I've been thinking a lot lately about how I participate in our community. I mean someone has to run the PTO, the board of directors at hockey, coach so many things, teach Sunday school and all the rest. Some people seem to have infinite capacity to take on these roles. I do not. my introvert/extrovert balance coupled with a very extrovert job means I crave some quiet time. I've done some of these roles in the past and will again, but for this year, need to focus internally I think.
In any case, that had me looking around for other opportunities, and I've long been a fan of the Lowell Wish Project - a nonprofit near us whose mission is to provide basic goods to over 35,000 needy clients in our area. We often donate our excess household goods (yes, still thinning out after combining households 11 years ago!) but I also send them items from their Amazon wish list from time to time. This time of year they run a "backpack attack" where they collect new backpacks, filled with a standard list of school supplies for children who otherwise wouldn't have one. The thing that really got me about this was the fact that many of these children are in unreliable housing situations, and sometimes their backpack is their only "personal space". Wow.
We are fortunate to live in a relatively affluent community where we don't see a lot of people who want for much - just the opposite in fact. My kids and most of my friends kids not only have plenty of backpacks, but also entire rooms (yes rooms!) of their own personal space. So I figured, backpack attack could be a win-win, if I used it as an opportunity to talk to the kids about what other kids lives might be like.
So, early one Sunday morning when I couldn't sleep (not unlike now) I ordered 2 dozen backpacks from Amazon and sent out a note to my friends in the neighbourhood, telling them about the project and asking if they wanted to help fill the backpacks - an amazing thing happened - within 24 hours, all the supplies I needed to fill the bags (plus some!) were ordered and on their way to me - thank you amazon and target!
By that Friday, a huge pile had accumulated in the foyer and the kids could not wait to put the bags together. We had had several conversations over the course of the week as the boxes piled up about what these backpacks might mean to the kids who got them. Norah gave them a personal touch by making sure that each one had a color co-orinated set of supplies.
We dropped off the completed backpacks on Saturday morning.... this was so easy I might do 48 next year :)
 |
| This is what happens when I put out the call for help in the neighbourhood |
 |
| Norah and Roddie jumped in to help |
 |
| The completed project - 24 filled backpacks! |
No comments:
Post a Comment