Posts tagged Education
Top 10 Ways to Be Vancouver’s Greenest Family
Apr 15th
Two years ago I committed to “give” every day for one year. I did this to teach my 3 year old son the importance of giving and to inspire people to give more in their lives.
Two years later and only a few new posts after completing our 365give journey my husband and I have adopted two more children. Every moment of my day is now dedicated to giving back to my family.
This week VancouverMom wrote an article that has inspired me to find the time to write again. Along with Earth Day fast approaching- April 22, 2013 – this post is all about giving back to our planet. VancouverMom in partnership with SPUD.ca is looking for Vancouver’s Greenest Family. When you have a large family ( we are 7 plus 2 dogs) you have to consider the carbon footprint you make every day. We make choices in our family on a day to day basis to make a positive impact on the environment. After completing 365 “gives” I came to realization that many of our daily gives were giving back to the planet. We have started to teach our 2 year old many of these green lessons and our 1 year old will soon follow.
365give Top 10 Ways to Give Back to the Planet.
Just follow the link for a full post on each daily give and you too can change the world one day at a time.
1) Day 2: Saving the Planet One Step at a Time
Walk, walk and walk some more. We committed to being a one car family a long time ago. The one car we do have is an eco-friendly car (a 7 seater at that!) and we walk, bus and bike our way around our neighbourhood, to work and to school. This give will help you discover your carbon footprint by using alternative methods of transportation. We saved .52 tons of CO2 by just walking to complete our daily activities instead of driving. What about you?
My Bag and Me is still one of my son’s favourite stories and is fast becoming his younger brothers. This story is about a boy that brings a shopping bag to the grocery store and how it helps the planet one bag at a time. During our year of giving we brought bags with us shopping to Whole Foods. With every bag we bring and fill with groceries Whole Foods donates 10 cents to a local charity. We calculated a donation of over $50.00 that year and we helped the planet one bag at a time. Giving at it’s best!
3) Day 90: Out with the Old in with the New
I have 3 boys and I can only imagine the number of running shoes we will go through in the coming years. Not only have I kept my oldest son’s shoes to reuse for his younger brothers but when they are truly worn out including my own and my husbands we bring them to a Nike Store. Nike’s Reuse a Shoe Program turns old shoes into playing courts for kids to use again and again.
This green give featured a book called How to Reduce your Carbon Footprint: - 365 ways to save energy. I soon realized we were doing many of them. Find the Top 5 every day things my family has implemented including composting, recycling, reusing, energy conservation and more.
5) Day 167: Easy Solution to the Laundry Dilemma
I wish I lived somewhere that I could hang my laundry to dry outside but Vancouver happens to be a very wet place most of the year and my area of town does not allow laundry lines in your yard. I researched what my best alternative may be to do our families laundry as eco-friendly as possible. First step cold water washing and second the Laundry Ball. When you do up to 8 or 10 loads of laundry a week like we do this gadget really makes a difference. Read on how you can do your laundry with a little less guilt.
6) Day 173: Recycle, Reuse, Restore
I have a dirty secret. I like to garbage pick. I don’t mean dumpster diving for food but finding items for free that others have discarded and turning them into something usable. I shop almost exclusively at second hand stores for my children or on the Craigslist. I believe there is so much “stuff” already out there for kids that there is no need to by new all the time. But my true passion is finding an item that someone may have left outside their home with a sign “free” on it. I pick it up and restore it. I have done it again and again with furniture and toys. Just a little elbow grease and maybe a paint job and you have a brand new item. Take a look at the before and after pictures of a toy cabinet I still use to this day. You know the saying “someone else’s garbage is another’s treasure.”
7) Day 195: A Recipe for Giving Back to the Planet this Spring
My son Nicolas Building His Garden
This recipe is simple. It’s called grow your own food. You can do it in pots, in your garden, in your window sill – where every you can in your home. If you need the official recipe follow this give to see the impact growing your own food makes on the environment. If you can teach a child this environmentally friendly practice you will have made an impact on them for their life.
8) Day 208: Give to the Planet and Give to Charity
When you get on a roll to give every day you discover ways that can give not only once but twice in one act. Donating your bottles that can receive a deposit back is one simple and effective way to give. It gives to the planet by recycling and gives to charity by donating them. In one year alone we recycled over $150 worth of bottles, juice boxes, milk cartons and donated the money to charity. Take a look around your neighbourhood and see if their is a charity drop box you can give to.
