Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

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...

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...

Usually on this Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I put out a list of gifts that give, ones that you can buy that help a charity do its work. But this year, I decided that rather than point out what you can buy to help others, I’d like to point out a new tradition— Giving Tuesday . I will still put out my “gifts that give” list, but I felt it had to wait. During December 3, Giving Tuesday, individuals will start volunteer projects, make online donations and gather at dozens of events to celebrate the start of the holiday giving season by giving back to the causes they care about most. Want to know where some of these events are? Check out Giving Tuesday . The U.S. White House reports that more than 7000 partners across all 50 states are taking part. Why should you? Well, let’s think about it. What does the holiday season really mean? Is it just about having a good time with your family and friends? Is it about the gift of love that Jesus brought when he was born...

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...

Great new things are happening at http://www.annesanders.net/ . You probably have noticed that my website Helping Hearts has been changing.   For a month now, I haven’t been able to update the Today’s Ways to Serve feature on a regular basis, because I’ve had a designer working on the page.   I haven’t been sending out my monthly newsletter because I have a new header that I’ve been tweaking.   For those who have checked out what the site looks like so far, you can see that it’s easier to navigate and looks a lot better, too. The official relaunch of the website is set for next Friday, March 6.   I will be giving away a Sevenly T-shirt that says “Awaken Your Hearts to End Hunger” in honor of the relaunch. The cost of the t-shirt provided 35 meals for people in Darfur.   Anyone who signs up for my newsletter in the month of March gets a chance at the shirt and I’ll announce the winner in early April. The website has a philosophical change to it as well....

Did you celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Week last week? It’s a great time to try something kind that you’ve never done before and see how it feels.   In my other blog , I called it starting streams of kindness because I printed some kindness cards that ask people to pass on another kind act after receiving one. I must admit my week of random acts went slowly.   I wanted to buy someone’s meal who was behind me at the Burger King one day, but there was no one there.   I noticed the surliness of a waitress but didn’t think to leave her a big tip and a kindness card until it was too late.   In fact, it really wasn’t until this week that I began to give out my kindness cards.   The next waitress we had at a Mexican restaurant on Monday got a hefty tip and a card with a smile on it from me. Then I brought a security guard a coke and a chocolate chunk cookie for a snack one night.   I did do one act of kindness during the week in question, but it was...

I write about a lot of volunteering days and another one is coming up December 5—International Volunteer Day.   This one has been sponsored by the United Nations since 1985 and 2011 is the ten year anniversary of the year of the volunteer in 2001.   The UN General Assembly will be discussing volunteerism between now and December 5 and you can listen to and chime in on their discussions here .   There’s also a photo contest to show how volunteering can help countries meet peace and development goals. November 19 was also National Family Volunteering Day. But none of these volunteering days means a thing if they are not celebrated in the spirit of volunteerism, by doing something to help others. So, on the Wednesday before National Family Volunteering Day, my son and I went shopping.   We bought sunscreen, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, razors, dental floss, candy canes, summer sausage logs and crackers for a group of 800 Army soldiers in Afghanistan. The unit ...