Toys For Tots!

Toys for Tots is a donation program set up by the U.S. Marines, where Good Samaritans like yourselves can recycle your old toys or buy new toys and donate them to underpriviledged children. This program all began with a man by the name of Major Bill Hendricks, USMCR and a group of Marine Reservists in 1947. Together, they collected and distributed 5,000 toys to needy children. Today, there are nearly 20,000 Marines, Marine Corps League members, veteran Marines and volunteers involved in annual campaigns. The motto then and still today is to "bring the joy of Christmas to America's needy children." To read more about the origin of this foundation you can visit, http://www.toysfortots.org/about_toys_for_tots/toys_for_tots_program/origin_and_evolution.asp

The primary goal of the Foundation is the same as that of the overall Toys for Tots program: i.e. - to deliver, through a shiny new toy at Christmas, a message of hope to needy youngsters that will motivate them to grow into responsible, productive, patriotic citizens and community leaders. And as for the monetary aspect, from 1991 - 2005, the Toys for Tots supplemented local toy collections with 64.5 million toys with the overall worth of $344 million. Also, Toys for Tots provided over $3.9 million worth of promotion and support materials, which enable local Toys for Tots coordinators to conduct more effective local campaigns. (http://www.toysfortots.org/about_toys_for_tots/toys_for_tots_foundation/default.asp)

So, this holiday season if you are looking to be a Good Samaritan and brighten up Christmas for a child in need, think about donating to the Toys for Tots Foundation. It it a good way to not only be a Good Samaritan, but also be patriotic while doing so. Some sponsors of Toys for Tots are the Dr. Phil Show, Google, Toys R Us, Disney etc. To see a lit of more corporate sponsors or for the location of where you can drop off toys check out http://www.toysfortots.org/corporate_sponsors/national_corporate_event_sponsors/default.asp?year=2007&type=Corporate

Volunteer!

I have done a lot of my blogs on topics for the organizations that specifically enhance the acts of kindness experience. I decided to take a different approach to this blog. I wanted to research volunteer opportunities that people are involved with or can be involved with. I think it is just as important to associate people who volunteer with people who are doing random acts of kindness around the world.

While searching the web I found a website involved with the Good Samaritan Hunger Center. This website specifically asks for certain tasks from a person to volunteer. A person can volunteer their time and work at the center, or even just make food to donate to the center. Every little act from a person helps the center and makes a person’s like that much better. The website offers some statistics to help a person understand how important it is to volunteer. For example, the Good Samaritan Hunger Center cooks & prepares 12,500 hot meals annually; homemade soup also. This vision all started in 1982 by Sister Jordan and has grown ever since. I think this gives so many amazing opportunities for people to help out a lot of just a little. To find out how to help visit http://www.goodsamaritanhungercenter.org/home.html

I have taken it into my own hands to help the community and volunteer to help. The first weekend in December I am volunteering my time for an organization called Brian’s Walk. Brian’s Run began in 1978 as a one-time fund raising event to benefit Brian Bratcher. He was a West Chester Henderson High School football player who sustained a life-challenging spinal cord injury at the age of 15 during a scrimmage. His friends, family, and people around the world wanted to raise money to help him with this injury. Finally, after a few years he felt as if he had enough and wanted to pass the money that was raised each year to other deserving people. Little children up to adults participate in this event. I am very excited to be involved with such a program and I hope to learn a lot about this. To find out more visit http://www.briansrun.org/index.html

Support Children's Hospital this Holiday Season

As I stated in my last post, the holidays are a great time to help people and also to give to children in need and less fortunate than ourselves. So, in addition to all of the great ways to share our wealth with those who aren't as lucky as ourselves, we should also think about those who cannot be at home for the holidays, especially those children who are sick. It is sad to think that so many people will not be able to spend this special time in their homes in a comfortable environment happy with their families. So, for all of those children who have to stay in the hospital this holiday season, we should try to help make it a happier time for them. Also we can find many ways to support hospitals during this time in finding cures and just raising money for all of the tools and equipment the hospital needs to take care of the kids.

