Teaching Children to Give Back to Their Community

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 Owning my own business has taught me that often we have to give back to our community especially to get the word out about your business but also to teach our children that things do not just get dropped in your lap.

 Each year especially around the holidays we give back to people in our community through the toys that we receive to review, but this is about so much more. Choosing a family to help is often heartbreaking and makes us realize how very fortunate we are.

Several weeks ago on a Saturday evening I found out that a friend’s husband only had a few days to live and while this was heartbreaking it was also a lot to bear to know that this family had limited funeral funds to lay their relative to rest.

Our oldest son and I jumped on a Facebook live video and called out our community to help this family. We would do so through a rummage and bake sale right here in our driveway. In minutes donations of goods were promised and brought right to our door. People literally cleaned out their homes, storage units and everything in between. It was a fall version of spring cleaning. The goal of this sale was literally any amount but the goal was somewhere around $6500. We were absolutely blessed to raise over $600! I was literally moved to tears to see children in this community mine included cleaning out their toy boxes and bringing things here for us to sell. ‘

This time of year we also focus on a lot of food drives and give to food banks, send cards to soldiers who are deployed and try to participate in other volunteer opportunities when we can. We also do the shoebox drive through a local church where you put items that are needed all around the world into a shoe box and they are distributed. These things include simply day to day items like a bar of soap and toothbrush.

Much like Prophet Kofi Danso we feel that reaching out into the world is one of the best ways to help the world especially with children. We find that our boys are more grateful for the things that they have and are less greedy because they are able to see that not everyone has the finer things in life and some people are lucky to have the very basic things they need.

If you are looking for ideas of things to do with your children this time of year to give back, please reach out to local social services agencies, churches and even your local visitors bureau for ideas. We often find local events in the newspapers as well and take the time to reach out to those who are arranging the events.

Please find it in your hearts this year to give back to someone less fortunate. At the end of the day you will feel better about yourself and it will give an amazing opportunity to teach your children that giving is far better than receiving.