Holiday Giving

Now that Halloween is over Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here before you know it. Attached is an article that lists different ways to give over the holiday season. Huffington Post Giving Ideas
If you have any other ideas or ways you plan on giving this year, please share.

Volunteer Iowa

Lately I have noticed that sometimes it can be difficult to find volunteer opportunities, or after you hear about them it is too late. Recently I stumbled upon a website that provides volunteer information for the entire state of Iowa. using the search function on the website you can search by zip code, and issue/interest. Tonight I searched within 25 miles of my zip code, and found 11 pages of volunteering opportunities. Check out the website here.

Souper Bowl

Jaime and I are blessed to be a part of a church that makes huge impact in the community, and around the world. Recently our church (Lutheran Church of Hope) had a food drive called Souper bowl food drive. This all took place over Super Bowl weekend. The goal was to fill all the shelves in the Des Moines area food pantries. First it sounded like a ridiculous stretch goal, but the members of the church flooded the grocery stores. We filled the hallways of the church, and filled the shelves of all the local food pantries. 

Jaime and I usually do our grocery shopping every Sunday after church. This particular Sunday Pastor Mike urged the congregation to stop by the store, grab a few items, and bring them back before the big game. I stayed at church to helped out with a few things, and expected Jaime to be back within 45 minutes. After about a hour I called to see what was keeping her so long. She said that the grocery store was filled with people from church buying up all the non-parishables. While I was "patiently" waiting for the next 45 minutes, I watched the line of cars dropping off food. Someone from the church mentioned how fun volunteering for the souper bowl drive is, so I decided to sign up the very next day to help sort food. I was assigned to the soup section. My job was to sort through as many cans I possible could within my 2 hour time slot. I was blown away by how many cans of soup there was to sort. Others that were volunteering sorted though other items like pasta, peanut butter, canned fruits and veggies and so on... 

After a few days of volunteers sorting through the food they divided up all the items so each of the 46 food pantries received a variety of food items. The total amount of food collected and distributed around the Des Moines area added up to 150,000 pounds of food. It sure is amazing what a group of people can accomplish together. 

A New Year.

Last year around December I Started this blog to come up with new and creative ways to give time, money, or love. Over the year I was able to be involved with a lot of great things, and I met a lot of great people. I started out last year with a bang. I made giving my new years resolution. Last year began with 30 days of charity. Although I was not able to keep the intensity up throughout the entire year, I definitely achieved my goal of becoming more charitable, and finding unique was of giving. This year I did not make a new years resolution.....unless you count this grueling diet that Jaime and I just started today. I still do plan on actively giving this year, and I do have some plans for a charity event this summer. In the meantime I think I will stick to donating time to places like my church, and local organizations. I would also still like to continue coming up with fun and unique ways to give. If you have any ideas please let me know.

I'm Back

I’m back.

It has been forever since I have blogged, but now that summer is coming to an end I finally feel like I have time to write about what is going on. Last time I blogged it was leading up to my mobile hunger fight that I held at a school in Redfield Iowa. It was a great experience and the kids seemed to have a great time. After all the preparation and about 2 hours of packing we were finished. We packed over 11,000 meals and as I listened to the kids talk to one another I realized that they got it, they knew that what they did was going to help a lot of people in need.

Packing Line

A lot of the girls decorated the boxes after they heard that children like to use them as beds.

These are the 2 students that donated money during my initial visit. They were the inspiration behind this mobile hunger fight.

More recently I have continued to give however, I decided that I do not want to share about all the giving that I do.  After all, you are not suppose to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing…..or something like that. Instead I will share about any charity events, other peoples giving stories, volunteering, or creative ways to give. I want this blog to be more about inspiring others to give, or advertising charities, and events. I also want to use this blog to hopefully get ideas for myself.  This blog will still be all about giving time, money, and love, but I am just going to take a slight turn down a different road.

So since it has been a long time since I have blogged, I have plenty that I can write about. I think I will go with the most recent event that I attended.

