It Starts With Us – 12 Weeks of Giving

During the last week of December, the final week of 12 Weeks of Giving I had planned to visit our local children’s hospital.  Gabby has spent so much time as a patient at Cook Children’s Hospital that ‘giving back‘ to some of our favorite staff members and the children that were currently going through what we had in 2007 felt like the perfect thing for us to do.

The kids and I spent time creating some fun treats to hand out to the staff located on the Epilepsy Unit.  We had a blast dipping pretzel sticks in dark chocolate and white chocolate then covering them in sprinkles.  {I learned that yes, you can even burn chocolate.}  We covered the dark chocolate dipped pretzel sticks in multi-colored sprinkles and the white chocolate in pink.  I think they turned out very pretty.  They were yummy and easy to make.

I planned to drop off toys for all the children on the Epilepsy unit during the week of Christmas.  The pretzel sticks were going to be for the wonderful staff and we had gathered roughly 15 Noah’s Ark Stuff ‘n Fluff animals with stuffing and birth certificates for the kids to hand stuff.

Unfortunately that didn’t happen.  Life sometimes likes to throw curve balls doesn’t it? The very next day Gabby came down with the stomach flu.  It was bad too.  As in so bad it lasted over a full week.  We canceled all plans for the week and threw all the pretzel sticks away.  Thankfully none of us got the stomach flu from Gabby.  I was very nervous the other two kids would get it or that I would come down with it while taking care of her.  Even though Gab stopped running a fever after two days I was too scared to visit the hospital.  I kept tossing the idea around but continued to come to the same conclusion that I was worried even if I wasn’t the one sick I would be a carrier of the germs and therefore the last ones that I would need to be around is children in a hospital.

During my search for a way to give back from the comfort of my home… or should I say while being trapped indoors caring for my sick child, I stumbled upon a post on Jessica Smith’s site about a new project to launch called Love Drop.  I read all about it and continued surfing around to find two other projects that I fell in love with.  They were perfect for my mission.  Finding simple ways to give back to my community without breaking the bank yet still being able to touch lives.  I also believe it goes with exactly what I wrote in the very first post of my 12 Weeks of Giving series where I said that anyone can give back even if they don’t believe they have much to give.

I joined both Love Drop, It Starts With Us and Love Bomb.

I’m part of both the Street Team for Love Drop as well as the Blogger Network.  So you will be seeing more posts about the topic in the near future.  Each month I will share a story with you of the person Love Drop has promised to help.  Their stories will be nothing short of inspirational and I hope you get on board to help us spread the word to help others out.  They will be dropping love on a selected individual or family in need during that month helping them in any way possible, depending on their need.

Love Bomb is another great network I joined.  They take 5 minutes each week to spread some love, cheer, inspiration or joy on someone in need.  The need can vary from struggling with a loss, depression or illness.  Everyone gathers together to take time to go drop a love bomb on their blog in the form of a comment.  Just a few kind words to help lift their spirits and let them know people care about what is going on in their lives.  The number of people that come together and do this is amazing.  Last week I noticed over 200 comments on the receivers blog filled with inspiration.  Kind words can literally change someone’s life.  The assignments go out weekly on Thursday and you can find the most recent post on the main page.

It Starts With Us is based on a mission to change the world starting with 15 minutes a week.  The network of people is amazing and they literally just encourage one another to step up to the plate and accomplish small random acts of kindness.  Each week they announce the challenge and everyone interacts within the forum on how they did for the week or what ideas they come up with.  The community alone rocks.

I hope you join me in one of the three projects.  Changing lives and giving back to your community can take only minutes and make the world of difference.