Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Hey, folks. I have decided to revive the tradition of a Black Friday list of top ten gifts that give (3 ways!) So, here it is. Enjoy your shopping from the comfort of your home and God bless you.  1.        Vive la Revolution! These are the most gorgeous Revolution bracelets.  For $38 each (or 3 for $100), you can get a beautiful band and $10 goes to charities fighting Alzheimer’s. Find them at RivetRevolution . 2.        UNICEF has an immense market for goods from around the world and even tells you when you purchase one how many people you are helping. This beautiful wooden sculpture “Balanced Embrace” will provide enough polio vaccine to vaccinate 56 children. Find something beautiful from clothes to jewelry that meets your taste at market.Unicefusa.org . 3.        Hand knit gnome ornaments are sure to be the hit of your gift list, especially when they find out Melan...

I took a break from Relay for Life last year for the most part and I'll be honest, in some ways I've missed it. In other ways, I have enjoyed having more time. OK, I did raise $250 to keep myself out of the fake jail they put up at our Relay (try it if you haven't, you can raise lots of money by promising to put people in jail, or not, based on whether they raise money!) and I did write an article about the honorary chair at the Relay last year in my town for our local newspaper. And, gosh I can't miss one of the biggest events of the year, so I went. But, that was about it. I wasn't on the board and I didn't have a team of my own. In the meantime, some things changed. My husband and I both started new jobs on the same day for one. And, I found out that the new company supports Relay but they have never had a team at this location. So, I wondered. Should I say something about it? or not? Eventually, it came out that I had worked on Relay and when they ...

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Today I want to honor a man, a man with a heart after helping others. This man wasn’t trying to be in the spotlight, he just had a heart after God and for showing God’s love to others. He tried to live by Matthew 25:40 and in the twenty years that I knew him, he did. The verse shows us how we should help others as if we were helping Jesus Himself. The man was named Sandy and he was a kind, gentle, patient and compassionate man, always ready with a smile, a handshake and an encouraging word. When having lunch with him one day, I overheard the waitress say something to Sandy and found out that he had paid for the dinner of some military service members he had seen in the restaurant. He didn’t want them to know it was him. He just wanted to brighten their day and thank them for their service. Another memory I have of Sandy is from a few years ago when it was almost Christmas. We wanted to get something special as a pr...

  “If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the lands that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs.” Deuteronomy 15:7 I’m reading through the Old Testament of the bible and came across this passage. The Old Testament is rich with miracles, history, and stories, but it is also quite harsh. When the Israelites who were slaves came out of Egypt and were told by God they would be given a new land flowing with milk and honey, they were also told to kill all the people in the cities which they conquered. The Old Testament has lots of wars and killing in it, but right here in the middle of all of it, God reminds us to take care of the poor. Now, usually in this blog, I tell you lots of ways to help others. I’ve even given you data that shows that if you do help others, you will reap benefits of joy and gratefulness yourself, as well as...

I am saddened to hear of David Bowie’s death. Above, nine-year-old Jack Churchman from Perth, Australia recreated one of his more well-known moments. I heard about Jack because he’s collecting money for a cancer charity in western Australia. It started when he found out that some girls in his sister’s class at school had cancer. He decided to grow his hair and donate it. He wanted to do more, so with his family’s help, he began copying famous scenes from movies. He posts them on his Facebook page-- Jacks Big Cut. He will recreate a scene from a movie you request if you donate more than $5. He’s done at least a 100 scenes in movies so far and tries very hard to get them exactly right. If you go to his Facebook page, you can see th ey are excellent. He asks people to like and share their favorite film scene, then donate on his fundraising page to a cancer charity in Australia. If you’re not on Facebook, you can also go to his fundraising page to donate. He ...

It has been a year ago today since I last posted. In looking over my life at the top five things that have given me a feeling of accomplishment, this blog has to be one of them. I've been thinking about how I want to be remembered. I would love for one of the things for which I am remembered to be this blog and my Facebook moniker of Volunteer and Charity Guru. So, I'm back! I'm still working fulltime and have other responsibilities, but I really missed talking about the awesome things anyone who wants to can do to help others. I never stopped doing things to help others, just writing about them here because I had a website and this blog and a busy life. So, I was walking with my son last week and, of course, mapping the miles with the Charity Miles app so money would be given to a charity for my exercise, when I found a new way to give. It's a new app called Donate a Photo which is sponsored by Johnson & Johnson. You upload a photo that you've take...

  The new year is here! If you’re making a resolution to be kinder this year, then do I have a couple resources for you! One is www.kindspring.com . They have a way to help you be kinder by doing a 21-day challenge.   I tried it in December and I really liked it. I got a daily email with an idea of something kind to do and also a short message to think about. Because I do this blog, I spend time researching kindness and charity, but sometimes, I have a hard time thinking of 21 things in a row to do. With this daily reminder, you don’t have to.   It’s done for you. Over the years, I’ve heard different “scientific” ways to make a habit. Doing it for a certain number of days seems to be the most popular answer to that question. Being consistent helps makes habits. But we all need some help with that when it’s something new we want to do. The 21-day challenge can help you by providing ideas, thoughts and a reminder, but I have another resource that is s...

