Saturday, November 8, 2008

Whew, that was fun!

In August our church started the $eed2Harvest campaign. I was in the initial meeting when this was planned and was so excited to see it was approved.

Here is how it worked at our church.

Every person over the age of 6 in each family receives $2. Our family had $8. The goal was to use the money over a few months to earn more money. Then turn the money back in on November 16th.

We planted the seed in August, reap the harvest in November.

After a bit of family discussion, the boys decided to put me in charge, they would help. I did what anyone would do with money, I shopped.

We found spongebob temporary tattoos on a cute tape dispenser for .24 each. I sold them on ebay for anywhere from $1.99 to $5.20 each.

We found adorable Halloween bibs (in early September) from .12 to .26 each and sold them on ebay and at church for about $1.00 a piece.

Overall we made $50 out of our $8. Maybe that would have been good enough, but I had another idea.

When we first joined the church, the preschool teachers would offer a Parents' Night Out once a month. You could drop off the kids on Friday night, pick them up a few hours later. The last one was held 3 years ago....until last night.

We made signs, bought snacks, planned crafts, solicited youth volunteers, bought pizza for the youth for dinner. We spent the $50 to prepare for the Parents' Night Out. We had 15 kids from 8 families sign up.

The kids had a great time; they made turkey handprints, an all about me book, they watched Veggie Tales, had playtime and ate lots of goldfish and popcorn.

The youth helpers were great; they were each assigned a couple of kids to help with the projects, they helped straighten up, they also watched Veggie Tales and had snack!

Our $8:

Sent temporary tattoos and bibs across the United States

Sent 8 mommys and daddys out to dinner

Brought together 8 youth helpers on a Friday night

Allowed our two older boys to feel the reward of being youth helpers for a night

Enabled Ben and I to have that "we did a good thing" feeling

Oh and of course, our $8 turned into $178.


I think this "we did a good thing" feeling is going to last a while.

6 comments:

Susi said...

WOW, great job! I'm embarassed to say I'm just selling my home-made bread...

Anonymous said...

Wow! Awesome!

And I like your new look here!

4funboys said...

what a great idea!!!

a lesson your boys won't soon forger.

Unknown said...

You're just like Oprah! ; )

Seriously, what a wonderful idea and thing you did!! And yes, that feeling should certainly last for a while!

Amy W said...

That is amazing! Good for you and your family for putting in the effort and really teaching the meaning of altruism to your kids.

Tammy said...

Wow great job!!!!!