparing jerk chicken wings, sweet potato souffle, avocado salad, and a tropical fruit crumble, but the kids were so skilled that I barely had to lift a finger. These little guys flashed their huge knives and created gorgeous diced mango and zuchini slices. After closing my eyes in fear that they would cut themselves, I soon watched them with respect, amazed at all they'd learned in the camp. I also was blown away by their positive attitude and their enthusiasm, no jaded cynicism in this group of kids.

We were joined for a portion of the time by Top Chef Chicago winner Stephanie Izard who's taught the kids a couple of weeks ago. She too was impressed by their skills!

I'll be trying out some of the recipes with my kids when I get home next week. For now, I'm just thankful for the delicious meal they prepared which gave me strength to head in to the madness of Blogher.

I'll be living blogging two sessions today at Blogher both on the Blogher site and here so please check back in later today...

Struggling to Make a Difference

For the last two years, I've been working hard to find a way to have my kids participate in charity activities. I've tried different things each year, and have some new ideas for this upcoming year. My goal is to not only feel like I'm giving back to society, but also to teach my children that they have this responsibility.

Two years ago, I joined a local social association that raises funds through parties and events to donate to local social causes. My role in this group was to be the contact for a poor family living in our town. I thought it would be the ideal way to have my children realize how fortunate they are and to ingrain them with a generosity for others. They did pick up on the poverty is all around us part of the lesson, but interacting with the family, even to help me give them Christmas gifts, was too overwhelming for them. Instead of feeling good about how happy our gifts made the mother, my daughter was self-conscious and nervous about interacting with a stranger and made me promise that I would never make her do it again. I worried that I was turning her off of charity and backed off immediately.

Last year, I watched my daughter participate in social services projects through her daisy troupe while I discovered the power of the blogosphere in helping social causes. I was honored to be part of a group of 100 bloggers under the capable leadership of Deb from Jersey Bites who generated $7,000 in donations this fall for the NJ Food Bank. I also spread the word about a petition to keep mastectomies an in-patient procedure and helped collect funds for blood cancer research. It's amazing how powerful we mom bloggers can be when we unite behind a cause.

While I'm really happy with our involvement in charity last year, I want to work hard to make it a part of our home life this year. I'll definitely continue all of my cause blogging and will actively support Bella's girl scout activities, but I want us to also do activities in the house that involve all three kids. My current plan is to involve them in putting together Red Cross clothing donation bags and having them help me stuff it in the box, having them pick out toys to donate to needy children, and asking them to help me put together boxes of food for our local food pantry. I'm open to other suggestions though... what has worked for you with your kids?

This weekend Parent Bloggers Network is teaming up with Quaker Oats to spread the word about a special campaign Quaker Oats is doing with Share our Strength. Each time you purchase a box of Quaker Oats cereal and type in the UPC at the site linked above, they'll make a donation Share our Strength. This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by The Quaker Oats Company.

Blogging for a Cause

Every day I am more amazed by the power of the blogging platform. Every day we share our thoughts, frustrations, and dreams with people all over the world. We give feedback to corporations about ill-conceived advertising campaigns, spread the word about good products, and give mental support to each other. But I am so impressed when we come together for a cause.

Today is a big day for causes in the blog world. It's charity topic day over at the Silicon Valley sites and bloggers from around the US will be writing about causes close to their hearts. I wrote about my baby sister who is raising money for blood cancers like leukemia this spring by running in her first marathon. She needs to raise $2,600 to participate and has raised only $700 so far. If you'd like to contribute to her cause, here is the link. She is running in honor of her friend Meg's mother who was recently diagnose with Multiple Myelonoma - it's the subject of my post at NJ Moms Blog.

Today is also a special day for New Jersey bloggers and charity because of Deb Smith. She volunteered to spearhead a Blogging Out Hunger campaign for the NJ Food Bank this month. Through tireless recruiting, she has brought together over 100 NJ bloggers to post today about the NJ Food Bank. It is our hope that through this united effort, we can raise a lot of money to boost the food bank.

The statistics are truly frightening and indicative of the crisis this country is going through. More than 35 million Americans, including 12 million children, either live with or are on the verge of hunger. One out of every five New Jersey families does not earn enough to afford the basic necessities – housing, food and child care – although 85 percent of these households have at least one family member who is working. In New Jersey alone, an estimated 250,000 new clients will be seeking sustenance this year from the state’s food banks. At the Community FoodBank of New Jersey (CFBNJ), requests for food have gone up 30 percent, but donations are down by 25 percent. Warehouse shelves that are typically stocked with food are bare and supplies have gotten so low that, for the first time in its 25 year history, the food bank is developing a rationing mechanism.

I hope you'll consider donating to the NJ Food Bank today.

Help Me Say No to Drive-Thru Mastectomies

I have so much great stuff to share before the holidays that I need to get organized. Please check back in tomorrow for my weekly giveaways. I promise that it will be worth the wait!

