Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Did you know every state has at least one national park in it and that there are 401 total national parks   in America? July is National Parks and Recreation Month and is a great time to visit a park and volunteer in one.  I’ve written about volunteer vacations before and some of the best are in parks across the country. Join the American Hiking Society for a week of building and maintaining trails with five to 14 other people in exciting and diverse locations like Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Wyoming. Crew requests for 2014 open this month. Sierra Club Outings does service through its group and chapters as well as through volunteer vacations. With 65 chapters and more than 400 groups nationwide each contributing to local service projects,  Group and Chapter Outings  give an incalculable number of volunteer hours to parks and public lands. Many groups and chapters devote special trips solely to service projects. Through the roughly 90 serv...

I am ecstatic. My husband who has been in Kuwait for a year and in Birmingham the year before is BACK!   He’s been home for a little over a week. We went on a nearby base a couple of days ago and I stopped and got Slim Jims for the guys at the gate.   It’s something I started doing back during Random Acts of Kindness week in February. I bring them snacks since they’re on their feet outside for hours at a time.   He asked me why I did it and I said because I like to. Another great kindness event is coming up next Saturday, the Great Kindness Challenge .   It’s an event aimed at getting children involved in helping others, but it’s also a great day for everyone to do as many kind deeds as they can. If you’re having trouble thinking of some things your kids can do, the Great Kindness Challenge website has a list of 50 suggestions which you can print and check off as you do them.   They include things like leaving a flower on someone’s doorstep, reading a b...

What is summer really all about?   I think it’s about enjoying the good weather and spending time with those you love.   One way to do that is on summer vacations and I’ll write this month about Volunteer Vacations that you will be excited to try.   But another way to revel in long summer days and clear skies is do some playing around in your local parks. KaBOOM has made doing that even more pleasurable with the chance to win a weeklong trip to Washington, D.C .   But I’m not just writing about KaBOOM because of the contest. KaBOOM! is a national nonprofit that does lots of wonderful things in communities throughout the United States. KaBOOM provides grants for park equipment for playgrounds as well as tools for organization and fundraising for these playgrounds. It also sponsored an initiative to build playgrounds in hurricane ravaged areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita and built over 130 playgrounds on the Gulf Coast. It encourages imaginativ...