Giving of Ourselves to Others in Need

We donated food yesterday morning through the Boy Scouts to the local food pantries. The kids had picked out the food themselves to donate. The Boy Scouts came by our home to pick up the bag full of food. After that we went to the local mall on a playdate since they have a play area. We stayed there for an hour with the kids playing on one thing then rushing to play on another.

After the playdate, we were heading to the food court for lunch however on the way there and in the main part of the mall, we heard bell ringers and a brass band playing Christmas Carols. I immediately asked Jeff for three $1 bills...I knew the bell ringers' bell sound. I knew why they were there. I handed the money out to the kids.

Once we went around the Santa's Workshop building the mall employees were putting up we saw the Salvation Army band playing and saw two women bell ringers and the familiar red kettle. I read earlier this past week that the local Salvation Army needed bell ringers. They are desperate for them.

We walked up to where the band, bell ringers and kettle was and Ryan was the first one up to the kettle however he covered his ears because he didn't like the loud noise of the bells. The ringers noticed this and stopped their bellringing. Ryan placed his dollar into the kettle.

Bella was next and I picked her up to place her dollar bill into the kettle. Katie had helped her push the dollar into the kettle. Katie was next and she placed her dollar bill into the kettle. I stood behind the kids while they were doing this.

I noticed that a professional photographer was taking pictures of us...the kids putting the money into the kettle with me standing behind them. Afterwards, he introduced himself and took our names for one of the local papers (one of course we don't get). He said that he thinks that he thinks the "pictures will appear in tomorrow's (Sunday's) paper". He says that he hopes that Salvation Army will meet their goal of bellringers and of donations this holiday season. And so do we.

After the kids donating the money and our discussion with the photographer, I explained to the kids why we donated the money and put it into the kettle. In the food court, Ryan seem to catch on to everything that we did today...donating food this morning to people who don't have enough and donating money to people who don't have enough food, clothing or a place to sleep.

While waiting for Daddy to come back to the table with our food, he starts shouting out... "free food...free food". I had to explain to him that (1) he had to have food to give food away and (2) yelling free food in a food court wasn't a good thing to do.

While we are eating, we see the brass band walk past us. We caught them at exactly the right moment in time. They are done playing the Christmas carols for the day. They are done collecting money for now at this particular location but they will be back and if we hear the familiar sound of the bell ringing and see the familiar red kettle again, we will be donating money to them again. It's just something that I do each year that I see the red kettle and hear the bell ringers.

Today's newspaper has the article in it on page 3. We went out today to pick up copies of the paper for us. While we are out we are at the same mall again to buy winter boots for Jeff...okay not very interesting. However we were asked if we wanted to donate $2 to March of Dimes while we were checking out the boots. I look at my three kids and respond "yes".

We had a happy weekend this weekend helping others in need. And I'm glad to have helped my children to understand what it means to help another person. I just hope that they grow up helping others on a regular basis.

~Jen