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 ...

  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.  ...

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...

I’ve mentioned briefly that I’m trying something new in the way of volunteering. Many of you know that I’ve been a volunteer for the American Cancer Society, have captained a Relay for Life team, and now am on the steering committee for my local Relay for Life. In fact, today I will be out recruiting teams and sponsors for that very Relay. But now, I have a new charity that I am learning about in a different way. I’ve also been pursuing a master’s degree in instructional technology and in my last semester (which I’m in now, oh yeah!) I must do a field experience such as an internship or real world project. I looked for an internship which is what I really wanted to do, but instead I found not one, but two projects to do. One is for the First Circuit Court of Florida. My university is helping them put a face-to-face course they teach online and I’m on the team to make that happen. The other is for the American Red Cross. The Red Cross is an organization that I’ve admire...

Today is the day. Today we have the Relay for Life in my hometown. We have already made about $500 over our goal of $3500 so I’m very happy going into the Relay.  I am so excited about today. We’re going to be selling homemade coconut salt scrub that our Miss Pinterest Sam Roberts has made for us. She also had the idea of making hair ribbons and got us started on that.  We’re going to be braiding hair, doing nails, selling jewelry and raffling some items, too. While the moms are getting pampered, we have some games for the kids to do as well. As for food, we went pretty simple, just muffins, apples, bananas, green tea, water and coffee.  We’re having a spa theme to the booth this year and I’ve called it the Angels for a Cure Stress Reduction and Cancer Prevention Booth! I can’t wait to see what all the other teams are doing. I hope we make our goal for the Relay. Our team has really come together. I’m so thankful to them. When my mother was sick, the...

Happy Valentine’s Day and Random Acts of Kindness Week! It’s time for an Angels update. My Relay for Life team Angels for a Cure did so great on our bake sales. We made nearly $900! People were outbidding each other for cakes and we had enough cookies to feed half of Pensacola. The extras went to the Waterfront Rescue Mission Sunday night meal and the minister there was so grateful to get them. We just had our Giveback days at Ruby Tuesday, too, on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I won’t know how we did on that for a couple weeks. It’s the first time we’ve ever done that, so I’m interested to know how it went. We passed out about 250 flyers and invited people through Facebook. Then our team had our meeting at Ruby Tuesday and had dinner there. We get 20 percent of sales back when people show the flyer we gave out. Our next fundraiser, a Chili Cookoff, is going so well except for one thing—no ticket sales. I’ve gotten donations of cookies and drinks from Publix. We’ve got eight chili ...