Ronald McDonald House

 Some friends and I made a special "Princess Dinner" for the residents at The Ronald McDonald House. It was a wonderful night doing some magical service with some very dear friends!

4-H Service

 For 4-H Audra, Claire, and I went to the Promise Ranch to do some service. Our first task was to build garden boxes. We (meaning the three of us, nobody else knew we were doing this) treated it like The Amazing Race- working together to fulfill the task and beat the other teams. Well, if it was The Amazing Race- we would have won! We followed the directions whereas others didn't, so we were able to complete the task quickly and without issue. It was great.

But, I did admit that I would have actually being on The Amazing Race and do tasks like this day in and day out. It's exhausting!

Refugee Warehouse Celebration!

 From January through March I had the privilege of volunteering every Monday with JustServe at a warehouse in Aurora, organizing furniture and household items for Afghan refugees.

We partnered with the State of Colorado, Colorado Afghan Resettlement Agency, Team Rubicon, Volunteers of America, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Just Serve, FEMA, Lutheran Family Services, Project Worthmore, AmeriCorps NCCC, Lutheran Family Services, and the International Rescue Committee.

Together, we helped 172 Afghan families move into their new lives and future free from war- yet forever scarred by the past.

Today we celebrated the end of our mission.

It was an honor to work with these groups and be a part of the miracles of helping these families.

The refugee stories are horrifying.

And yet, being surrounded by people with humanitarian hearts gives me life. It fills my soul in every way.

The world is filled with wickedness. And yet, there is light. And the light shines from every act of good. From every act to build bridges. To not believe the hate, the vitriol, the prejudices, and the lies. To know we are all part of something greater- a part of humanity. And we can each make a difference, and when we work together, we can literally change the world.

Yes, there is darkness. But I shout from the rooftops- there is also light! May we each do our part to shine.

It was fun to see the NCCC. It reminded me of my NCCC days- that was truly one of the best years of my life. It's awesome to see the program continue. If all youth were required to serve their country for a year- either through military or civic service- this world would be a much better place.

Raising $$ for Ukraine

 My girls are pretty great.

They have been wanting to do something to help Ukraine. We decided they could make and sale Ukrainian flags.

I bought the fabric, and they started sewing. And my friends started buying. All told, they sold 5 large flags and 10 garden sized flags and raised $275. The money will be donated to Ukrainian Families of Colorado- a local group that is trying to raise $100,000 to send medical supplies to the border and into the country of Ukraine. We decided we wanted to help a local organization, and this is a great group.

(The first ones we made were the wrong colors. Thanks, Google. But we eventually got it right. Now I have 10 yards of blue and gold fabric I don't know what to do with. Oh, well.)

Refugee Warehouse

 A month ago an e-mail came out to our stake asking for volunteers to work at a warehouse out in Aurora (about 30 minutes away) to help inventory and sort supplies for Afghan refugees.

As soon as I read the e-mail, I knew this was what I needed to do. I have been praying for years for an opportunity like this- to feel needed and useful in helping an underserved and hurting population, while not sacrificing my family.

I started last week. My shift is every Monday from 9-12 for the next 6 months.

I LOVE it! I cannot even tell you how much I love it! If I could stay there all day every day I would! But, in reality, this is a perfect balance for our family right now.

Yesterday we had a huge order come in. The LDS Church has donated $35,000 to each of three refugee resettlement organizations, and. we got 40 beds and mattresses delivered to inventory and organize. It's pretty awesome to see. It's just a drop in the bucket for how big of a need there is, but it's still awesome to be a part of.

Crawford Service

 I love getting my kids involved in community service. I love service, but when I can get the kids involved- it's even better. Audra couldn't go as she was in school, but this was a big homeschool win.

This year we helped with a holiday shop. This was for the students at a very low income school who could come and "shop" for donated gifts that were collected to give to their grown-ups in their house.

We got to go help set up the shop and then help the kids shop and wrap the gifts for them.

Claire and Camille were awesome helpers! They helped bundle gifts to make them more full and pretty for the kids. They had a lot of fun and want to do it again next year.

They wrapped all of these mugs with cookie mixes:

Here's what the ladies side of the gifts looked like:

chr

Trying To Spread Joy

We have been earnestly trying to find ways to do service. It's tough during a pandemic, but I believe now more than ever we need to find ways to make a positive impact.

