#4 Be The Match

I was having kind of a blah day when B, E, and I went for a walk. I was so excited when we got back and I had my Be The Match kit waiting for me!!!

Be The Match is a National Marrow Donor Program. Since I'm doing my thirty good deeds, I thought I would sign up to possibly save a life through either Peripheral Blood Stem Cell (PBSC) donation or marrow donation.

If you are not signed up and you meet the health qualifications, you should sign up! I'm sure there is nothing more satisfying than having saved a life. For more information on Be The Match, go to bethematch.org or call 800-654-1247. It only takes a few minutes to sign up!

#3 Warm Coats & Warm Hearts

One thing I've realized is that I'm lucky enough to live in a city where a lot of volunteer opportunities are laid out for me in calendar that I just go to the day that I have available and pick something that sounds interesting.  Thank God for Hands On Nashville.  BUT...I know that not everyone is fortunate enough to have opportunities this readily available so I'm going to try and do some projects that anyone, anywhere can do.  Today, that is taking part in the Warm Coats & Warm Hearts Coat Drive put on by Burlington Coat Factory and Good Morning America.

"This annual collaboration is part of an ongoing effort to ensure no individual goes without a warm coat during the cold winter months. Each year the Warm Coats & Warm Hearts Coat Drive relies on the generosity and compassion of our customers across the country. In partnership with ABC's Good Morning America and the national non-profit organization One Warm Coat, Burlington collects gently-worn coats in all its store locations and works with local One Warm Coat agencies to distribute the coats to those most in need within the community. Now in its sixth year, the coat drive has collected well over 1MM coats! Thanks to all those that continue to donate to help spread the gift of warmth!

To learn more about One Warm Coat and to learn how you can be a participating agency, please visit www.onewarmcoat.org."

Here is a video from GMA about this event and really, can anyone else not get enough of George Stephanopoulos???  I LOVE him!

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/gma-coat-drive-burlington-coat-drives-big-gift-17760429 

I believe that today is the last day for this event, but you can always keep it in mind for next year.  If you don't have a Burlington Coat Factory, there are always other sorts of coat drives going on.  You may just need to do a little research about your area, but the child or adult who will be warm through the cold winter months will be forever grateful that you took the few minutes to look up a location and took the time to drop it off.  My challenge to you:  Go through your coat closet (or regular closet, for that matter) and see what you can donate to make someone else's day bright!

#2 Energy Saving Tree Planting

With 30 different kind deeds to do, I'd like to try new things that I normally wouldn't participate in.  Yesterday was just such an opportunity.  I worked with Hands On Nashville and Sound Forest and, you guessed it, planted trees!  Here is a little information about what this organization does from the details email I received.

"..plant strategically placed trees in low-income neighborhoods to shade homes from the setting sun and AC units. By keeping direct sunlight off the AC units and homes during the summer, homes stays more temperate, reducing energy costs for homeowners. By shading an AC from direct sunlight, there is an estimated 10% utility bill savings during the warmest months of the year (a home with a $150 monthly bill will save $90 every year)."

Sounds awesome, right?!  Summers in the south border on miserable with the heat and high humidity.  Anything to help with lowering energy costs sounds pretty alright by me!

                                                                           The trees


When I showed up at the starting work site, I joined a small group while one of the team leaders was being interviewed by some students from Vanderbilt.  In this interview, I learned more about what this project does as far as what I quoted above about shading the AC units.  I also learned about the kind of trees they use for various shading.  I was surprised by how many fruit trees we would be planting.  Not only do we help these people with their air conditioning costs, but we are giving them a food source as well.  In the few minutes it takes to plant a tree, our efforts would continually be appreciated for years to come.  So cool!

                                                         A tree planting demonstration

Getting ready to plant this bugger!

Our fantastic group!

