Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Do you have a pink bra? Up until about a month ago, I didn’t, but now I have one covered in flowers which I’m waiting to wear on October 27. You see, the last Saturday of this month is the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. Thousands of women (and men) will be strapping on a decorated pink bra over their t-shirts, putting on pink wigs, wearing pink tutus. Why? Because they want to stop breast cancer in its tracks. This is my second year of involvement with the walk. Last year I volunteered to count money behind the scenes. I’ll be doing that again this year, but I made myself a bra this year and got on a team that’s fundraising, too. October 27, the day of the walk, also happens to be USA Weekend’s Make a Difference Day . What better way to make a difference than to fundraise to fight breast cancer and walk to raise awareness about it? Here’s some more awareness. Women over 40, like myself, need to get mammograms every year. I didn’t get one last year. My gynecolo...

A dime a day. Does it sound like too much or too little? It adds up to about three dollars a month, less than the cost of a Starbucks espresso or a Burger King Whopper. It is the coin of compassion that Help Every Day deducts from your credit card monthly to support its projects. If you’re not sure how to go about helping other people and you don’t have much money to do so, then Help Every Day is a great option. They’ve done projects around the world: improving water collection in Tanzania, developing literacy and vocational skills among poor adolescent girls in India, providing bikes for new health care professionals in Tanzania, financing difficult deliveries of babies in Sierra Leone, caring for orphaned Kenyan babies, providing training for older orphans in Kenya. Their current project is helping the indigenous Quechua communities in Peru. By financing a project over a six month period, Help Every Day will assist these threatened communities with economic developmen...

Next month there are two days to remind us of people who are often forgotten—the homeless. In 2011 there were 636,017 people homeless in America. World Homeless Day is October 10 and World Habitat Day is October 1. In honor of these two days, I am featuring an interview today with Angela Smith. Angela is the author of two books End of Mae and No Money Marketing , and the writer of popular blog Dandilyon Fluff . However, Angela also experienced being homeless on and off for five years from 1986 to 1991. As someone who pulled her way out of homelessness, she is an example of how the system works and how it doesn’t. 1.       How did you become homeless? I became homeless as a runaway at 16.  At first I stayed with random friends but when that hospitality ran out my only choice was to live directly on the street. The first night I was wandering around in the dark confused on what to do next. A carload of teenage guys starte...

It’s time to turn off the computer. Walk outside. Get in your car and go back to nature. I mean it. After you finish reading this blog, you will know the best time to get out there. Haven’t you missed feeling a real breeze on your arms instead of air conditioning? Or the way the trees look against the sky? September is a month of loving the outdoors. Summer starts to cool down and you can get outside. Believe it or not, you can do this for free and help a charity at the same time. Here’s your chance. Next Saturday, September 29 th , is National Public Lands Day . The National Park Service , U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service , U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have all declared it as a fee-free day. You can check the links above to find a wildlife refuge, park or other recreation area you want to visit and make sure it is included. As part of Serve Outside September (S.O.S.) this month the Children and Nature Network (C&NN) will get a buck for ev...

Dear God, I often wonder what you would have me do to help others. It sometimes seems like I can’t help someone who really needs it, for how does that person find me? And even if he did, how could I truly help in the all ways he might need it? Providing food and money only helps with physical needs when spiritual needs can outweigh those. Someone in the grips of despair has emotional needs, too. You say that pure religion is caring for widows and orphans. That lets me know that caring for others is important to you, but I don’t have enough money to support another family. Or do I? One thing that I have found is a way to pool my money with others by sponsoring a child through a group like Compassion International or World Vision. These organizations take the monthly amount I send them and combine it to provide services for many children in one area. The wonderful thing is I’m not just providing for someone financially whom I’ll never know. I can write to my child and hear ...

Those of you who have followed my Working Mother Magazine blog the last couple of years know that I couldn’t get through September without sharing that it’s National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. This designation has only been around a few years, but I’ve written about it the last two because I have a son who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of five. Thanks to a lot of prayer and two surgeries, he has been cancer free for almost six years. I’m thanking God for his remission. His great grandfather died of the kind of cancer with which he was diagnosed. I have been volunteering for the American Cancer Society for over a year now and am also the captain of my church’s Relay for Life team Angels for a Cure.   Although the American Cancer Society is a great organization and I love Relay for Life, there’s another organization that’s dear to my heart because of my son. It’s Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF). Alex is a little girl who was diagnosed with a childho...

Since The Hunger Games movie came out in March, I’ve been featuring in my Today’s Ways to Help how you can fight hunger by taking a quiz from World Food Programme and Feeding America . Last October when I heard that Manna Food Bank , a local food bank in my area, was almost out of food, it didn’t occur to me that Hunger Action Month had been the month before in September. I just wanted to do something to help. Since 11/11/11 occurred last year and it happened to be my birthday, I had planned with another friend who shares that birthday to have a big shindig. We wanted to do something to benefit a worthy charity in lieu of gifts so we collected nonperishable food and money for Manna and another food bank. A couple of days after the party (after we had recovered), we brought the food to one food bank and I mailed a gift card to the other one. It was just a drop in the bucket but I’m sure it helped some people. This year I want to get the word out about Hunger Action Month ...