Stephanie Roy is a friend that I met through Jaime while she was in college. Stephanie seems to really like the idea of Give(3) so she is constantly giving me ideas, which I love. Unfortunately she had so many ideas over the summer that I could not attend due to work and other pre-scheduled summer time activities. The most recent idea that she gave me was to attend this event called 100+ Dudes Who Donate. Stephanie knows about this because she is always volunteering. It seems like she has some place to volunteer almost every week. I believe she heard about it through an organization called 100+ Chicks for Charity. So last month I attended 100+ Dudes Who Donate. It was held at a country club in Des Moines. The meeting started with a cocktail hour where I tried to meet as many people as I could. It wasn’t easy pushing myself into conversations with complete strangers, which was a surprise to me because I am usually pretty good at that. Little did I know this organization was still in a building process, and it was only their second meeting. It was harder to meet people because the 15 or so people who showed up seemed to all know each other. After cocktail hour were the presentations. Anyone who attends the meeting can nominate a charity within the Des Moines metro area. They then pick 3 entries, and those people get up and talk about the organization and all the great things they do. This particular meeting only had one entry.  The presenter was Eric Branstad, and he spoke about the Des Moines Playhouse. After the presenters are done, in this case one presenter, everyone votes for one of the three organizations. When a winner is selected all of the meetings attendees, if they choose give a fifty-dollar donation to that organization. All and all it was a good experience and I will attend again in the future. 100+ Dudes Who Donate meet 4 times a year and the next meeting will be held in December.  Here is a link to 100+ Dudes Who Donate also you may be interested in 100+ Chicks for Charity and 100+ Men on a Mission.

Mobile Hunger Fight.

During my visit to a small middle school in Redfield, IA I was trying to inspire some students when I was inspired by them. During my presentation about giving to the 50 some middle school students I was blown away. While I was speaking about my favorite charity, Meals From The Heartland, and explaining how a little money can go a long way two students inspired me. They dug into their pockets and pulled out two crumpled up one dollar bills and an assortment of coins, all adding up to $5.25 and gave it to me. They asked me to donate the money for them. Since then I have been planning on starting a mobile hunger fight at their school. I want them to see how a little time and effort and their $5.25 can feed the starving. I just recently got the okay to go through with my plans, and we will pack meals at their school on April 5th. I will be using the manpower of 200 students to pack as many meals as we possible can. My goal is to pack 10,000 meals. Now the students and I cannot do this by ourselves. We need the financial help of others to purchase the materials for these 10,000 meals. So my goal for the month is to raise $2000. This will be a great cause that will affect thousands of people. It will teach 200 students about giving, it will feed thousands, and it will bring blessings to anyone who helps. Please consider helping our cause with your financial support. Any dollar amount helps, like Mother Teresa said "If you can't feed 100 then feed 1." One meal from Meals From The Heartland cost 20 cents and 1 package of meals cost $1.20.
There are a few ways you can help. You can click on the DONATE button to the right of this blog or you could click HERE to make your tax deductible donation.

30-Day Team Charity Challenge

This last Wednesday I traveled to Redfield, Iowa to speak to some middle school students. I was invited by their teacher, Jacque Crouch shortly after the Des Moines article about Give(3) was printed. Before my visit I brainstormed different activities that I could share with the students. I came up with three ideas. The first handout asked the students what they would buy with 100 million dollars. It also asked how they would give with 100 million dollars. As you can imagine I got a lot of responses. The students would buy anything from a red Ferrari to a lifetime supply of Twix. Most of the ideas that they came up with for giving included donating money to places like St. Judes, or food banks. Then I asked the students how they would give if they didn’t have even a penny. I thought this exercise was important to show the kids that even if you have no money you can still give, and help others. The class came up with a long list of ways to give, and we recorded them on the blackboard. The second handout asked the students to basically create their own charity. Find a problem, and create a non-profit to solve the problem. The handout asked them what the problem is, how they plan to solve the problem, and why. I created this handout to get ideas from the kids, I also wanted to see what they viewed as problems. Lastly the third handout that I gave the class was a 30-Day Team Charity Challenge. I explained my 30-Day Charity Challenge, and said that they could complete the same challenge as a team. They plan on using the list of ways to give that they came up with during the 30 days. I spoke to two different classes of about 25 students so they will be working on 2 different challenges.

I was surprised how locked in the students were on what I had to say. I feel like I made a real impact. While I was speaking about my favorite charity, which is Meals From The Heartland, I was amazed by what occurred. I explained that $1.20 can make 6 meals for someone in need. I mentioned that these meals go to people who sometimes go days without eating. Just then 2 different students gave me a total of $5.25. The crumpled up dollar bills, and assortment of change is enough to make a little more than 26 meals. I was amazed that these two students, Deven Kromrie, and Riley Byrns gave me their money to donate; they are much more generous than I was at their age. I have a feeling they will be great leaders during their classes challenge.