                                                                 
I feel very honored to say that I was a part of the first group to get to do this new type of volunteer service in Nashville.  When I signed up, I did not know that they had never done this before.  Even though this was the first time, it was well planned out.  The houses, the planting spots, and even the types of trees for each house were already laid out ahead of time so we could hit as many houses as possible.  There were two teams and each team hit around six houses and planted at least three trees at each house.  I was with one of the project leaders (random fact: his wife is from Idaho!!!) so we often planted extra trees at the houses because we had so many extras.  We even planted two memorial trees for one household's recent loss of a dog and cat.  It was really nice to see how appreciative the homeowners were once their trees were planted.  I love thinking about how a tree that I helped plant can be giving people shade long after I'm dead and gone.

After a busy day of labor, we were welcomed back at the original tree planting site with some much needed pizza.  After scarfing down my three slices, I said my thank yous and good byes.  I drove away hoping that I have another opportunity to help in this way again.

                                           I got to ride around town in the back of a truck!


If you live in the Nashville area and are interested in helping in this type of service, sign up through Hands On Nashville at http://www.hon.org/HOC__Affiliate_Home_Page .  If you are interested in learning more or helping with Sound Forest go here:  www.soundforest.org

There are a lot of cool things going on with these organizations.  Look 'em up and figure out how you can help today! 

#1 LP PENCIL Box

So today was my first day volunteering or doing something to help others with this blog in mind.  If you didn't read the introduction, I am planning on doing thirty good deeds or volunteer things by my thirtieth birthday which is in November.  I figured that there is no better way to show my appreciation for each year of my life than by helping others.  For my first volunteer service, I helped out at LP PENCIL Box.

 Here is a little bit about LP PENCIL Box from the flyer that the wonderful woman in charge, Kim Washington gave me:

"LP PENCIL Box is a free school supply store for educators, providing learning materials for economically disadvantaged students in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools.  LPPB is supported in part by the LP Foundation, the charitable arm of LP Building Products, and is largely dependent on donations from businesses and individuals in the Nashville community.  With Nashville's support, over $2.7 million in school supplies have reached students in the program's inception in 2005."

How It Works

The teachers have already signed up before they get there so our job was to check them in by finding their name on a list and checking their school badge for confirmation of identity.  We then would explain the system to them if they had not shopped with LP PENCIL Box before.  Each teacher was given a clip board with a piece of paper listing all of the items in the store and the limit for each item. The teacher then picks out what they want while marking it on the clip board along with how many of each item.  The store is divided up into two rooms (blue and green) and the maximum items from each room that a teacher can take is 40.  Of course, there are limits to each individual item.  When they were through shopping, they brought everything up to the front where we checked off each item for inventory reasons and they were sent on their way to make good use of their haul for the day. :)
Now, being a teacher myself, I can't tell you how appreciative I am that a program like this exists.  There have been numerous times that I bought school supplies out of my own, poor-teacher-salary makin' pocket because I always seemed to need more stuff and didn't feel right about getting them supplied to me from the school that I knew was also struggling with having enough school supplies. Even though I'm taking time off from teaching to focus on motherhood, it warms my heart to know that there are people who recognize the hard work that teachers put forth and have found a way to bless them.

So now, about my day.  :)

My shift was from 9 am until 12:30 pm at the McCann Alternative Center in West Nashville.  It was a nice, rainy morning so I wasn't sure if too many people would show up, teachers or volunteers.  I was immediately welcomed with friendly smiles that looked to really appreciate having a new volunteer face.  I made a name tag for myself and explored the store.  It was so awesome to see the baskets full of different items that I knew had been donated by charitable people and companies.  There were six of us working the morning shift and we took turns checking teachers in, checking teachers out, bagging items, helping teacher load things into their cars, and restocking the shelves.  It was fun to do the different jobs throughout the morning.

It was a good group of people and the time really flew by.  I am so thankful to have had that opportunity and thankful that Kim was okay with me writing about it in my blog.  If this type of volunteer service interests you and you live in the Nashville area, go to www.pencilfoundation.org to learn more and sign up to volunteer today!  You will enjoy the experience of helping others, I promise!