If you have children in your life there are never enough activities to keep them busy on a rainy day. This idea came to us when I came across the site Be Straw Free. Did you know that over 500 million disposable straws are used every day? Enough to fill 46,400 large school buses a year. My son and I came up with a great way to use straws to create fun art projects. Take a look and see what other ideas you could come up with to reuse straws for creative good.
10) Day 246: Stop and Smell the Flowers:
This is an easy and fun way to teach your children – even at the ripe old age of three – the connection between our planet and keeping it clean. We are in full blossom in Vancouver right now so it’s time to get out and walk with your child. Stop and smell the flowers. While you are there pick up some garbage in your community at the same time. Smelling cherry blossoms and picking up someone’s stray plastic bag will remind you it’s worth keeping our planet clean and healthy.
Our environmentally friendly practices don’t stop here. There are many daily “gives” including water conservation, eating organic foods, saving electricity and more that we do every day. (Day 7, Day 10, Day 25, Day 159, Day 204, Day 222 and more) 365give was a great project for our family to inspire us to give in so many ways and giving back to our planet was one of our favourites. No matter how busy your family is teaching our children the value of being environmentally friendly has to be a priority.
A special thanks to VancouverMom for inspiring me to write about giving back to our planet and reminding our family of how we do give every day.
If you have any ideas you practice in your family please share them with us so we to can bring them into our daily lives.
Day 365: The Final Give: Raising The Roof for a School in Uganda
Oct 16th
It’s Day 365. I did it. I gave back to the world every day for 365 days.
Crack open the bubbly it’s time to celebrate! After a year of giving and blogging the day has finally come to post my final give. It has been quite a journey of learning, hope, compassion, excitement, frustration (being hacked was not the highlight of the year) and pure happiness. When I began the 365give journey there was nothing more I feared than social media. I didn’t know what a blog was, I had never Tweeted or Facebooked and I would have laughed at you if you said I could edit a video for YouTube.
I tackled my fear and the learning curve of social media to accomplish my mission. I wanted to share my giving journey by engaging people all over the world. I wanted to inspire them to give more in their lives. I wanted people from all walks of life to believe they could make a difference and create positive change in the world. You don’t have to be Oprah or Bono to change the world. We can all do it every day by honouring the planet, by being kind to each other, and treating all inhabitants of our planet with dignity.
This is my story, my lessons, the future of 365give and my final give.
Find Your Inspiration
My Inspiration
If you had asked me on Day 1 if I could complete 365 days of giving (and blog about it every day) I would have lied confidently and said absolutely. I had a great source of inspiration. My 3 year old son Nicolas. 365give was started in honour of his 3rd birthday. I wanted to teach Nic to give naturally in his life even at the age of 3. Now after 365 days of giving (in which he completed many of the gives with me) my now 4 year old is a generous, kind child that understands the meaning of giving and how each of us can support each other, animals and the planet.
He inspired me to keep going even on the days I didn’t think I could. How could I ever tell him or the children of the world I wasn’t willing to do everything in my power to make the world a better place for them?
Let your inspiration push you further than you ever thought you were able to go.
What I Learned
Now I have completed 365 days of giving I can tell you what I have learned.
1) You can give every day.
2) You can be the change you want to see in the world.
3) You can influence, motivate, inspire and teach philanthropy by being a leader.
4) Giving makes you happy.
5) Giving makes others happy.
The Greatest Give of a Lifetime
On Day 353 (The #1 Reason to Drop Social Media for a Day) I announced the homecoming of my second son, Tyler Way. It has been my dream since starting 365give to adopt a second child. My son came home on the exact day that 365give should have been completed (due to hacking it was not the case) and on my oldest son Nicolas’s 4th birthday.
Tyler was our second miracle. The greatest “give” a person can every receive -a child. As my social worker likes to remind us, we “won the lottery of babies twice.” Tyler was not a private local adoption nor an international adoption. Tyler was a local little boy that needed a forever family. His life journey started in Foster Care. Did you know there are over 30,000 children right here in Canada that are in need of a forever family? We feel honoured that we have been able to provide 2 children with a forever home.
I wanted Tyler’s adoption into our family to leave a living legacy. I wanted to support just a few of the thousands of children in Africa whom have lost their parents to famine, AIDS and war. I have been given so much in my life through my children I felt a deep desire to give some of that back. This takes me to my final give.
