Community Service

In our area we have a community program called "Feed the Children for the Summer." Every Wednesday night for ten (10) weeks people gather to make bags of food for children to eat during the summer. These are some of the kids who are on free or reduced lunches at school and would otherwise be without food during the day for summer.

Isabelle's Girl Scout troop went last night, for the first week to help fill bags, move them to the right food bank location and just perform overall community service. This was a great experience for the girls and I think they had a bunch of fun. Cooper even got in on the helping out, by filling bags, he did a great job. I really hope to be able to take all three of the kids at one point or another over the summer to participate because I think it is good for them to see and help out those in need.

I would have taken some pictures but I knew I was going to have to follow Cooper around so I did not want to be distracted with the camera. Maybe next time when we go with Barrett. We'll have to wait and see. I do think we will try to make an effort to go a couple times per month to help, since it does go for such a good cause.

This weeks bags were filled with the following items:

2 packages of single serve Mac and Cheese
1 Chef Boyardee meal
1 Can of Tuna
1 Cup of Noodles
2 Quaker granola bars
2 Quaker single serve Oatmeal packages
1 apple sauce
1 fruit cup
1 peanut butter sandwich crackers pack
1 Trail Mix bar
1 box of mini-cereal (like you use when camping)
1 container of pudding

I began to wonder if all these kids knew how to use a microwave and can opener. And if their parents helped to ration out the food so that it did last a whole week. I'm pretty sure my kids would eat at least half the bag the first day, if someone did not ration the food. After all we sometimes do two snacks a day, one in the am before lunch and one after rest time. And who knows if these kids have a parent at home during the day or someone to watch them. At least they have some food to make it through the week.

Either way it was a lot of fun and I plan on going back to help some more. The kids did a great job! Oh a few more tidbits of information, we filled over 700 bags and the weeks worth of food cost was around $3,400. They even think that they will get more requests due to increased publicity. So if you would like to donate money please let me know and I will get it taken care of.