One way this can be done is through Children's hospital's special holiday card project to benefit them, which can be found at http://www.stlouischildrens.org/tabid/62/itemid/1703/2007-Holiday-Cards-to-Benefit-Childrens-Hospital.aspx. These holiday cards were designed by children at the hospital. The website shows the different designs, the kids names who designed them and the ways it benefits the hospital. The particular web page i looked at benefitted St. Louis Children's Hospital with the slogan: "Friends of St. Louis Children's Hospital invite you to share in the true spirit of the holidays!" This is a great way for anyone who wants to show that they care by donating to the hospital through their purpchase of the children designed holiday cards, which show everyone they send it to the wonderful message as well.

Another Children's Hospital website I found was one from East Tennessee, who this year are celebrating with the Fantasy of Trees. They have the Giving Tree which provides a way for families to celebrate the spirit of giving during the holidays through helping give the hospital small items like Popsicles for Emergency Department patients, diapers for premature infants, disposable medical supplies used hospital-wide to aid in keeping germs from spreading, and batteries for toys in Children's Hospital playrooms. In return the donator receives a recognition ornament for their tree at home to signify their holiday contribution. With the assistance of sponsor Regions Bank, this new area will allow Fantasy of Trees visitors an easy way to directly support children who are patients at Children's Hospital with small things that are needed for their recovery—and have a reminder of their contribution to take to their home for the holidays. The website breaks down the gift categories into $5, $10 and $25 areas and shows exactly what you will helping give the hospital with each of the monetary values. For more information visit http://www.etch.com/fantasyss.cfm.

There are so many ways to benefit Children's hospital for the holidays. Their calendar of events found at http://www.seattlechildrens.org/home/about_childrens/calendar.asp shows the dates of all of the specials throughout this holiday season that supports the hospital, such as: The 2007 limited edition of the Aflac Holiday Duck is dressed in holiday-themed attire, complete with a night shirt, night cap, fuzzy slippers and holding a candle, which can be purchased at any Aflac or Macys on December 1st and 100% percent of the proceeds from in-store and online sales from our area will benefit Children’s. In addition to events for the holiday season, this online event calendar also has events listed for next year as well.

Helping support Children's Hospital during this time of giving is a great way to make the holidays even brighter than they already are. It is a way to make these children's holiday happier for them and their families and to help give the hospital what they need to make sure the children get better as quickly as possible.

We Are Made Kind By Being Kind

While researching this topic, I have found that the most intriguing aspect is the nonprofit organizations that are created to help enforce the idea of being a Good Samaritan. While searching I found many articles about random acts of kindness. While looking in a magazine, there was an article about a nonprofit organization for students.

Kindness Acts Foundation is a nonprofit organization that has a goal of honoring students for their acts of kindness. When first entering the website the homepage quotes Eric Hoffer, “We are made kind by being kind.” Then there are different links throughout the page. There was a link labeled Honor A Student so I clicked it to see what would happen. It brought me to a page where a teacher or any person with a leadership role in a school can nominate a student for their act of kindness. The organization receives this request, and after reading what the student did and agreeing, they send a pin and a certificate to that student. I think it is really special that this website is doing this to reward people for their acts. This way the student can feel good and keep helping out people not expecting a reward each time. To further investigate this website or to nominate a student visit http://www.kindacts.org/

Another organization is called the M.I.S.S. Foundation. This foundation honors children who die and let their families do something special in their honor. I have seen this foundation in action. My cousin, who was 13, died of heart defect only a year ago. The hospital was unable to detect what was wrong in time to save him. He was a very intelligent boy and just had a true love for learning. He was always asking questions and solving problems. If something seemed impossible, he put his whole life into that act until it was complete. Ironically his initials spelled out the word ASK (Andrew Sean Kries). Knowing that this love for learning isn’t known in many children, my aunt decided to start a scholarship in his name. The scholarship is called the A.S.K award. She is hoping that the Good Samaritans will make donations to help preserve his name and inspire children to learn.