I plan on keeping in contact with these students. I had so much fun visiting with them and I hope I can visit more schools in the future. To finish up their 30 days I am planning a mobile hunger fight to take place at their school. I hope to get all 200 students to help pack meals for Meals From The Heartland. Once I get approval from the school I will begin fundraising so the students can pack our goal of 10,000 meals. This will be a fun event that will teach the students that a little time and effort can make a huge difference in the world.

What I Learned In 30 Days

So now that my 30-Day Charity Challenge is complete I have had some time to reflect on the month. Originally I wanted to become more charitable because it was my way of living a life that is meaningful. When I go to bed at night I wanted to feel like I made a difference in the world. I learned anyone can change the world, and its actually pretty easy. The hardest part of my challenge was coming up with creative ways to give, and finding time to blog. Now that I have completed my challenge I know that I can easily give at least once a week, and that’s what I plan on doing for the rest of the year.

I talked to many of my peers during the thirty days about giving, and the common theme was that everyone wants to be a giving person, but they don't have enough money or enough time. I proved that is just an excuse not to give. I am definitely not a wealthy person, I serve tables, and work in a hog barn....you do the math. I also have very little time. Between two jobs, and school time is not exactly something I have a lot of. In thirty days I donated over $350 and around 20 hours of time. Getting creative is the reason I could donate the amount of money that I did. I usually donated my time late at night or on my day off. Looking back, donating $350 seems like a lot. The funny thing is that the karma and good blessings are real. If you do something like give for all the right reasons you should have no worries. During the month I received a check from an individual who lives in Clive. He wrote a letter that basically said keep up the good work, and enclosed was a check for $100 that I was supposed to use for school. I used the money to buy text books for the social welfare and public policy class that I am currently taking. Also during the month I was contacted by the Iowa Falls Chamber Main Street and was hired to speak at their annual dinner. My giving has been returned to me in many different ways, including the two that I just mentioned. The most important thing that I received was the feeling of worth, and the feeling I got when people told me that what I am doing has actually inspired them to do the same.

In the future I will be trying to acquire more speaking engagements where I can inspire and motivate people to give. I’m very excited to meet some Waukee middle school students next Wednesday. I will talk to the students about my month of charity, and complete some group projects that I came up with. The main project that I will help them complete is a 30-Day Team Charity Challenge. The students and I will come up with a month of giving, and each student can sign up for one day to give. Next week I will share what we came up with. I hope that the students can learn as much in thirty days as I did.

Day 25-31 of 30-Day Charity Challenge

Okay, so day 25 through 31 I decided to change bad habits into good ones. Everyday I commute from Waukee to Iowa Falls, a total of three hours a day. I always stop by a convenience store along the way and either buy soda, coffee, and a snack. Why is this a bad habit? I consider it a bad habit because I have noticed a few added pounds around the ol belly, and I spend an average of 3 to 4 dollars every morning. The 25th through 31st I decided to change my habits and rather than spend 3 dollars a day, donate 3 dollars a day. During the 6 days I saved $18, it may not sound like a lot but if I did this every work day for one month I would save a total of $75 per month, and $900 in one year. I decided to donate the $18 to the H.I.K.E Foundation.

Matt Birk's HIKE Foundation was established to provide at-risk children with the educational opportunities needed to excel in the classroom and in life.  The HIKE Foundation impacts the lives of at-risk children by providing interactive programs and resources needed to guide a child through the key educational transitions between elementary, middle, high school and college. Click here to learn more.

Day 24 of 30-Day Charity Challenge

Tuesday Tip Giveaway

Day 24 was Tuesday so that means another Tuesday tip giveaway. This Tuesday I approached a couple about halfway through my shift. When they were finished eating I tried my best to explain Tuesday tip giveaway. I usually get a confused look along with a skeptical comment.  I explained that I would like their email so I could prove that I actually donated their tip. The response I got was, we aren’t gonna get blasted with emails or anything right? After further explanation they mentioned they wanted their tip to go towards the American Heart Association. Cheryl and Richard Arnold’s 31 year old daughter had recently suffered from a stroke. The American Heart Association uses funds to research all sorts of heart related health issues. Cheryl and Richard’s daughter has lost some movement on one side of her body, but her outlook is promising. The Arnold’s expect their daughter to make a full recovery. It was also interesting talking to the Arnold’s because Richard is a state legislator. I am very interested in politics so it was fun chatting about this years legislative season. I want to thank the Arnold’s for their generous tip of $20 that will help others that suffer from heart related health issues, and I wish the best for the Arnold’s daughter.