Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

  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...

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...

The London Summer Olympic Games start tonight and I felt it was time to talk about a great organization that helps people enjoy athletics who would otherwise be alienated from them. Sports have been something to empower and excite me since I was an all star in my city softball league as a child in Florida. I then played tennis for over twenty years and became a city champion and went to regional competition in Texas.   Now, I have begun running 5ks. Frankly, I can’t imagine life without some form of exercise.   I also couldn’t imagine life without a leg or arm, but every year 150,000 people join the ranks of over four million amputees in the U.S. When you watch the superb athletes who compete in the Olympics these next few weeks, think of someone who has just lost a leg and doesn’t know how they will care for themselves or their families for the rest of their lives.   Trauma accidents, birth defects, motor vehicle accidents, and warfare are the primary c...

Do you have 67 minutes?   It’s just a bit over an hour but it represents so much more.   Sixty seven years is how long Nelson Mandela gave to fighting for the rights of humanity.   Next Wednesday, July 18 th is Mandela’s birthday which is becoming known as Mandela Day, a day to devote yourself for 67 minutes to making the world a better place. I have been around for the destruction of the Berlin Wall, for the ending of the Cold War, but for some reason, the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa in 1994 just seems to me to surpass all of these other events. Thirty six of the 67 years were spent in prison by Mandela and I have a hard time relating to that.   How could someone keep the faith while in prison for almost as long as I have been alive?   He must have had more conviction than I could ever muster. Of course the greater oppression against you, the greater you must be to overcome it. But not only did he overcome it, he create...

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...

Going into Memorial Day, I’m preparing for a busy weekend. I’m having some friends over for a cookout on Sunday and then going canoeing with some others on Monday. We’re putting up an aboveground pool to play in all summer today since yesterday was my son’s last day of school.   During all this activity we don’t want to forget to honor our fallen soldiers.   My son says he wants to say a few words at the cookout and asked me to find a verse that he can use in his “speech.”   We were at his grandmother’s house when he asked me and she mentioned John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?   Having the courage to put your life on the line for others.   We honor those that have done that for us this Monday.   We must never forget them. May is also Older Americans Month , and I think they’re a population that can also be easily forgotten so I’d like to share an organiz...

The most popular month historically to say “I do” is coming up in less than thirty days so I wanted to share some resources for happy nuptials not only for the lucky couple but also the charity of their choice.   Have you heard of charity wedding registries?  They are the hippest way to share your joy with those less fortunate.  A couple makes a charity registry when they choose a charity or more than one and ask their friends and family to make donations in lieu of wedding gifts.   There are several places that allow you to do them like JustGive.org and the Wedding Channel , but they are all supported through the I Do Foundation .  Working with nearly 50,000 couples a year, the I Do Foundation has granted more than $6 million to charity from its start in 2002 to 2009.      Besides charity registries, the I Do Foundation also allows you to give wedding favor cards showing that a donation has been made by the happy couple for their ...

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...