Another Project

Today, I went to the library to pick up a few books that I need for some lessons this week.  One of the books that I needed wasn’t available so I asked if there was something similar that would work to help me teach the lesson  The woman working at the checkout desk told me I should speak with the head librarian Jane, but she wasn’t available.  I was about to leave when she arrived.  The woman told Jane that I had a question for her and as she approached me, I could tell that she recognized me as a teacher from one of the local schools.  She comes to talk to all of our students right before the summer to tell them all about the summer reading program at the library.

I introduced myself as Claire Sinclair, a Kindergarten teacher at Tuscan and she gave me a big smile and told me she had been looking to get in touch with me.  I was surprised and asked why.  First she laughed and said, “Do you know if you google your name, you’ll find a stripper?”  I laughed, because yes, there is in fact a famous Playboy Playmate named Claire Sinclair. I often tell parents of students to be careful when looking me up because that is who they will stumble upon first!

Jane told me that she was already looking ahead to the upcoming summer program and she was hoping to tie it into “community service and helping others” theme. She told me she had heard about my kindness projects and knew that this would be something I’d be interested in.  She was right!  Without her saying another word I told her I was on-board to help! We were already looking at a few idea and will now be in touch to talk about it more.  I am looking forward to it so much!

It won’t be until next summer, but stay tuned for more details!!!  Thanks for approaching me today Jane!  I am honored and can’t wait to work with you on this great idea!

Doing Good on Good Friday

This year, Easter and Passover fall at the same time.  For Christians, Easter weekend recalls how Jesus died on the cross and rose again.  For Jewish people, Passover is the most-celebrated Jewish holiday of the year.   For  others, it might only  mean a nice long weekend.  Whatever it means to you, perhaps it can serve as a reminder of the values many people seem to have let fall to the wayside in society today.

Robert Green Ingersoll, wrote, “Hands that help are better far than lips that pray”.  Perhaps today can be a day that you do something good for someone else.

• Donate to a food pantry
• Bring flowers to a nursing home
• Make dinner for someone else
• Donate gently used clothing to a shelter
• Bring pet food to a shelter

There are so many things that you can do to help out someone else.  So whether you are Christian, Jewish, something else, or nothing at all,  I hope you can appreciate the life lessons that are celebrated this time of the year.

 

MLK Mitzvah Day

Since today we recognize Martin Luther King Jr, and it is also the inauguration of The President of The United States, I told my boys that today, we would be giving back to others by donating our time somewhere in the community.  We decided to volunteer with “Back Pack Pals”.  The four of us, my husband included, headed over to Congregation B’nai to help out.  Several churches and temples in the area were holding “days of service”‘ in celebration of Dr. King.  AlthoughI wrote about Back Pack Pals in an earlier post.  I had never actually seen the packs of food assembled.  When we arrived at the temple, we began to set up an assembly line.  Each bag of food includes, four meals (2 lunch, 2 dinner), 2 milks, 2 juices, 2 applesauce cups, 2 fruit cups and 2 breakfast bars.  This enables a child to have enough food to get them through the weekend.  Today volunteers helped pack over 110 bags.  All of the food goes to students in our school district.  I asked how many weeks this would last and was shocked to hear that nearly 70 bags are given out each week.  What seemed to be an enormous amount of food  would not even be enough for two weeks of meals!  One of the organizers, Dave, told me that every week, he has groups, (like the girl scouts and other local organizations), come together to pack up the bags.  The bags are then delivered to the students at their schools so that they can bring them home in their back packs and not be hungry on the weekends.  Many of these children are able to receive free or reduced meals during the week at school, but on the weekends, might otherwise go hungry.

This is such a worthwhile cause.  A lot of the money raised for Back Pack Pals comes from the Rent Parties – (this is from an earlier blog, https://aprojectforkindness.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/rent-party/).  If you are looking for a way to donate, I really want you to check out this program.  Both of my boys were as surprised as I was at how many children in our own school system benefited from it.  Check out their facebook page, and like it, to see some of the ways that you can help.  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rent-Party-BackPack-Pals/244596515582876