Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Today I’m interviewing Eloise Stevens, the President of the Okaloosa County Alumnae of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. The Delta Sigma Thetas are known for their service to their community and here’s why! 1. Tell us a little about yourself. My name is Eloise Stevens and I’m a retired Lt. Colonel from the United States Air Force. I am married to Cecil Stevens and have two adult children. I have been a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority for 37 years and I am a charter member of Nu Theta Chapter at Troy State University . 2. Explain each of the programs you do as part of the Five-Point Program Thrust. Economic Development: We support predominately minority-based programs. We sponsor programs, seminars and workshops for minorities on procurement and entrepreneurship with special emphasis on personal financial planning and management of assets . Educational Development: We conduct programs/projects designed to address the need for excellence in education. We give scholarsh...

Retired teacher Nancy Reynolds is happy. She has learned a secret of happy people which I’m going to tell you. Helping other people makes you happy! She started volunteering for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) Christian Values Conference in 1976 and, except for a few breaks here and there, has been doing it ever since. She got involved when the activity director Don Kyzer at her school “conned” her into doing the program. He told her she’d get to go relax in the mountains of North Carolina, but when she got there, she found out she was supposed to facilitate sessions with the teens. “What I like about it is it’s not like a church camp. We do have a chaplain; we have devotions in the morning. There was the theme this year, God is here. It just goes down the path of making good choices, which you need to reiterate with high school kids. We keep them busy. When we hit the mountain, they get one afternoon free and that’s it…But once we get them up there, they want to co...

I wanted to take a moment to report on the Great Kindness Challenge, hoping that some of you out there took the challenge and came up with something kind to do last Saturday. If so, please share your experience in the comments below.    I have to say, when you come into a room full of ladies with a bunch of flowers in your hands, people tend to perk up a little. You can almost hear them thinking, “Who is getting those? Could it be me?” A dozen strangers at my church got an individually wrapped pink rose put at their seats. I left them randomly while most of the ladies were out of the room, because once I got there, I realized I’d have to choose 12 ladies out of dozens, an impossible task. Who’s to say one is more worthy than another? Not me, that’s for sure. Anyway, it was nice to see that my first experiment went so well. Everyone was thrilled to get their flowers. A couple people did identify me as the culprit giving them out and asked why, so I told them about ...

Besides doing this blog and my website ( www.helping-hearts.net ), I am the Volunteer and Charity Guru on Facebook where I post interesting tidbits about the charity and volunteering world on a semi-daily basis. At my Facebook page , you can find inspiring stories of people changing the world, links to fun and easy opportunities to do some changing yourself, as well as quotes and videos. I recently found out I’m not the only guru in the volunteering and charity business. Who knew?   Tom Kelly is the Fundraising Guru on Facebook. We’re joined by the Gap Guru as well. The more the merrier, I say! Kelly has some great tips for how to start a fundraising organization and how to raise money. His fundraising ideas include how to use QR codes and smartphones , mobile fundraising options and crowdfunding as well as categories like school fundraising, church fundraising, club fundraising, nonprofit fundraising and corporate fundraising. The Gap Guru specializes in students who...

Next Saturday is the day! The Great Kindness Challenge ! I am so excited because I already have an idea for something to do. You see, the church I have been attending is having a ladies’ brunch that day which I have been looking forward to because I am new at the church. I’m eager to meet some other ladies and find out what this church does for missions work. Since it’s the Great Kindness Challenge, I think I will stop beforehand and get a dozen roses and individually wrap them and give them out to random ladies at the brunch. What will you do for the Great Kindness Challenge? If you need some ideas, the Kids for Peace , who started the challenge, have a few ideas (25 to be specific) on their website . They range from things like smiling at people and making thank you cards, to cleaning up and planting a tree. Of course we want to do kind acts every day, but this is a day to help us remember that and give us a few hints on what kinds of things we can do. I had gotten in th...