This is just an example of the M.I.S.S. foundation in play. This foundation is in hope for the children to be remembered and a way for the families to heal from their loss. I think this is a really special foundation. The website focuses on their goal for the website and includes stories that people have posted. There are also ideas for families, and cards that you are able to send to people who help with your idea. Knowing how hard this hit home for me, I really appreciate this website and what it has to offer. It really helps the family move on and spread their kindness to the world. To find out more about this great foundation visit http://www.missfoundation.org/kindness/index.html

Commercial Campaigns

Recently, as I was watching television a commercial came on the grabbed my attention. It was a commercial that was somewhat like the movie that I had previously wrote about, Pay It Forward. In this commercial, a girl grabbed a pizza delivery man by the arm before he was about to go out into the street and just as she did so, a car came whizzing by. This unknown girl saw the car coming whereas the pizza man didn't, thus her being his Good Samaritan. The commercial goes on with the pizza man helping a stranger, that stranger helping another stranger, another stranger helping the unknown girl, and back to the scene where the unknown girl pulls the pizza man out of the way. It turns out that this was a CocaCola commercial, trying to spread our same idea that everyone should lend a helping hand. These helping hands make the world turn as we see in this CocaCola ad, where what goes around comes around in the best of ways.

After seeing this commerial, it made me think of what other ads there are out there that deal with helping other out. Certain commercials that I think are good that are out on the television are the Above the Influence campaign(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Above_the_Influence). It is obvious that Good Samaritans are behind these advertisements, trying to make it so that in such a challenging and influential world today, youth and teens will stay away from drugs and alcohol. In one advertisement, we see a boy wheeling a stand-up mirror from his house and into his cafeteria at school. He places the mirror in front of his used-to-be best friend and his friend looks into the mirror, seeing his worn out reflection. The tagline for this commercial is "Drugs and alcohol change you," and this commercial gets the point across to the youth of America that it not only changes you personally and emotionally, but also physically and if you stay "above the influence" you won't have to worry about letting yourself, and others down. You can view commercials like these and read more into this subect on http://www.abovetheinfluence.com/.

Another television advertisement that I think is good to be out in the media is the Truth campaign(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_(advertising)). This is an anti-smoking campaign that is aimed towards the youth of America. The come across with mind blowing statistics and truths that leave you thinking. I believe this ties in with our theme of Good Samaritans because it is campaigns like these that try to prevent more people from smoking, which they are not only harming themselves but they are also harming others and our environment. There is a really creative and interesting site http://www.whudafxup.com/?ref=truthsite, if you are interested in learning more about this specific campaign ad. As for me, after looking around on this site, as a college student, I found some interesting facts that I think people of all ages would find interesting:

43.9% of young adults who are of college age, but do not attend college, smoke.

Female college studnets are more likely to smoke daily than male college students.

25.7% of college students smoke.

Other interesting facts that are on this site are:

Hydrogen cyanide is used in prison executions. It is also found in cigarettes.

Smoking kills more thatn 9 times more people per year than car accidents.

Every 6.5 seconds, someone dies from smoking-related diseases.

You can find other facts like these on http://www.whudafxup.com/?ref=truthsite.

Overall, I think it is important that there are people out there who develop campaigns, commercials, websites, anything that gets a good message across to the youth and teens today. From a catch Coca Cola commercial to more controversial anti-drug ads, their are surprisingly more people in the media, than we think, that we can call Good Samaritans.

Help for the Holidays

The holidays are a great time of year to help those in need. It is a time we notice especially as a time of giving. But not all people have the money to buy gifts for others. It is especially heartbreaking to me when children don't get gifts, which makes them think Santa doesn't love them or that he forgot about them. That it why I support charities and people who make it a point to see that all children receive something and to know they are loved.

