I hesitate to even write this one because I don’t want it to seem like I did these things for attention. Soooo I’m writing in the hopes that somewhere people will get the idea to do something helpful for their community. For this months dirty 30 list I wanted to do something for others (I was actually doing it back in December around Christmas time)  . . . to be honest it took me awhile to find something and it was a little frustrating, but in the end it was better than I expected.

My thought was to volunteer at a soup kitchen or serve Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner at a homeless shelter. I looked into it, but I found nothing that was available . . . that’s a good thing actually since they were all full of volunteers. The only thing available was behind the scences and you had to be cleared in order to do it since you’d be making the food . . . I wanted to see people and I didn’t have the time to go through the process of being cleared because of my work schedule.

After that I spent half a day on the phone with the salvation army . . . I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrating that was. I’ve heard bad things about them before . . . like how they keep most of the money or they separate gifts you give on the angel tree’s . . . but I thought it might be a good start. Nope, I got nowhere. The only thing I had after 3 hours on the phone was where an angel tree was . . . but when I drove there on my lunch break, but when I got there  . . . yup, no angel tree.

Right after stopping where the angel tree was supposed to be . . . and feeling extra frustrated. I went to Walgreens, and right there in front of the store was a little tree with names on it . . . hallelujah! This tree wasn’t for kids  . . . it was actually for older people who have home care through Home Instead. I was leary because I really wanted to do something for kids, but when I saw the things they were asking for I knew I had to do it. The one I picked was a lady named Mary and she asked for ‘bodywash, shampoo, deo, and something to make her feel pretty’ So I spent $25 on beauty supplies for her! I even called my grandma for tips on what older ladies would like . . .

After that I just wanted to do more, my heart was so full . . . so I bought the persons coffee behind me in line at starbucks . . . and then I bought 3 starbucks gift cards when I got to the window to pass out to some of the women at church with lots of kids (everybody needs a treat and I think moms forget to take care of themselves sometimes) . . . then I paid for someone’s dinner . . . it was just at mcdonalds as I ran in to get a drink – easiest thing in the world and didn’t cost me that much. . . Once the holiday season was over, I decided I needed to do that more often even if just to feel the rush of happiness I got from helping others. I also finally realized I had made helping others much harder than it needed to be. 2013 had been wonderful for me and I needed to repay some of that love  … I also didn’t really get to do anything for the kids like I wanted . . . so I signed up to be a CASA volunteer. You can find out all about casa here. My training sessions should start in April – as long as enough people sign up to hold the classes – and after that I will officially start getting some cases.

I’m excited to see where this takes me and help some kids! I encourage you to just do something  . . . anything to help someone else. I promise it will make your life so full . . .