Free Tickets to Disney

Along the same lines of my last post, Disney is offering a free day at one of their parks in exchange for a verified day of service. The offer starts as of January 1 and lasts until they run out of tickets or December 15th, whichever comes first. They are working with an organization called the Hands on Network to provide the opportunities to volunteer. It doesn't look like Girl Scouts is on the list, but many other organizations are! What's more, the whole family can participate. Children as young as 6 can get a ticket if they volunteer. Now talk about meaningful! How great would it be for a kid to know they EARNED a day at Walt Disney World?? That's got to feel good.

Volunteering

Helping others is important to me and a value I'm trying to teach my children. The girls are in Girl Scouts because that is a place where we can volunteer. (We are in Girl Scouts for many other reasons as well, but that's an important one.) Recently The Eldest started volunteering at a local children's museum. She loves art so that was a natural for her and it will help her as she works on her Girl Scout Gold Award project. Last night the museum presented a fashion show as a fund raiser, but not just any fashion show. The teen volunteers made the outfits out of recycled materials! The Eldest worked on her outfit for weeks, consistently making time to move the project along; I am so proud of the dedication she put into it. The outfits were judged and the winner's outfit will be exhibited at a big art show in the coming months.

The Eldest didn't win the prize but she won so much more because of all she learned from participating in this event. She learned about hard work and dedication and how your efforts can pay off in something truly satisfying. (She liked her outfit and got a lot of positive feedback; it was really good if I do say so myself.) She learned about how these events work. She interacted with the other teen volunteers and the staff at the museum. She interacted with one of the event advisers who helped her during the workshops they held for the teens. This was important because she was getting feedback from an adult other than me, which is a good thing for a homeschooled kid to experience. She worked with her friend's mom who helped her with the sewing parts of her outfit. She talked things over with her friend who also made an outfit for the show. She learned about losing with grace. She gained experience talking in front of an audience since all of the designers presented their outfits at the end of the show during a quick interview with the MC. She was poised and collected; she was so at ease during the interview.

All in all, it was a great event for her to participate in and it culminated in a great evening out for The Eldest, DH, and I. (The little ones were at home with a sitter.) We took her out to eat afterwards and had a lovely celebratory dinner. Now it's time for her to start thinking about her outfit for next year!

Helping Others

My blog friend Melinda over at "At Shore's End" wrote a lovely post about how she would like to help others. That reminded me of an article I ripped out of the January issue of Family Circle magazine with links to various web sites that help you help others. Here are the links:

igive.com
biddingforgood.com
donorschoose.org
markmakers.org (I gave my kids $20.00 for Christmas, 2007 to "spend" at Mark Makers and they LOVED it. It's aimed at kids.)
globalgiving.com
volunteermatch.org
onlinevolunteering.org
kiva.org
microplace.com
goodsearch.com
searchandgive.com
greatergood.com
freerice.com (excellent for increasing your vocab and feeding the world at the same time; I'm going to put the link under my "links I like" list)

And now I can help myself by reducing the clutter in my house and throwing the article away since I have all the info right here! :)

PS: DH just asked me what I want for Valentine's Day and, thanks to Melinda's inspiration, I decided I want us to make donations to Kiva.org in each other's names. I don't need flowers (although lovely, they die so quickly), I don't need chocolate, (the weight thing- I want to keep it off!), I've never been one for jewelry, and who needs more clutter in the house? A micro loan to a budding entrepreneur will be just the thing. :)