Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

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 ...

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 summer solstice is behind us now but there’s still a couple months of summer left. This is the first summer I’ve had a teen in the house before (since my son turned 13 this year) and I thought maybe it’s time to do a blog about teens volunteering during the summer. In Florida, your high school aged teen can use the summer to get volunteer hours for the Bright Futures Scholarship, but no matter where you are, bored teens can be a boon for charities. So, what can they do anyway? Well, my son likes cats and we’ve volunteered at our local cat shelter SOCKS (Save our cats and kittens). We go pet the cats and can also clean litter boxes and sort items for the thrift store they run. Truth is, many teens love animals. I looked on VolunteerMatch for volunteer opportunities in the area and found a few more related to animals, including the local zoo asking for help cleaning out cages and preparing food for animals and the wildlife refuge wanting volunteers for day-to-d...

Today is the day! My Relay for Life in Niceville, Florida. I haven’t spoken much about being on the steering committee for Relay this year because it’s just not as exciting as having your own team. I have been calling people, recruiting teams, setting up chairs at team meetings and helping to plan the event. It’s not like planning events to fundraise. You don’t get to count the money at the end of the evening and know it’s going to fight cancer. Of course, everything you do on the steering committee helps the teams do their fundraising so it’s all important. We have had rain in too many of our past Relays in Niceville I’m told and it looks like it might happen again. There’s a fifty percent chance of rain pretty much throughout the Relay. The skies have been cloudy but it hasn’t actually rained yet as I write this. I wish it would rain early and get it over with or hold off until Sunday. But we don’t know God’s plans. I just know we have almost 50 teams and we are ready t...

Tomorrow starts National Park Week, a week to get out and visit a national park, for free! Sunday is the day to celebrate Easter, and it's also a perfect time to simply get outdoors and take advantage of the more than 17,000 miles of trails in national parks and another 15,600 miles of national recreation trails. God's creation is made for us to enjoy! Did you know there are more miles of trails in the national trails system than miles of road in the interstate highway system? Search here for events going on this week at national parks. Next Saturday is also National Junior Ranger Day for young visitors to "explore, learn, protect" and be sworn in as junior rangers. We have visited a few national parks in our time and there are always programs going on for Junior Rangers. There’s even a site for Web Rangers. Tuesday, April 22, is Earth Day, so if you want to roll up your sleeves and pitch in with a project, look for a park where you can help out...

What gets you out of bed in the morning? Work? School? Or the fun of helping others? For about 450 high school students in Pensacola, Florida, it’s helping others that gets them out of bed early on a Saturday morning, no less. That’s how many Catholic High School students will participate in this year’s Make a Difference Day on October 26. Why do they do it? Twelfth grader Zack Wyant remembers his first Make a Difference Day. “I just took a second and thought, ‘Look at all these kids out here. It’s early. It’s cold. Look at these people willing to give up and sacrifice.’ It exemplifies how much we want to help others.” Fellow Catholic High School Senior Tiarra Blackshear said, “My favorite part of being in high school is Make a Difference Day. I get a lot out of helping students and other people. It’s really fun to see students come together and help different people in our community, no matter who they are.” Both have done a variety of things over the past few Make a D...

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...

Summer is just around the corner.   I’ve been thinking about vacations and trying to decide if we can fit one in before July or we should wait until August since we need to be home in July. We had a bodacious Spring Break, driving to Orlando to visit Legoland, Universal’s Islands of Adventure and the Holy Land Experience.   Although we didn’t take a full week, we got to see three separate theme parks, all very different from each other.   I booked my room online and got a pretty good rate since we stayed in Kissimmee.   But now I know, I could have booked my room and supported four nonprofit organizations at the same time through Hotels for Hope (H4H).   With summer vacations coming up, I want to share with you how you can find a great hotel at a good price and have a little of that cash go into a charity’s pocket. It’s been a little over two years since H4H started its mission to help charities Special Olympics Texas, A Glimmer of Hope, Livestron...