Have you heard of this? Disney has teamed up with Helping Hands and is offering everyone who gives a day of service a free day at Disneyland park. Anyway, our kids, especially Jaime, have been asking about when do they get to go to Disneyland. I realized that this might be the answer to their dreams. But then I got to thinking that even if the admission were free for one day, there was still quite a bit of cost involved (especially since we’d have to pay for 3 of the tickets. Only children 6 and over could participate).
Scott and I went back and forth on this for a while and finally I decided that we would do it and then decide later if we actually went to Disneyland or not. So I signed us up to volunteer at a food bank. The person emailed me back and said what they really needed was food and if each person who wanted to volunteer brought in 10 food items then they would be considered done. At first I was super excited. How easy would that be?? But then I realized what does that teach our children. ‘Here guys, go pick ten things off the shelf and let’s donate them so you can have a whole day at Disneyland for free.’
So I talked it over with Scott and we decided to make it our own little family project. We gave the kids 3 weeks to earn as much money as they could doing whatever they could for whomever they could. At the end of 3 weeks they would take that money (minus tithing) and go to the store and buy food to give to this food bank. We did not (and still haven’t) told them it was for a free day at Disneyland. They got VERY excited. We set up a chart and gave ideas for ways to earn money. The person with the most money at the end of the three weeks would win a trip to the ice cream store.
The kids did FABULOUS. The little kids did extra chores around the house. Jaime and Alix solicited their services elsewhere and earned some pretty good cash. They pulled weeds, babysat and even spent 2 days cleaning someone’s house. By the time we counted up all the loot we had $100. Boy were the kids excited. Alix won the contest for earning the most money.
On March 5 when the kids realized how much money there was, they were REALLY excited. But man, you should have seen their excitement in the store when we went to buy all the food. They kept making comments like ‘Mom, I bet they’d love to eat some of this’ or ‘Mom can we please get them some of these’ or ‘Mom, we never have these so let’s get some for them, they’d love it’. Their enthusiasm was hard to stop so we did go over our $100 just a bit, but I just didn’t want to squish their spirits.
Boy did we feel good when we showed up to give the food. I walked in first and told the people at the front desk that my children didn’t know what this was all about and that they earned all the money themselves to buy the food. The ladies were very impressed and gave the kids big kudos.
I was super impressed with my kids too. They took this service project and ran with it. They did a wonderful job and I am so glad that my kids want to serve and are glad to serve. I hope that stays with them their whole life. I do have to plug this in: This project should have been especially hard for Jaime because she is trying desperately to save for a bike that she saw when she was visiting gma and gpa Thompson. She earned almost $30 and not once complained that she couldn’t keep it for bike fund. What a mature young lady!
[Emptying the van]
[Everyone helped bring the groceries into the food bank.]
[The kids with all the groceries on the couch behind them. Man were they excited and the ladies at the food bank were pretty excited too!]
[They gave the kids a tour of the facility. Not sure if the kids cared, but I thought it was SUPER fascinating.]
Wow, that is pretty impressive. How could they ever lost the spirit of service when they see their momma doing it so easily every day??
eergg. I totally meant to sign up for that disney day thing. I’m a million people too late! But I like your idea and I think we’ll do it this summer, even if we don’t get to go to disneyland because of it.