  Some call this the season of lights. With all the lights and decorations, I can see why. Today I'm going to talk about another kind of light.   I don’t usually talk about just one website at a time in my blog. I give lots of websites that have great ideas or provide my own ideas and inspirations. But today, there is a website I want to talk about because it does A LOT! The Points of Light website caters to individual volunteers, companies that want to make a difference and to nonprofits as well. Individuals can find volunteer opportunities, causes and programs set up for them.   Nonprofits can post volunteer opportunities. The Points of Light Civic Accelerator “invests in and supports seed stage social ventures that solve pressing social and environmental issues by engaging people” also. If you have an idea for a nonprofit, this is the place to be, with money, mentoring, peer support and networking for your idea. Or, if you have a company that wan...

  I started this in 2011 when I started my blog. It’s a list for Black Friday of Christmas gifts that give three ways: to the recipient who gets a gift, to a charity who gets a donation and to the giver who feels good for giving to charity. Since then a new tradition has started with Giving Tuesday. After Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, spend some time Tuesday giving to the charity of your choice. Now, here goes: the list of $50 and under gifts that give three ways for 2014. 1.        As a Relay for Life lover, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one from the American Cancer Society’s website and almost everybody needs help with this—eating right to be healthy and prevent all kinds of cancer and other diseases. So, here’s the link to ACS’s healthy eating cookbook for $24.95. http://acs.bookstore.ipgbook.com/the-american-cancer-society-s-healthy-eating-cookbook-products-9780944235577.php?page_id=32&pid=acn 2.  ...

I know not everybody loves Facebook, but I think it’s pretty great. Especially since I’ve taken up a new challenge there. It’s called the 15 Can Challenge. It’s easy because it’s something you already do. Each week when you go shopping buy a few extra cans of food. Then the first week in December, contribute it to the local food pantry for their holiday dinners for the hungry. If you have the time, it’s a good idea to call them first and see what they are especially in need of, sometimes it’s something you may never think of, like peanut butter for PBJs, but that’s a great staple because of the protein benefits it has. I regret not doing Socktober, which is a Kid President Challenge in October to provide socks for the homeless. But it’s not too late. Luckily, I live in Florida and we’ve only had a few days of cold weather. If you live somewhere that’s cold many months of the year, you know how that can be. Imagine being out in the cold night after night, or even in a shelter. ...

Summer’s almost gone but that doesn’t mean cruise season is over. You can always find a warm port somewhere. And now you can also find some opportunities for volunteerism and charity as part of your vacation. USA Today printed a story with 10 cruises where you can give back. Here's some information on them: Crystal Cruises: On every cruise there are complimentary "You Care, We Care" excursions where guests and crew participate in volunteer activities. You can create crafts with the elderly in Cartagena, do a neighborhood cleanup in Puerto Vallarta or rescue sea turtles in Athens. On World Cruises, the line also has knitting or other crafting classes where guest make blankets for various children's charities around the world. MSC Cruises: The Italian-style line is a booster of UNICEF. The "Get on Board for Children" initiative encourages adult passengers on all the line's ships to make contributions. Plus there's a day of "edutainm...

I was trying to think of what to write about today and doing searches on Google and finding all kinds of things that I already knew about. Then I came across an idea which I have never tried. I LOVE doing that. On my website http://helping-hearts.net and in my blogs, I’ve written about free ways to help others, fun ways to help others, cyber-volunteering, virtual mentoring, donating, volunteering, random acts of kindness and paying it forward. I have never written about becoming a “professional volunteer” also known as a docent. Now, although I haven’t done it myself, I’ve met people who are docents at my local zoo and at museums around the U.S. I’m calling docents “professional volunteers” because they train so they can become like a professional. A docent is someone who has been trained by the organization that they volunteer for to take the place of a paid employee. Like most volunteers, they do the work that needs to be done for free, but usually docents have to make...

Have you heard of Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg? Chances are, you have. They are some of the richest people in the world. Now, have you heard of “The Giving Pledge campaign?” It’s a campaign by Buffet and Gates to recruit billionaires to agree to donate at least half their fortunes to charity. People are keeping track of these generous billionaires. The "Philanthropy 50″ list is issued annually by The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The 2014 list is the 14 th annual list of the 50 most generous donors in America in 2013. Something surprising about these giving people is their mean age, the median age of the top 50 donors in 2013 was 72.5. Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg and Pricilla Chan made new donations or pledges that total nearly $1 billion in 2013. Zuckerberg is the youngest ever billionaire on the top 50 donors list. Unfortunately, Zuckerberg is the exception when it comes to young billionaires. His peers are choosing, at least s...