Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Happy Valentine’s Day and Random Acts of Kindness Week! It’s time for an Angels update. My Relay for Life team Angels for a Cure did so great on our bake sales. We made nearly $900! People were outbidding each other for cakes and we had enough cookies to feed half of Pensacola. The extras went to the Waterfront Rescue Mission Sunday night meal and the minister there was so grateful to get them. We just had our Giveback days at Ruby Tuesday, too, on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I won’t know how we did on that for a couple weeks. It’s the first time we’ve ever done that, so I’m interested to know how it went. We passed out about 250 flyers and invited people through Facebook. Then our team had our meeting at Ruby Tuesday and had dinner there. We get 20 percent of sales back when people show the flyer we gave out. Our next fundraiser, a Chili Cookoff, is going so well except for one thing—no ticket sales. I’ve gotten donations of cookies and drinks from Publix. We’ve got eight chili ...

Next week is a pivotal week. As we celebrate love on St. Valentine’s Day, we realize that love is to be shared. It’s something you can hold onto only if you give it away.   Last week I wrote about how I enjoy books and sharing them with others, giving you lots of options about how to do so or support nonprofits that do. I guess I was subconsciously gearing up for International Book Giving Day on Valentine’s Day. V-Day is also when we celebrate One Billion Rising to dance against violence done to women worldwide. I wrote about that in January so people could decide how and with whom they were going to dance in support of it. But next week is also one of my favorite weeks of the year because it’s Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) Week. Back in January, I warned you that it was coming with my story of how Courtney Fell led a bunch of kids to do random acts of kindness. She had some great ideas for acts of kindness. Now it’s time for even more. The Random Acts of Ki...

I was going to write about ways to fulfill resolutions to be healthier in the new year while also helping charities earn money, but with the weather so cold, I’d rather curl up with a good book than go for a jog. I’ll share some ways to help others by working out soon. For now, here are some ways to relax and read while helping others. I’ll start with the free one first— We Give Books . It’s simple, you read a book online and they give a book to someone in need. They’ve donated 1.6 million books already and are looking to donate a million more. We Give Books is a fantastic resource for parents, teachers, and anyone who loves to read children’s books. They have a free online library of over 150 outstanding children’s books, including Llama Llama, Skippyjon Jones books and DK science books. All of the books available for online reading are children's books for kids through age ten. There is a mix of fiction and nonfiction, a range of authors, and an equal balance between read...