In the meanwhile, I wanted to share a call to action email that I just received today that happened to be very close to my heart. After undergoing a double mastectomy as part of her cancer treatment a year and half ago, my mother had surgery yesterday to replace her breasts. She's still groggy and in a lot of pain, but will be home soon feeling like a whole woman again. It's hard to be so far from her and not be able to visit her, to hold her hand. But this is a much happier surgery than the one she had a year and a half ago when we were still waiting to hear how far the cancer had spread and how many lymph nodes would be affected.

I was shocked to read in the email I received today that insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient surgery. I remember how my mother's world was forever altered a year and a half ago when she had both her breasts removed. In France, they gave her close to a week in the hospital to get used to her new altered body and the drains attached to her upper body to remove the fluid after the operation. I can't imagine how she would have dealt with the pain as well as all her emotions if she'd been sent home hours after the painful procedure.

Please join me in signing this petition on Lifetime Television's website in support of the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act. It requires insurance companies to pay for a minimum of 48 hours of hospital stay for women after undergoing a mastectomy. All you need to do is input your name, state and zip code.

I hope you'll take a few seconds to click through and add your name to this petition. Breast cancer is a threat to women worldwide. Let's work together to force the insurance companies to give us the support we need.

Helping our Schools

I don't know about you, but now that Bella's in first grade, I get bombarded every week with fundraising requests. There's the gift wrap, the grocery cards, the entertainment book, the sportswear, and soon the frozen cookie dough. I try and participate as much as I can, but after a while I start to wonder where it goes. I know it's public school, but I see flat screen TVs in the classrooms and we seem to be pretty lucky.

That's why I was so impressed by a clever charity which lets you donate directly to needy classrooms. It's called DonorsChoose.org. The concept is simple: teachers write up a proposal, it gets posted on the site, you choose which one you want to support and how much you want to give. You'll receive an email thank you from the teacher and you can see images of the classroom after the gift has been bestowed. You can see exactly where your money goes.

The projects are varied and range from the truly desperate to the very creative. Some of the New Jersey requests include:

• a music teacher who wants to give instruments to children who can't afford them, 
• a social studies teacher looking to give her students better US geography tools
  
• an urban elementary technology teacher asking for digital voice recorders to have his students record Podcasts
• a second grade teacher requesting an LCD projector to give her students group computer lessons

The Silicon Valley Moms Blogs sisterhood of sites is helping DonorsChoose.org this month to spread the word.  There's a little competition going on between the various types of blogs (crafting, mom, technology, etc...) to see who will raise more money for DonorsChoose.org.  So help us show the power of moms by clicking over and picking a project to donate $1, $5, or $50 dollars to.  I guarantee you'll find an inspirational request!

Chocolate Mecca

I went to a great event tonight to celebrate the launch of the second annual Gal to Gal Foundation Virtual Walk. The Gal to Gal Foundation raises money to assist patients and families battling stage IV breast cancer. We can all participate with this charity by organizing and joining virtual fundraising walks this October.

The event was heaven for me - it gave me the opportunity to contribute to a great cause while sampling chocolate and wine tasting. I parked myself at the chocolate table and discovered a whole new level of chocolate experience thanks to the guidance of Professional Chocolate Critic, Clay Gordon. His goal is simple - to make people shout "Oh My God!" when they put one of his concoctions in their mouths. He offered up some strange sounding combinations like chocolate with coconut and curry or ganache with strawberries and chocolate cinnamon balsamic vinegar but the tastes were perfect together. He recently wrote a book all about chocolate called Discover Chocolate. Check out his site, The Chocolate Life, essentially the Facebook of Chocolate Lovers. Anyone is welcome, as long as they want to talk about chocolate.

I had a valuable wingwoman with me, my friend and new arrival to the blogosphere, Beth of the Luddite Blogger. I just wish I'd had my camera with me to share some of these concoctions with you - but honestly I don't think I would have had time to snap pictures because I was too busy scarfing down the chocolate!

He left me with one word of advice that I'm planning on implementing as soon as possible. "Get more cocoa powder in your diet - it's good for you." Thanks for the tip Clay!

A Worthy Cause

In all the craziness of Back to School, it's easy to forget that there are others who have it much harder than us. Sure I'm struggling buying all that my three kids will need to start all of their new activities, but what about all the people out there who don't have money to buy the most basic necessities? Taking a moment away from my insanity makes me realize how easy I have it.

I recently heard about a great program run by the Community Foodbank of NJ: the Backpack program which provides backpacks full of supplemental nutritious, kid-friendly food to children who are might go hungry over the weekend. Food packages are delivered weekly to participating schools where staff members distribute them in backpacks, which are also donated by the program. The children can keep the backpacks for personal use. During the 2006-2007 school year, they served nearly 500 students per week in 21 schools located in Newark, Elizabeth, Piscataway, and Atlantic City. Overall, they provided 10,800 packages of weekend food to children in need.

Our family is blessed with so much - good health, plenty of food, amazing blog swag... I'm always looking for ways to give back. I was thrilled to be able to use my blog to spread the word about this great program which exists thanks to corporate or individual donations. They accept both food donations and cash donations to purchase the food at very discounted rates. A $14 donation will sponsor a child for a month!

Take a minute to make Back to School easier for someone else - it might make yours seem easier. I know it did for me!