Do Good

I’ve joined up in one of those bloggie group things. I’ve never done that before. In November there were groups who promised to write something every day (I’m not that interesting), or groups who posted pictures of shoes every day (I don’t have that many shoes). This one is a bit more of a commitment, but I think wholly worth it.

Beth at Playgroup Dropout has started a group to pledge to do something to help children, other than their own every month. She specifically said under privileged children. Seems like a worthy enough cause, and it’s something I want to instill in Landon, that he has a lot of stuff, and a big family who loves him, and the importance of giving back.

In that same vein, we started this in December actually, because I decided that as one of our Christmas traditions we should donate a toy each year to a toy drive for Christmas, each year we will go and he will pick something out and drop it in the bin. For 2006, he donated a set of Baby Einstein Blocks to the Channel 11 Toy drive. At that point he really wasn’t interested in anything to play with, so I picked what I thought would be a good toy for his age group. He also has a set of these blocks. Next year he will pick something out.

Beth’s challenge this month is Make a Child Smile . It’s a worthy cause, they pick 3 kids each month who have a life threatening illness and ask people to write them cards. They set up a PO Box for the kids to receive the cards, so that they don’t have to publicize their home address. It’s super easy, you can make or buy a card, address and stamp and there you go. We did this in our Daisy troop 4 years ago for one of our petals. I can’t remember which petal it was, because it honestly falls under a lot of the Girl Scout Laws – but it was probably “Considerate and Caring.” We did it in December, so we sent Christmas cards. But knowing that these kids have potentially terminal illnesses, we stayed away from the “Get Well Soon” on purpose. I’ll probably lean more towards the “Thinking of you” cards for this month, or a good Valentine’s Day card.

Anyway, I’ll send off some cards to the 3 kids on the website this month, but also there’s something even easier that you can do. The girls in our area will be selling Girl Scout Cookies beginning on the 13th. Each girl has a column on their order form for “Cookie Share.” Cookie Share is a program where people buy cookies for the troop to donate to some worthy cause. This year for example, our troop will be donating the cookies to foster care group homes. These are places where kids are sent when they are taken from their parents, before they are placed in a home with foster parents, or because they can’t find a home for them. This is a double whammy of goodness on your part. The troop earns money for each box of cookies you buy, AND those kids at the homes get the cookies. Not all troops donate to the same place, so ask the person taking your order to whom the cookies will be donated. You were going to buy cookies anyway, right? Just add a box in the Cookie Share column and add the extra money to your check when they come in, easy enough.