When I was a freshman in high school and I received our first community service project, I panicked because I had never really done any real community service for people I didn't know. In addition I didn't know where to find places that needed help that I could volunteer for. So, my mom looked through the newspaper and showed me that their are many opportunities available around our neighborhood. In particular, she found one for wrapping donated presents for children in need and preparing them to be given to certain families around the community. I really liked that idea of helping people, especially children around the holidays, so my best friend, Julie, and I went to help. It ended up being a very touching experience that I was glad to be a part of. We even put the children's names on the gifts and picked out what would be good for kids of different ages, which made it feel even more real that we were making their Christmas.

As I thought of my past experience, I decided to look up other ways of helping this holiday season as well. I came across a great website http://www.brightholidays.org/donate/ where people can go to help and donate to underprivileged students. Their mission is to help improve the lives of underprivileged students and their families in the greater Jacksonville area during the holiday season. This site allows you to donate any amount of money using PayPal, buy mail or through their online site, and reminds you that every dollar counts. This is a great idea for helping those less fortunate children this holiday season, and it is just an example of one community that has done this. If you are interested in donating, many areas do this during the holidays, so look around your neighborhood to see or even start a program such as this if you are interested in helping childrren this holiday season.

I also found a site http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20061207/ai_n16894619 where a 12 year old girl named Katie helped to make the Christmas of children in need as happy as hers are. This was a story from last year and this seventh grader reflected on what Christmas means to her by helping through her school by giving to these children in a great way. She worked hard to collect toys for all ages and put the other children's Christmas before her own. It was a special way that made her Christmas so special and got her recognized as such a caring a giving young girl.

I feel that giving to children over the holidays is a great way to make yourself feel rewarding and good about yourself this holiday season. There are many ways to help people so find a way in your community to do something good for others this year, especially children who are the heart of the holiday season.

Good Samaritan Greeks

Sometimes Greeks get a bad reputation. Fraternity and sorority men and women are stereotyped as people who drink and party all the time. Although, this is a very unfair statement to make considering the many good things that they do as a part of these organizations. Every individual Greek organization has its own national philanthropy, which each chapter supports every year through school and neighborhood fundraisers, etc. to earn money towards it.

As a sister of the Zeta Gamma chapter of Phi Sigma Sigma at West Chester University, I am proud to say that we raise thousands of dollars every year toward our philanthropy, The National Kidney Foundation. I also found another blog posted by the Phi Sigma Sigma Foundation about the NKF Walk that numerous Phi Sig girls participated in found at http://phisigmasigmafoundation.blogspot.com/2007/11/delta-sigma-participates-in-nkf-walk.html. This foundation is extremely important to us, so as a chapter we have fundraisers and events going on year round to support it.

My chapter at West Chester does a Rock-A-Thon twice a year where we literally take turns rocking in rocking chairs outside of a local pizza place for 48 hours straight. There we collect donations from passersby in addition to selling baked goods to profit our cause. Like my organization, all fraternities and sororities have their own specific foundation or cause that they support as well.

At West Chester, all of the Greek organizations come together and support Camp Dreamcatcher, which is a camp for children affected or effected with HIV and AIDS, http://www.campdreamcatcher.org/. Camp Dreamcatcher runs year long programs for these children, but Greek Life at West Chester specifically earns money for a week of camp for each of these children. The money we collect through going canning in different cities or any other projects we plan goes to sending these children to a week of camp for free. In addition we can become camp counselors during this week and interact with all of the kids to make sure that week is one of the most enjoyable weeks of their life. I have heard many stories about the children and how they loe the camp so much they don't want to leave when the week is over. This really touches my heart and makes me feel proud to be part of an organization that is supporting it.