The Final Give: Day 365
I wanted to give something that would truly make an impact for my final give. One of the “every day heroes” I met via 365give is a gentleman by the name of Moses that runs an organization call Hands of Action Uganda. I posted his story on Day 284 and a volunteers story, Marcia Bojold on Day 299. Moses has touch my heart with all he does for the lost children of Uganda. I wanted to make a lasting impact to these children and their education.
Moses wrote to me a few weeks ago and is in desperate need of a new roof for his school. As you can see from the picture what he really needs a new school but his request is just for a new roof.
The cost $360 US. He requires 30 iron sheets to cover the roof at $12.00 a sheet.
On Day 4 of 365give my son and I started a donation jar for the money we would collect by returning every recyclable / refundable bottle we could find. Our estimated total for our returns was to raise $32.50. After 1 year of recycling at the “bottle depot” we exceeded this amount and raised $82.00!
The $82.00 will be the first donation made to get Hands of Action for the new roof of their school.
I am asking you to help me reach the $500 fundraising goal.
Just click on the “GIVE” button on the right side bar and please make a donation. $5.00, $10.00 or any amount would be appreciated. Let’s show the children in the Horn of Africa we care about their education, we care about their future. Let’s give them hope and let them know there are people that care.
What’s Next? Is It All Over?
365give is not over it has only just begun.
The new vision for 365give is under way. It may be a little slower to get up and running based on my new role as a Mom x 2 but it is just the beginning for 365give. Over the course of 365 days of giving I learned so many new ways to give every day. The new 365give will help you discover how easy it can be to be a philanthropist. There are unlimted ways to give all over the world right at your fingertips. You don’t have to have money, you don’t have to have hours of time to volunteer – it can be as simple as a click and your give is done for the day. There is a new philanthropy in the world and 365give will be the place you will be able to find how to embrace it and to give instantly.
While the new site in under construction I will be running a contest that will give you an opportunity to donate $365 to your favourite charity or cause. We will be updating you on world movements, reviewing causes, guest posts, every day hero stories and more.
Follow along to see it all unfold. I am a committed giver big and small for my life time and I look forward to inspiring you to give more in your life.
“Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.”
Time Commitment: 2 minutes for the donation and a commitment to Give for A life Time
Cost: $100 to Hands of Action Uganda
Day 335: What if 50 cents Could Change the World – Period?
Sep 12th
The countdown is on! Exactly 30 days to completing 365 days of giving. I’m excited to be almost finished this journey. With just 30 days left I have some “gives” I really want to complete to help bring awareness to organizations that truly deserve it. Today is one of those days. 50cents.Period.
Day 335: Give 335
I could put a warning on this post saying it’s for women only but everyone needs to understand the challenges women go through all over the world each month when they get their menstruation. Yes, their period. Shhhh – don’t say it to loud someone may hear you!
All over the world the word “period” has been made into a bad word. As young girls we are taught to suck it up, take some Midol and just pretend it’s not happening. It’s not discussed in mixed company. It’s meant for a girl chat only. In many places around the world companies have given us every luxury to help keep the “situation” under control each month.
What if you lived in a rural place in the world where buying tampons or pads (other words we don’t say out loud!) was not as easy as popping down to a 7eleven when you weren’t prepared. What if getting the basic protection needed was not available or even worse – not affordable.
How would you function each and every month?
- Would you miss work?
- Would you miss a date?
- Would you miss school?
Girls around the world miss school for this exact reason. One week every month because they don’t have the protection they need to sit on a classroom. If there is one thing I have learned over the last 335 days it is this. Educate all the women of the world and there will be a dramatic positive change.
Should getting your period hold women back from the education that could help “be the change we want to see in the world?”
50cents.Period. founded by the Women in Red are a group of dedicated women that believe “girls must not have their educations and life opportunities curtailed
because of their inability to have access to these fundamental supplies.”
How can you help? 50cents goes a long way in India. “50 cents buys a month of sanitary supplies and an uninterrupted education.”
- $5 sponsors 10 girls for one month
- $10 sponsors 20 girls for one month
- $25 provides supplies for 50 girls for one month
- $50 sponsors a rural High School, averaging 100 girl students for one month
- $600 provides sanitary supplies for one school for an entire year
- $1,000 will build a basic toilet
Could you imagine your child not having a toilet at their school? I don’t have an extra $1000 I can donate today to build a toilet but I can do something. I made a donation today that will make an impact. Do you have $5.00 or $10.00 you can donate? From the facts above you know what an impact it will make to another women in the world.
Time Commitment: 1 minute to online donate
Cost: $10.00
What Are you Saying?