Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Sometimes we all need a reminder. I’m the Volunteer and Charity Guru, but the other day my husband reminded me of what charity is all about. He and I love Tropical Smoothie, which is a smoothie, salad and sandwich place with lots of veggies and fruits. The great thing about Tropical Smoothie is that everything tastes delicious so you feel good about eating your fruits and veggies. So when my husband came home with a bunch of coupons for free smoothies and sandwiches, I was excited. I took some for myself and left the rest for him. Then he told me a couple days later that he went to Tropical Smoothie and got a smoothie, but he didn’t have his coupons. I said, “Well, then what’s the point of having them?” So, he let me know. He told me that he paid $10 for the coupons because it goes to Camp Sunshine. Tropical Smoothie helps raise funds for Camp Sunshine so kids with serious illnesses and their families can take a break at a beautiful camp in Maine for free. Tr...

Relay for Life season is coming to its end for 2013. Over the past year, you’ve heard about my preparations and fundraising for my church’s team Angels for a Cure. It’s the last time I’ll be able to say I’m on a team of Angels, at least one that raises money to fight against cancer. We went out with a bang. We won fifth place overall for fundraising and got first place for most number of laps walked. We went to the silver team level, raising over $4500 which was $1,000 over our goal. It was an amazing year, starting with a garage sale last October and finishing with photography sessions this April just a couple weeks before the actual Relay. We also had our first ever Chili Cookoff and a two-day bake sale to end all bake sales. We auctioned off donated items at the Elks annual auction and ate at Ruby Tuesday’s, getting ten percent for the team. We sold over $900 in luminaria as well as several trackmarkers, something we had never sold before. We had the final team part...

Next week is your chance to do something for kids in foster care. Even if you can’t take a child into your home, you can do something for them and the families that care for them. What can you do? You can pray and ask others to pray for the more than 400,000 children in our nation’s foster care system, as well as their families, their workers, and the Church’s response to the foster care crisis. You can find a map of prayer vigils already scheduled at the Cry of the Orphan’s website . They offer a prayer guide you can download as well. May is National Foster Care Month. We just celebrated Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is around the corner. Can you put yourself in the place of a foster child who has been waiting to be adopted for three years or more? That’s the average time that a child waits in foster care to be adopted but they can wait five years or more or never get adopted. Those years are usually spent in several different foster homes, not just one. Many are older kids,...

It’s national teacher appreciation week and although this is the last day today, I wanted to share the great idea that my son’s Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) had because it is both easy and creative. Maybe some of you can share it with your own PTAs or PTOs. His PTO designated a different gift idea for each day of the week and asked parents to do as little or as much as they wanted. Monday was chocolate day. My son has six teachers so we bought six jumbo Hershey bars, one for each of them. Tuesday was school supply day. I personally think Post–it Notes are very useful, so I bought a few packs in bright colors for each teacher. Wednesday was flower day. I asked my son if he wanted to get flowers for all his teachers or just the female ones. He has three male teachers and three female ones. He chose to get flowers just for the ladies. I bought a bunch of roses and wrapped a stem for each teacher in a wet paper towel covered in aluminum foil to keep the water from getting...