Real Life Samaritan

I have a small story about my recent encounter with a Good Samaritan. This weekend, I went shopping for a gift for my mother for her upcoming birthday. I decided to go into this knick-knack shop because the little figurines in the window were both cute and eye catching. When I walked in, I was greeted with a pleasant smile and a "Hello! How are you today?". "Good, Thanks!" I replied. After looking around for a bit, I asked one of the workers if she had any lighthouse products, such as little lighthouse figurines, or a pillow, or anything really. My mother is a very picky person to buy for but if you give her something that even remotely resembles a lighthouse she will be pleased with you. Unfortunately, the woman told me that they had just packed all of their lighthouse and summer-related products away and brought out all of the winter and Christmas products in their place. She told me that if I left my name and number she would personally take her time to go into the storage room and search for two little lighthouse ornaments that she knew were back there. I left my information figuring that the woman was just saying this to be nice and not actually going to look for them, because I know that I myself have pulled that move a few times. To my surprise, I received a phone call Sunday night from the owner of the store saying she found the two lighthouse ornaments if I wanted to stop by Monday afternoon to pick them up. Of course, me knowing that I had limited time to buy my mother a birthday present that she would actually like, I walked back to the little shop on the corner and purchased the two ornaments. I thought this was a very kind gesture of this woman to take time out of her busy schedule to dig into a storage room looking for two miniature lighthouse items. This woman motivated me to follow through with my actions when I say that I am going to do something, and I am grateful that I now have a present to give to my mother that i know she will love!

World Kindness Week

I always knew there was a Black History Month and a Breast Cancer awareness month but I never thought there would be a World Kindness Week, which runs from November 12 through November 18. World Kindness Week was started by The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. I stumbled across an article involving this special week, and then searched the web to find out if there were more organizations involved in this week. To my surprise there were a lot.

An organization D.A.N., Do Anything Nice, is encouraging people to interact and follow the special activities they have planned for each day. For example, on November 13: call a loved and on November 16: clean your room. This organization is hoping to encourage student involvement and leadership. They want to remind students that this week is full of opportunities of making a difference and the many possibilities of taking action through kindness. To find out more about this cause visit: http://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20061115230541374

Amazed by this wonderful organization, I searched for more involvement of different organizations in this special week. I went to Starbucks to see they were involved in this kindness week. Starbucks is hoping to raise awareness of this week by rewarding their local citizens. Their plan is for their employees to drive around and attach a Starbucks magnetic red cup to the car. When someone stops the person driving the car and asks about the cup, that person will be able to receive a coupon called a Cheerpass from Starbucks. That Cheerpass has a special code and when that person enters the code into the website, they will also pass on the act of goodwill that accompanies that card. This allows people to track what people are doing around the world. To find out how to get involved in this cause visit: http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2007/10/29/daily68.html?ana=from_rss

Finally, there is one more foundation that is donating it’s time to help people get involved in this week. The RAOK Foundation was founded in 1995 as a non-profit organization. The goal of this foundation is to inspire people to practice kindness and to “pass it on” to others. Being kind, they believe, is something that everyone can do through a variety of small--but important--ways. The RAOK Foundation offers sixteen pages of examples, among them sending a surprise letter, telling others that you love them, and paying compliments to the people in your life. This foundation is special and really helps a person get involved in this week if they want to. To get some great ideas of spreading the kindness visit: www.actsofkindness.org and select what are people doing?

I really think it is important for people to get involved and this is a great week for people to start their kindness around the world. In all of these articles, they quote that a small act of kindness can change the world, so if we all do a small act of kindness imagine the improvement to our world we will be making.

Give Thanks By Giving Back

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it is a great time to give thanks by giving to others less fortunate than ourselves. Yes Thanksgiving is a wonderful day for families and friends to get together and share a traditional meal of thanks with each other, but not all people in America can always afford such a lavish meal. That is why it is important to put others before ourselves and do our best to make everyones day as special as it should be.

I have seen so many advertisements already about Thanksgiving food drives, Holiday Harvest Projects, Canned Food Drives, etc. that show the America does support and love our country enough to make sure that all families get to celebrate in remembrace of the first Thanksgiving.

