Me, Myself and Mommy

Recently, Steve and I have been doing things to teach Moanna about charity. We want her to understand how important and rewarding it is to give to others. To some, she may seem young to grasp the concept, but you’d be surprised at how much she understands and enjoys it.

We chose two projects for our lesson in charity.  We knew that Moanna would not understand donating money, so we chose projects that were tangible and would allow her to make decisions. It was important to us that she felt involved and empowered. And of course, we wanted it to be fun.

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Our first project was an Angel from the Salvation Army Angel Tree.

I selected an Angel that was close to Moanna’s age. Channon was a four-year-old little girl that wanted dolls and girly things.

Steve explained to Moanna that we were shopping for Channon. He told Moanna that Channon had been a good girl this year, and that she deserved some Christmas presents. Her family didn’t have enough money to buy presents, so they needed our help. Steve told Moanna that Channon and her family would be happy and grateful if we bought some presents, and that it makes us feel good to buy things for people that need help.

For each item on Channon’s list, we gave Moanna two choices.
“Do you think Channon would like the green shirt or the blue shirt?”
“The blue one!”
” I think so too. Put it in the cart for her.”

We did this for about an hour, until we had checked everything off the list. We bought Channon: a doll, doll accessories, dress-up clothes, coloring books and crayons, clothes, shoes, hair stuff, bath stuff, toothbrush, toothpaste and vitamins.

Moanna enjoyed shopping for our Angel. She felt so in charge picking out toys and clothes. Not once, did she ask to keep anything she picked out for Channon.

As we were turning in the bags of presents for Channon, Moanna said, “Channon is going to have such a happy Christmas.”

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Our second project was the Rockbridge Area Christmas Baskets Program.

Christmas Baskets is a project very close to my heart. It brings the entire community together to pack food and toys for area families in need. I started volunteering for this community project in high school, and ever since, my Christmas season is a little bit empty if I don’t get to help out.

Typically, Christmas Baskets is broken down into two days. On the first day, boxes are assembled and the food and toys are organized into assembly lines. On the second day, the boxes are packed with food, gift bags are filled with toys and everything is delivered to the deserving families. Because of an imminent snow storm, the whole project was compressed into one day.

While I was busy at work, Steve and Moanna went to the Virginia Horse Center to help pack boxes.

The assembly line began with empty boxes and bags, and a very long list of families in need of help.

Because Steve could not carry Moanna and heavy boxes of food, They focused on toys. Each time they went through the line, they were given a family sheet. Each family sheet listed how many people were in the family, and the ages and gender of each child.

As they went down the line, they stopped at the stations that had toys for the children on their family sheet.

My youngest brother Evan came to help too.

I had a break in my day, so I joined in. By this point, it was already snowing, and the snow had arrived much earlier than expected.

While Steve and Moanna continued working on toys, I packed boxes of food.

Each food station tells you how many cans of that kind of food you get.

At the end of the line, the boxes and bags are double checked and taped shut.

Once taped up, the boxes are carried to pickup stations based on the neighborhood listed on the family sheet.

From there, the boxes and bags are packed into trucks to be delivered.

Another trip through the assembly line.

A nice lady gave Moanna a toy for being such a good girl.

So many, many boxes to fill.

And another trip through the line. The snow is falling hard now.

At 4:00PM, we decided that it was time to go. The snow was covering the roads, and word was getting out that the roads were getting iffy. Steve needed to get Moanna and Evan home and off the roads. Thankfully, just as we were walking to our cars, I received a call from work telling me that I should head home instead of returning to work.

It took us more than 45 minutes to drive from the Horse Center to our home in Buena Vista. On any other day, it would have only taken ten minutes. Everyone in the county was trying to get home. Luckily we made it, but more than 1000 people were stranded overnight in their cars.

A few determined volunteers continued delivering baskets until the roads were closed. Any baskets not delivered that Friday night, were delivered when the roads were cleared.

Moanna passed out in the car before we left the parking lot, and barely stirred when we brought her in the house and laid her down on the couch.

By 7:00PM  this was the view from our front porch.

And it continued well into the next morning.

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I know Moanna didn’t completely understand what we were doing. She didn’t understand why these people needed our help, but she did understand that helping them would make them happy. Moanna enjoyed our charity projects. We all did. It was nice to step outside of our daily lives and spend time and money giving back to the community that provides us with our home, jobs, church, family, friends and so many other opportunities.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 28th, 2009 at 7:00 am and is filed under Me, Myself and Mommy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.