Service Project

Every good act is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good he does in this world to his fellows. -Moliere

If there was one characteristic that I could just simply give my children, it would be the ability to freely give of themselves in service. However, since charity is something that must be learned, we take every opportunity to encourage our children to have compassion and to let them see us perform various acts of kindness. Whether it is helping someone change a tire, volunteering at Drew's school, donating our extra toys to a charity, or performing acts of physical labor in our community, I feel that they equally show our willingness to serve God rather than ourselves. As our children learn to sacrafice their time and energy in service, I know they will also learn humility, gratitude, kindness, confidence, honesty, and compassion. So, to reaffirm our family's charitable desires, we participated in our church's "Day of Service." It was only a regional event, but 11 states and hundreds of thousands of volunteers participated in providing needed services for their communities (says lds.org). Our group was assigned to clean up a local elementary/middle school. I carried Maddi in the backpack and we raked leaves and pulled weeds, and Sean and Drew cut down overgrowth and hauled it to the road. We had SO MUCH FUN! I hope we can do it again soon because it was so fun to work together with the other families from church and make a difference in our community.