Matching Donations to Your Local Food Bank (Until Friday!)

The following article is from a blog called "fivecentnickel.com". Please read through it, and contact their blog if you can participate!

Matching Donations to Your Local Food Bank
Posted by nickel on October 15, 2008 (9:36 am) in Charity

For those of you that don’t keep up with this sort of thing, today is Blog Action Day. If you’re not familiar with Blog Action Day, it’s a day when upwards of 10k bloggers (myself included) band together to write about a topic that needs greater attention. Last year’s topic was the environment. This year, the topic is poverty.

Rather than simply writing about the poverty problem, I decided that I wanted to do something a bit more tangible. So… Like last year, I thought I’d try to raise a bit of money to help combat the problem.

Here’s how it works… My family will match all donations made this week up to $1000 total (today through Friday) with a donation of our own. Note that this will be in addition to our normal annual contributions, so it’s a true match. All you have to do is find your local food bank, make your donation, and then let me know about it. In order to simplify the record-keeping, all of our matching donations will go to our local food bank in a lump sum donation.

Feed the world in four easy steps:

1. Visit Feeding America to find your local foodbank.

2. Make your donation (follow the link directly to your local foodbank, or donate via Feeding America).

3. Let me know via e-mail to ‘nickel’ at this domain (fivecentnickel.com) or via my contact form (specify the amount).

4. Save your receipt… It’s tax deductible, after all.

For the most part, we’ll do this on the honor system, but I reserve the right to ask for proof of any questionable (in my opinion) donations. Proof would constitute a screen shot of your donation (or confirmation e-mail) — you will of course be free to blot out the sensitive parts (name, address, etc.).

Don’t worry, my goal here is to give the money away. I just don’t want someone lying that they gave a large amount and effectively ending the fundraiser early.

Assuming that people actually take me up on this offer, I’ll post a list of donors and amounts (I may post periodic updates, as well, depending on the response).

Fellow Bloggers: Make a minimum donation of $50 and I’ll include a link to your site when I post updates and/or the final list. Again, keep in mind that I might ask for proof, so don’t lie. If you do, I’ll out you in a very public way.

About Feeding America*

Feeding America is the nation’s leading charitable hunger-relief organization:

• A network of more than 200 member food banks and food-rescue organizations
• Serving all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico

The Feeding America network secures and distributes more than 2 billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually.

The Feeding America network supports approximately 63,000 local charitable agencies operating more than 70,000 programs including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, after-school programs, Kids Cafes, Community Kitchens and BackPack Programs.

Each year, the Feeding America network provides food assistance to more than 25 million low-income people facing hunger in the United States, including more than 9 million children and nearly 3 million seniors.

*Feeding America was formerly known as America’s Second Harvest.

Article taken from fivecentnickel.com - http://www.fivecentnickel.com
URL to article: http://www.fivecentnickel.com/2008/10/15/matching-donations-to-your-local-food-bank/

More... but not the same

I am so very pleased to share more acts of kindness for children. I'll let these 5 stories speak for themselves....

My husband and I are currently going through the foster care process hoping to bring in a child soon!

We had a fund raiser at school today, and a number of people contributed towards those who couldn't afford the lunch.

My boss gave me tickets to the Cubs playoff game. I love the Cubs, but gave the ticket to my boyfriend so he could take his son to such a big game. To make it a little even for his younger brother and sister, I got them tickets to the circus.

When Sister Euphrasia from Camaroon, Africa, stayed with us here at Clare Hall for two weeks, she was intrigued with the teaching materials I've developed for deaf children. She bought my two DVDs of workbooks for deaf children. I surprised her by constructing and giving her sets of blocks containing JULIE AND JACK comic strip stories. The blocks are very educational. They help deaf children acquire various skills- reading, thinking, comparing, sorting, arranging stories in sequence and then finding sentences that match the pictures and tell the story. Sister Euphrasia was delighted. Now she's back in Camaroon.

