Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Ever feel helpless? When a friend is very sick, you may feel like there’s nothing you can do. It’s not true. You can always pray for someone and prayer can change things. There’s another thing you can do. Get some help for your friend. Recently, a friend of mine was sick. She was self aware enough to know she’d have trouble cooking so she asked me to have some of our friends make her some meals. I did so gladly. Thank God it was just a temporary illness and she was back on her feet in a few weeks. Sometimes that’s not the case. In those cases, there’s a lot to do. Take your friend to the doctor, help with laundry and housecleaning, watch the kids while she rests or is at the doctor, give her primary caregiver a break. The list goes on. So, how do you coordinate what needs to be done with the people who can do it? You can spend all your time on the phone calling and setting things up. Or, you can use Lotsa Helping Hands . What is Lotsa Helping Hands? An online service...

How do you get thousands of students to raise $37 million and volunteer over nine and a half million hours to change the world? Ask Craig and Marc Kielburger. They’ve done it and it’s called We Day . We Day is a one day stadium-sized event that brings charities and inspiring speakers together for thousands of kids who have already spent a year making a difference. Craig and Marc have shared the We Day stage with change-makers such as Al Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev, Magic Johnson, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Larry King. This 2013-14 We Day season, there are 100,000 youth attending We Day events and 5.4 million people watching via broadcast. The Canadian brothers started the We Day movement that has done all of this six years ago but Craig founded their nonprofit Free the Children when he was 12. Free the Children “ has worked in over 45 countries since its inception, and has built more than 650 schools and school rooms in developing regions.” Along the way, Craig and Mark also star...

Photo from FreeDigitalPhotos.net This summer our life changed again. Our son has had ADHD his whole life and has been in therapy and received treatment for it for about six years. Two years ago, we had him tested again because his therapist said she thought there might be something more going on. Two years and many tests later, we found out she was right. Now as I see the hints of this new diagnosis all around, I wonder why it took so long to figure it out.   Part of it was that the person who tested him at first got him at a very low time in his life and she saw that instead of truly seeing him. When she came back to us with her results and said he didn’t even have ADHD, we were shocked. It didn’t make any sense. His teachers had pointed out his problems with concentration, control, and so on since kindergarten. It seemed impossible that everyone who had ever been around him for long was wrong.   We had to get a second opinion. Our son’s current doctor told ...

It’s just a simple little test. That’s what they all say, right?   This one could help save you and you don't have to give blood for it. Answer some questions about weight, age, family history and some other risk factors. Risk factors for what? Diabetes.   According to the American Diabetes Association, the number of Americans with diagnosed diabetes is projected to increase 165%, from 11 million in 2000 to 29 million in 2050. According to the Centers for Disease Control, o ne in 10 U.S. adults has the disease now but that could grow to 1 in 3 in the next 40 years. The disease also presents serious threats to health, including increased risk of heart attack, kidney failure, blindness and many other complications. With so many Americans overweight and obese, the number of people with Type II Diabetes keeps growing. Tuesday, March 25, you can find out if you might be one of them one day and at the same time, $5 will go to the American Diabetes Association w...

There’s a new way to do Lent, not give something up but add something new. I heard about it from Karen Ehman of Proverbs 31 ministries . I had decided this year to add a new morning and evening prayer for the 40 days of Lent and then I heard of Karen Ehman’s idea of Reverse Lent. Ehman suggests doing one of five things: 1.        Writing a note each day to tell someone thank you or share a memory. 2.       Call someone each day to tell him or her you’re glad he or she is in your life. 3.       Do something to lighten someone else’s load. Help a family member, friend or coworker by doing a chore that is usually theirs. 4.       Help a stranger. 5.       Serve someone who usually serves you, like the postman, a teacher or pastor.   I think it’s a great idea! Everyone is talking about what they’re giving up and I absolutely ...

Yesterday, I started calling businesses in the area asking for donations. This month is American Red Cross month and next month is Volunteer Appreciation month. So, since I have been helping the Red Cross with their volunteers, I offered to get some goodies to give to them next month! About 96 percent of the services the Red Cross provides are done by volunteers. At our local Red Cross of Northwest Florida which covers four counties, that means just seven people are employed by the Red Cross. Everyone else is a volunteer. That’s awesome! All those people come together to help others at a moment’s notice in their time of need during a disaster.   The mission of the Red Cross is to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors. It completes its mission well with the help of more than 13 million active volunteers. I want to give a shout out to Olive Garden and Red Lobster who immed...

February is a short but love-filled month. It’s a month when we think of others for various reasons, be it the Random Acts of Kindness week or Valentine’s Day. It also needs to be a month that we think about our own hearts. As the proverb goes, “guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Selfish, you might say, but important and not just in a spiritual way. According to the Centers for Disease Control, cardiovascular disease—including heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure—is the number 1 killer of women and men in the United States. It is a leading cause of disability, preventing Americans from working and enjoying family activities according to the American Heart Association. Million Hearts® is a national initiative to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes by 2017. If you’re not sure of the state of your heart, there are some ways to find out. Million Hearts ® has a Heart Attack Risk Calculator, A My Life Check and Heart 360 which helps you tr...