Donuts for a Difference

We love the Freestore Foodbank and tomorrow is the Hunger Walk! We talked about running it, trained for 3 days and decided walking is fine by us. Jack still says he wants to run...


Nicholas and Jack decided to have a donut sale to raise money for the hungry in Cincinnati and to make the deal even sweeter, we made the donuts ourselves.


Here are the boys at 7:00 this morning.

And our first batch into the oven (Double Chocolate Glazed)

We asked our neighbors to place orders earlier this week and eight different families participated! We made three different kinds.

Double Chocolate Glazed. The recipe can be found here.  

Maple Bacon. The recipe can be found here.

Vanilla Glazed. The recipe can be found here.

Then the boys went with their daddy and delivered them door-to-door.  

We raised $139 for the Freestore Foodbank! That is over 400 meals for those who are hungry right here in Cincinnati. Wow! Thanks to everyone who participated AND those who wanted donuts but were to far away for our donut delivery services!

Jack's Reflection: I loved it!My favorite part was delivering the donuts. Because I get to see knew people that I never ever get to see. Because the hungry gets more food than they usually do! My favorite donut flavor was the chocolate chocolate.

Nicholas' Reflction: It was cool because we got to help the poor and we gave other people breakfast. I'm happy to help the Freestore Foodbank. My favorite donut was vanilla.

We are all excited to do the Hunger Walk tomorrow!

Day of Service

Before Nicholas and Jack talk about their experiences volunteering for the Freestore Foodbank I want to share with you a couple of startling statistics.  In the area served by the Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati, Ohio there are over 92,600 children who are food insecure, meaning they don't know where their next meal will be coming from. That is 21% of the area's kids or 1 out of 5.  The Freestore Foodbank provides a program called Power Packs which provides 4500 children with food to tie them over from Friday after school to Monday morning.

Over the Christmas break they participated in Holiday Opps. Today we did the Day of Service in conjunction with Martin Luther King, Jr Day by participating in the 6th Annual Pack-a-thon on Fountain Square.

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?” -Martin Luther King, Jr.







Nicholas:

What did you do on your Martin Luther King Jr Day off from school? I  volunteered for the Freestore Foodbank.

Why do you like to volunteer for the Freestore Foodbank?
Because I can help other people by giving them food.

What does the Freestore Foodbank do for kids?
Today we helped them so that they had food on the weekends.

If you could do any type of volunteering what would you do?
I would help other people by giving shoes to kids who don't have any.





Jack:

What did you do at the Pack-a-thon today?
I helped people have more food so they can live and survive longer.

What was your favorite part?
I don't know, everything was my favorite.

What was your least favorite part?
Breaking the cardboard box.

What do you think Martin Luther King Jr would think about the work that you did today?
Very good and (he would be) proud.



 
Special thank you to Panera Bread for the coffee, hot chocolate and "sweet treats" after all of our hard work! AND Aunt Korie for the super fun company and all of HER hard work.

Earth Month!

This month Nicholas and Jack participated in a number of activities related to their last challenge.

At the beginning of the month Nicholas, Jack and Joshua walked in the opening day parade supporting Keep Cincinnati Beautiful. It was freezing but they had a great time. I'm glad it was at the beginning of the month though!

 

Nicholas walked the entire route and overcame some anxiety he has about crowds. So, we supported a good cause and did a little self improvement at the same time.

 

Nicholas wanted to clean up his school yard as a part of Great American Clean-Up. He had told me that there was trash on the play ground (in particular cigarette butts) and he wanted to help clean it up.  So his principal put us in touch with a 5th grade teacher with the same idea in mind and we began to plan. I have to give a lot of credit to Mrs. Brackman who gave Nicholas the opportunity to feel that even as a Kindergartner his ideas are valuable and that he could be a servant leader.

 

We planned to have the clean-up on Wednesday but due to rain it was switched to Friday. Each Kindergartner was paired up for a fifth grader and they set out to clean up outside the school. Below are some pictures Mrs. Brackman was so kind to share. Gigi (Nicholas' Great Grandma was able to come volunteer)

 

 

Stay tuned for the next challenge!

 

 

 

 

Jack LOVES Germany

Jack looooooves Germany. He loves everything about Germany. He loves people from Germany, he loves talking about Germany. Jack pretends he is in Germany or flying in a plane to Germany or riding in a boat to Germany or even driving to Germany (that one is always interesting)

 

Jack says in Germany all of the people are nice, the food  is delicious (only candy and chips? because that is all he wants to eat). It never rains in Germany it always smells great and there is always music playing.

 

 

Jack loves that his Nana lives in Germantown (Ohio that is) but one day he is going to live in Germany. His aunt Korie has a friend who is a German exchange student and they came over to babysit last week. Jack stayed up the entire time she was here and then talked about her the entire day.

 

I don't know how we got 5 views on this blog from someone from Germany. If you are in Germany and reading this blog (or know someone in Germany who you can share with this blog), please leave a comment for Jack. The only thing that would excite him more would be a message from a cowboy. So if your a German cowboy that's even better.

Sign Your School Up for the Great American Clean Up!

Dare #3 is to Stop Litter and Clean-up Your Neighborhood. 

 

You can do this no matter where you live. You can plan your own event, or join another event at Keep America Beautiful. If you live in Cincinnati you can join an event at Keep Cincinnati Beautiful.  If you talk to your teachers or your school you can plan your own event.

 

If you participate in an event, send us a picture so we can include you on the blog! Each picture you send is worth 100 points!!!!

 

Stay tuned for another really fun mini dare that will be coming soon to STOP LITTER!

Dare #3 is Here!!!!!

Today we decided to present Dare #3 and we tried our hand at a little video production.

 

More to come!

World Peace isn't Easy

Mommy here:

This last challenge was a little bit harder to keep up with. We did thank our cousins for their service in the armed forces and we have been trying to focus on doing nice things without being asked. We had mentioned to each of their schools that they might do a program or little talk on bullying but I don't think it was ever done. So I think we will move on.

I wanted to take a minute to mention how proud I am of all three of my sons. Joshie is doing all of the important 1 year old things but Jack and Nicholas are turning into exceptional young men. We recently moved into a new home and in what I would think has been a time of chaos, they have  done remarkably well.

Over the past 4 weeks I would say no less than once a week is someone telling me something amazing about my boys. "Jack is such a good helper, always listens and participates" or "Nicholas is so mature for his age, very well behaved". I think as parents sometimes we can see our children as one extreme or the other. I am blessed to be reminded that mine are good boys.

Riding in the car on the way to school the other day we were listening to EWTN Radio and it was mentioned that there was a bombing in Syria where 141 people were killed and 71 of them were children. I usually avoid these reports, turn them down and dismiss questions (right or wrong, this is my approach). Nicholas heard the report and says "Mom, did you hear that 71 Children died?". I swallowed hard and said "I did, but you know that was far away from here and we don't have to worry about that" His response was, "I know that, but 71 is almost 100 children. We should pray for them" I agreed and HE then proceeded to silently pray for the 71 children, who he did not know, somewhere far away, who had died. 

I learned something from my five year old in those moments (as I often do, driving in the car with them), I learned that my fears and my anxiety are not his and that I shouldn't anticipate that they will be. I automatically thought this report would scare him and I pushed onto him my coping mechanism of reminding myself that these things happen somewhere far away and don't concern us. How quickly he reminded me that the hurt and suffering of all people is very much a universal Christian concern and that prayer and compassion are the little ways we can make a difference when there is nothing else we can do.