I volunteered September 26 at the Boys and Girls Club. Many of the kids are from pretty rough neighborhoods. The volunteer coordinator took me to the gym where approximately 70+ children were running wild! It was VERY intimidating right away... but after just a few minutes I had already made a few friends amongst them. After chatting quite a bit with one little girl, she told me she wanted to be an EMT and a police officer when she grew up because her uncle had been shot in the eye and survived. After 3 hours it was time to leave, and I got many hugs from these awesome kids. I also spoke with the art teacher about supplies. She said she would gladly take anything I could donate as they never have many supplies. I went shopping, and bought just over $100 worth of paints and projects for lots of little children!

Dear Neighbor....

I chose my next door neighbors as the recipient of my planned random act of kindness because they are such a cute couple. They are a young mom and dad and a baby that live in the one bedroom garden apartment in the building next door. I see them from time to time, on their way to work or to family parties. They always have a blanket covering the baby in it's car carrier and they are always coming and going with what looks like extended family and or friends. They just seem like a nice couple that are hard working and just trying to provide for their small family. So, I thought that I would do something nice for my quite shy but friendly neighbors. I started with the couple in the garden apartment. One night, I secretly slipped an envelope into their mailbox. The envelope contained a $20 Target gift certificate along with one of their red reusable shopping bags. I also put in a small card that said "Smile, you've just been tagged. Encouraging random acts of kindness is the name of the game, and now you are it." On the back of the card it read "Someone reached out to you with an anonymous act of kindness. Now it is your chance to do the same. Do something nice for someone, leave this card behind, and keep the spirit going! Visit www.selflessacts.blogspot.com for my inspiration. Or, visit www.helpothers.org for more ideas and info." The card included the following quote, " The fragrance always remains on the hand that gives the rose. - Gandhi." I found these cards at the www.helpothers.org site. I liked their idea of leaving or giving the card when you commit random or anonymous acts of kindness. I ended up making up my own set of cards to use. I made up some in in Spanish too. Soon, I plan to secretly leave envelopes in the mailboxes of the upstairs apartments nextdoor. It was fun figuring out what I was going to do on Stacy's Day, and I felt really good at the vision I had of their faces when they opened the envelope. I hope that they put that card to good use. I had originally wanted to buy them a package of diapers for the baby but I couldn't figure out how to fit that into their mailbox.

For the people we see nearly everyday.....

Many of us see our co-workers more than anyone else in our lives. Even past co-workers can remain in our hearts and thoughts for years to come.

In Stacy's honor, I just gave a colleague who loves a Caribou Coffee a $10 gift card that was given to me this morning as a small job related reward. Nothing big, but in the spirit, so I thought I'd share.

There is a very sweet person named Esther with whom I worked about 10 years ago. She is a very cheerful and kind person, the type that it is a real joy to get to be around. She lives in Texas now and my mom and her have kept in touch (I was working at the company that my mom is still employed with), but I have not. Esther even sent up a wedding gift for me when I got married 5 years ago. I have meant to write her, but being a cell phone/email person I have never gotten around to writing a letter and going to the post office (that mysterious place I don't go to which is right across the street from my work). For my small act of kindness then I am writing a letter to an old friend to say hello and see how she has been, and while I am bothering to mail something I figured "Why not send along some cookies too?". I made some ginger cookies which I am sending along because who wouldn't like to get cookies unexpectedly?!

Also, I'd like to add that my aunt works for a company that gives its employees 8 hours to volunteer, 4 hours to volunteer for united way, and also the 4 hours for pay it forward. I had never heard of a company giving time to "pay it forward"! This could be something to keep in mind next time your company asks for suggestions, perhaps?

Food for Thought....

Occasionally, people have times in their lives in which they are in a certain amount of hardship. I can only imagine how much they have to face, without worrying about where their next meal will come from.

What a relief (and a feeling of being loved) it must be when someone cares enough to provide a person or family facing hardship with food.

Here are 2 stories of such situations.....

1. A friend of mine from dance class had her hip replaced, she is one of the key drummers. Her husband who is a fellow dancer was busier than ever trying to provide the nurturing care for her.
My husband (who is a chef) cooked a number of meals and I delivered them.
A tribute to your sis...