We made pumpkin spice cupcakes for The Shiloh House (a home for the most high risk foster kids), we used sidewalk chalk

We went to the middle school where Audra does band and side walk chalked all kinds of thank yous to try and boost morale. The stress of teachers is impossible right now, so we hope it helped them feel loved and appreciated.

And, we went and collected food at a drop off site for Feeding the 5,000. In years past we would go outside a grocery store and collect food, but that isn't an option this year. Only 3 cars came to drop off food in the hour and a half we were there, so that was a little disappointing.

10 Days of Loving Thy Neighbor

With so much anger and anxiety everywhere, I decided to start a group called 10 Days of Loving Thy Neighbor-  where we would commit to one day of service for 10 days starting November 4th, the day after the election- when 50% of the country would wake up disappointed.

Today, Audra and I went and used sidewalk chalk to write inspirational messages along our jogging route.

We have over 130 people from all across the country in our group. It is pretty cool to see!

You can't see it, but it says, "Let your smile change the world, but don't let the world change your smile."

Ben and I went on a walk later in the day and we saw lots of people stopping to read the quotes. Hopefully it made some people smile on a really, really hard day.

Service Cupcakes!

I was so happy yesterday to get an e-mail from Kathy at The Shiloh House asking if I could make some cupcakes for a 16 year old foster child who was celebrating a Birthday today, but was in isolation because of Covid and was feeling really depressed.

What a great opportunity for service! Which is so great because we haven't been able to do a lot of service with Covid. Kathy said that this young lady loves Reese's PB Cups, so I looked up a recipe and found a great recipe with peanut butter frosting. I enlisted Claire since she is doing foods for 4H fair.

They turned out fabulous!!!!! So beautiful and so delicious! Of course we had to taste them. YUM!!!

Caroling

A group of kids from church went to a local nursing home to go singing. It was a great and easy opportunity to do some service.

9,000 Granola Bars

For the past 5 years, our family has helped an organization called Be About Bliss. It is a wonderful non-profit started by a woman in our congregation. We make winter food kits for children in need to take home 2 weeks worth of food over winter break so they don't go hungry. It started out as 300 bags. This year, it was 1,550!

Our family was the granola bar stewards. That means we collected and stored about 9,000 granola bars in our house. Just so you know, that is A LOT of granola bars!

Tonight was the packing party. Phew. We had to bring all the granola bars over to the church. Then, we manned the granola bar station. This was the first time we have manned a station. Wow- it was intense! The girls were total rock stars! They had to put 6 bars into each bag, and the bags came FAST! Far faster than I expected. It was non stop for 2 hours.

Things aren't over yet. On Tuesday I need to go pick up lots of fruit, 1,550 pieces of fruit to be exact. And then on Wednesday we deliver all the food.

I am in charge of our ward diaper drive and sort for our ward Christmas party tomorrow night, but after Wednesday I am officially calling it quits and spending the rest of the month relaxing and enjoying cheesy Hallmark movies with the girls!

This is 1,000 boxes of cereal- wow!

Rice and beans:

Claire's dear friend Hannah came and helped which made Claire VERY happy!

Now I'm tired! We should all sleep very well tonight!

Be About Bliss

I volunteer with an organization called Be About Bliss. A woman in my ward started it, and we provide winter food kids to children in need over winter break. It's a great organization, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

So, I dragged the kids to our local grocery store to help collect food. They are AWESOME at this!

I told them if they got 50 "noes" then I would buy them smoothies from Jamba Juice. They were VERY motivated! They were so cute, and at the end of two hours they earned 99 "noes." Of course, in the process, they also got a ton of "yes'". In fact, the head of Be About Bliss said they are the BEST at this and will gladly give them whatever they want to come back and do it again.

Audra even got a $100 bill from somebody! She thought he was joking, and then he gave it to her. It was pretty incredible.

My major role in this is to collect 9,000 granola bars! Yikes- that is A LOT of granola bars in case you didn't know!

We hope to make 1,500 food kids for kids in need. It is always really awesome how it all comes together.

Project Linus Quilt

We FINALLY finished the Christmas quilt that Audra and Claire have been working on for the past several months, and it has not officially been turned into Project Linus. They did a great job on it!

Big Serve

After what can only be described as a horrific week, going to St. Andrew's and participating in Big Serve was a healing balm. As is often the case, service is therapeutic.

Margaret Meade: "Never doubt that a small group of citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

We sorted diapers for the Rocky Mountain Diaper Depot and then made some cards for various charities.

My favorite quote: "Nothing is impossible. The word itself says 'I'm possible.'" -Audrey Hepburn