As a child in grade school, I can still remember when it became this time of year and our teachers made us write down in our homework books to bring in a certain amount of cans each for the Thanksgiving drive. My school gave each grade a family to feed, so every student in the class was responsible for getting part of the meal. Doing this made me feel good about myself, especially considering most of the families we were feeding we people from our own church or neighborhood community that were just having troble affording everything that year.

As I searched for Thanksgiving food drives that were underway for this year, the pages filled with millions of matches for it. I noticed that many of the drives were put together by groups. There was one that I noticed was a Girl Scout Food Drive at http://www.currentargus.com/ci_7345617 which appealed to me because I was a former girl scout myself and also remember doing charity work such as food drives through that. It said that their Thanksgiving food drive has been underway for a few days now since November 1st. The good thing that this food drive encourages support from everyone. Anyone is able to donate money to the drive and that money is used to help the girl scouts buy all of the food they can to give to people in need. It is this particular troops seventh year doing the drive and they are very proud of all they can do for their fellow Americans.

Another Thanksgiving Food Drive that has been done annually since 1998 is one run by the Raise Foundation who last year created over 600 boxes of food to help feed Orange County's families and children. This year they are trying to surpass that total and feed even more families. This great volunteer opportunity can be found at http://www.volunteermatch.org/results/opp_detail.jsp?oppid=359491, and is an awesome way to show thankfulness by giving to those less fortunate than ourselves.

No matter what kind of charity or organization you help support during this time of thanksgiving, you are still in reality supporting not only that one group but the whole US. We together celebrate this holiday as a important moment in time in our American history, so it is essential that everyone is able to be part of the feast of thanksgiving. Do your part the best way you can to contribute to a local or national project and make this thanksgiving a unforgetable memory for all.

If You Can't Pay It Back, Pay It Forward

Recently, we've been talking a lot about movie reviews and it made me think of how many movies there are that are about Good Samaritans(if there are any). Usually, we see hit movies coming out that are comedies, love stories, or horror movies. But what about a movie about doing good? Do we not see them put out into the media because they won't sell due to lack of sexual scenes or gore? Though there are not many immediate movies that come in mind when I think about Samaritans, I can recall this one movie I saw about two years ago..

Pay It Forward came out on October 20, 2000. This movie staring Oscar winners Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and nominee Haley Joel Osment, was based on a novel written by Catherine Hyde after she had a real life experience of "paying it forward". As discussed on http://www.payitforwardmovement.com/media/media_time.html, the author was driving home late one night in a section of Los Angeles when her car stalled and started to smoke. As she leaped out of the car, she saw two men running at her with a blanket while thoughts of muggings danced in her head. It turns out that these men were not muggers but they were there to put out the fire that was burning along the throttle line of her car. As Hyde said, "I finally realized these two guys could have died. I could have died. I turned around to than them--and they weren't there. For the next few months, I walked around with this great sense of regret. But without realizing it, that planted the seed for the idea. If you can't 'pay it back, pay it forward.' "

Eventually, Pay It Forward made it's way onto the big screen. According to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0223897/plotsummary, the plot of Pay It Forward revolves around young Trevor McKinney(Haley Joel Osment), troubled by his mother's(Helen Hunt) alcoholism and fears of his abusive but absent father, is caught up by an intriguing assignment from his new social studies teacher, Mr. Simonet(Kevin Spacey). The assignment: think of something to change the world and put it into action. Trevor conjures the notion of paying a favor not back, but forward--repaying good deeds not with payback, but with new good deeds done to three new people. Trevor's efforts to make good on his idea bring a revolution not only in the lives of himself, his mother and his physically and emotionally scarred teacher, but in those of an ever-widening circle of people completely unknown to him.

After watching this movie, it made me think about ever action I did. I wondered if me holding the door open for someone or picking up a dropped book would make them think of me in the future and want to do something small for something else. I think if you haven't seen this movie you should definitely take a look at it. It will open your eyes to a whole other side of lending a helping hand. I think everyone should join in the pay-it-forward movement.