A few ways I can help someone else this year.

Tax season is here and recently I received a receipt for money I have donated to a particular charity in 2011. As it turns out I made donations that totaled about $350 rounded up. I know that I have given to multiple charities and I have made a lot of donations to the Salvation Army for which I did not ask for a receipt, but somehow, $350 seemed like a small number even if it was less than 12 months since I started donating monthly. I want to be able to donate in the thousands. Last year I was not able to donate as much as I wanted, so this year I want to be able to give more. Not only money wise, I also want to help people through my Blog.

Family is very important to me, and since tomorrow starts a new year for Cocoons2Butterflies I want to dedicate the month of February to Marriage and Family Relationships. It is the month of Love, and the month of hearts, not only for Valentines Day but because it is the American Heart Association's Heart Month and it's also the perfect month for the Go Red campaign.

I am still going to be writing my daily Blog Dare Prompts but will add an additional Post several times a week to include the topic of Family, Marriage, and Heart Health.

My goal is to help people by giving helpful information about how to keep your marriage strong, how to have good relationships with your families and how to take good care of your heart.

What are a few ways that you feel you can help someone this year?

F.L.A.G. A shoebox for Christmas - Please help out!

After finding www.FlagPhil.com and saw that they were collecting shoe boxes with gifts for the girls at F.L.A.G I felt compelled to help. I currently sponsor a little girl from the Philippines through Children's International, her name is Maeca and she will be turning 9 now in October. She is so cute, and seeing her pictures makes me feel so much love toward her as if she was my own.

 

She has inspired me to help other children like her and I believe F.L.A.G is doing a wonderful job at helping little girls in the Philippines to get an education and be able to experience things like birthday parties and toys for Christmas. Thing that they never had before.

So in honor of Maeca, I went today and bought some Princess Dolls, and some little girl Princess Jewelry Boxes with Princess Themed Play Jewelry and even a little Tiara and will be mailing them out for the F.L.A.G girls Christmas Gift. Me and my two daughters chose the items and got all excited and happy preparing these packages for the girls. I love being able to do nice things for others as well as teaching my daughters the value of helping others.

If you would like to contribute, and help out and send a Shoebox with Christmas Gifts for the girls, please do so soon as they have a deadline of October 10 and they have to arrive in Canada. For more info please email flagphil (@) gmail(dot)com

You can also sponsor a child like Maeca through Children's International.

I really love helping out whenever I can. What charities do you help out with? What other ways do you like to help out? Please share.

Parenting - How do you teach your children about charity?

The world today has become very "green", people are encouraged to help save the planet. With that new responsibility comes a new way of encouraging values in our children. We as parents want to be able to teach them how to be charitable, how to help out.  What things can we do to teach children about charity?
Well, we can do so by setting an example and by exposing them to situations that they can help out others.

Recently I spoke with Ellen Bari form Momasphere and she told me about this cool book for small kids called Jumping Jenny about a little girl who loves to jump and finds a way to helping people by sharing her passion with the world.

In which ways do you teach your children about charity?
What have been your experiences with giving?