2.Our random act of kindness wasn't exactly random. We decided to take food to two different places in town. We were able to get quite a bit of meat at a discounted price (it was excellent meat - we have an in with a store). In our city there is a place that houses men and families. The night before we were there they fed 55 men, women and children. We gave them two huge hams which would be one meal for them. We also left pork loins and sandwich meat. We were told they didn't have a meal for that weekend. With the hams we brought and a local farmer's produce they would.

The second place we chose was a home for HIV/AIDS patients. They have 4 residents at this time and 2 Nuns living there. This home was founded by one of the Sisters. The Bishop we had at the time was a favorite of Stacy's. We felt he had a hand in the building of the home so that was why we chose it.

Like I said we got a good price for the meat. In a regular store I'm sure it would have run at least $300 or $400. Thanks to the generosity of friends we paid $80. We plan to take more meat to them, especially during the holidays.

Children are our most valuable natural resource.

First, I have to apologize for not blogging sooner. I have to admit I was naively shocked at how sad the last several days have been. I truly thought September 26 and the days surrounding it would be full of joy. And there I was, guiltily trying to shake off looming sadness.

In the last several days, I have received so many e-mails from people of beautiful things they have done.

And while my intentions with this blog were to make all of you feel good, it ended up being all of you making me feel better.

Thank you so much for your kind actions and words.

SO! Let's start sharing some stories, shall we?!

The below stories are both about children, and are from 2 different people. The first, a mother; the second, a young fiance.

The boys and I were talking about what we could do to "help" and where our interest lies (this was MONTHS ago). Ethan being the lover of animals wants to send money to every charity he sees on TV for the abused animals. Since we don't have money to send to every charity he sees on TV, I was looking for ways to donate time. Due to his young age none of the local shelters will let him volunteer - he is only 6. We went to my aunt's house who has horses, and after we took the boys riding, they helped feed the horses. I spoke with my aunt, and we now help brush and feed the horses every other weekend. It will help her out and Ethan in particular loves it!

Aiden is nearly 4, and all about the environment. He makes sure everything is recycled! He is all about driving wisely (planning errands to use the least amount of gas). Well, again there is not much offered for kids his age, but I did find one opportunity through www.greatlakesadopt.org that was age appropriate. I guess every year they have a day in the spring and another in the fall to clean the beaches of the Great Lakes, it all happens from 9 am to 12 noon in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. The boys and I volunteered on the to help clean at a local beach. Since the attention span of a 4 year old is not all that long, we lasted about one hour. We managed to clean up 4 lbs of trash that included plastic bags, newspapers, cigarette butts, pens and straws.... I received an update after the event and found out there were over 2700 volunteers at 48 sites in Illinois alone - up from the 1800 volunteers they had last year. What was nice is all ages can help with this project and we cannot wait to do it again in the spring to get the beaches ready for swimming!

And our second story is from Blog: http://jenandbritt.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-sweet-it-is.html

I had a great teacher in high school. His name was Father Stapp. Yes, he was my religion teacher. Others in my high school would probably roll their eyes at this, but I really did take a lot away from his class.

He was unique. He taught us about religion through a different lens. He taught that God lives in the smallest acts and things. He showed us pictures he took every day.

He showed me how beautiful dandelions could be or how beautiful a dairy cow could be (his favorite at the time was named Sue). He could take an average rock and talk about it like it was a diamond. He had something special, to see beauty in such average looking things.

One lesson that I carry in my life from Fr. Stapp is to buy lemonade at every lemonade stand ran by little kids. He told us it does not take much time or money to make a big impact.

Matt and I did this the other day. We were in a hurry to drive to our house and then down to Tucson for the University of Arizona football game. We drove by the lemonade stand at first and I knew we should stop to buy some. On the way out of town, we drove through again and bought two cups of lemonade and tipped them. The two boys were so proud of their effort and of their profits.

It was a simple act, but it was a great act, even though we dumped the lemonade out of sight of the boys. I am so glad we took the time to go back to their lemonade stand and pay them 2 dollars. They proudly told us with our money they made 11 dollars that day.

I am happy I can still live out some of Fr. Stapp’s simple, yet great life lessons. Just imagine if everyone could do one small act of kindness everyday...