Charity begins at home
That is a lesson we want to teach our children everyday.
What does that mean exactly?
Does it mean that I take care of my family needs first and foremost, above all else?
No. Taking care of my family is a given not an added burden.
Is giving to charity (whether that be financial support or volunteering or social support) a chore?
Not in this house. Not in this family. Not for this mom.
My husband and I believe understanding charity does begins at home. We, as parents, need to be role models in our own lives to set an example. Both Paul and I have always volunteered our time and donated to worthy cause that are true to our heart. I have brought up our children as my parents brought me up: being respectful and taking the needs of others into account – always. Growing up, we never had too much, we never lived in excess but we also never forgot that we lived in a world of more and that others had less. Charity always began at home whether it was an offer of alms on Sunday at church, donating to St. Vincent de Paul Society or the local food bank. We were taught: there was always room to give to others.
Today is Giving Tuesday. This commemorative day comes after the craziness (or excess) of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Its a time to stop thinking about what you want and start thinking about what you can give. Its a way of taking back the consumerism that is the holiday season. It focuses on being generous with your donations and your time.
It’s important to say that giving back does not always mean shelling out money from your own pocket. Maybe it means hosting a bake sale, holding a car wash or volunteering your time. GIVING TUESDAY is a great opportunity to consider other options that you and your children might have to give back to your community. Marc and Craig Kielburger, the founders of Free the Children wrote an excellent blog post on the importance of Giving Tuesday with the goal of getting more youth involved in selfless acts.
A couple of weeks ago, I was invited by TELUS to attend WeDay in Waterloo. WeDay is a full day event to help motivate, congratulate and empower our youth to take action, give back and consider that change is in their hands. Students are asked to take on benevolent tasks that will help them ‘act locally and think globally’. These students all deserve a big round of applause as they had to earn their way to WeDay by becoming agents of change (<— my daughter’s video from WeDay 2013). The impact that Me to We and WeDay has had on our youth is tremendous. Since 2007, students have logged 14.6 million volunteer hours. with 5.6 million pounds of food collected and over $45 million raised for more than 1,000 local and global initiatives.
Me to We’s can explains its mission simply:
We are an international charity and educational partner, working both domestically and internationally to empower and enable youth to be agents of change.
By shifting the world from “me” mentality to “we” mindset this organization is redefining what it means to give back and how to build relationships powerful enough to change lives. That impact resonates with our family as our eldest decided to study International Development and Globalization after attending a Free the Children trip to help build a high school in Ecuador. All of this came about because of her involvement with her school’s social justice group and their initiatives throughout the year to earn their spot at We Day in Toronto. That is the kind of impact you want to have on your children.
We Day is only possible because of the generous partnership with large corporations like Blackberry, RBC and TELUS. Last year Me to We introduced an app with the help of TELUS that would help students track their acts of kindness, volunteer hours and provide a platform where like minded kids are able to connect and encourage each other. The We365 app is available on iTunes and the Google Store (for Android). Its as easy as downloading it to your smartphone, registering yourself and getting started. With every download of the app TELUS will donate $5 to support WeDay and education programs.
Using the We365 App
To get started you need to register your name, email address and upload a picture (optional).
Choose the Causes that you are passionate about and want to get involve with. I choose Global Poverty, Happiness, Community, Human Rights and It All Adds Up. You can also work on cause that focus on the environment, bullying, education and animals. You can pick however many causes you want to get involved with. Maybe this year you will focus on three and next year you will focus on different three. You have the option of choosing.
Once you have decided on a cause that you are passionate about, you can see if there are any challenges that might interest you. You can participate on a challenge for a day, a week or a full year. They vary from random acts of kindness to full on volunteering for a day. I also decided to put out a challenge of my own. On Giving Tuesday, I asked that assemble any clothing, toys or books that you no longer use or need and then donate them to the Goodwill.
Below you can see the Giving Tuesday Challenge that I posted on the We365 app.
Setting up a Challenge
- Name Your Challenge
- State what you are challenging other to do
- Tell People why you want them to do this challenge (fundraise, create awareness, donate)
The We365 App will then:
- Let you know how many people accepted the challenge
- How many liked the challenge
- Let you comment on the challenge
- Share the challenge with other We365ers within the app
- Reap the rewards of reaching out to your community to get them involved
- Share your challenge on social media to create greater awareness
You can see below other challenges that have been placed by others as well as We365. “Let’s move from the ‘selfie’ gen to the Selfless gen! We challenge you to be more selfless in your daily life for 1 week” This is the challenge sent out by We365. The week long challenge is enough to give students pause and consider selfless acts. I love the participants that have accepted the challenge (75 in total so far) and the deeds that they have accomplished in a week: tutoring peers, raising money to help build a school, package food hampers. These are the kinds of things that we want to encourage our youth to do.
Once you complete challenges you can earn pins. I like that they made some of the pins fun and unique with direct reference to pop culture. Something to keep the students interested and engaged. It acknowledges that they have written a post, created and/or joined a challenge. To be sure, these and more are activities that you can do to earn pins.
All of these acts are not just for pins and challenges, they will also help you keep track of your volunteer hours and build valuable life skills. In Ontario, high school students from grade 9 – 12 have to volunteer for a mandatory 40 hours of community service. Volunteer hours all add up, whether it is packing hampers, collecting food for We Scare Hunger, volunteering at the Boys & Girls Club, tutoring a peer, teaching Irish Dance, helping out at Tim Bits Volleyball, being an assistant volleyball coach for the junior team or going to Ecuador with Free the Children to build a high school (these are all things that my three children have done). Community services provides a balance to school, work and social activities, they also help when its time to apply to a post-secondary institution. The variety of volunteer opportunities provides valuable experience to land summer jobs and post university full time employment.
The We365 app. makes is super easy to keep track of those hours by keeping track of the location, description of the tasks, skills learned as well as supply the supervisor’s contact information and then they can sign off right then and there. It has a special feature in the We365 to sign the form right on your phone. How cool is that?
That is why on this Giving Tuesday, I encourage you to download the We365 app and give it a try. Encourage your children to take some of the challenges and to keep track.
But remember: Giving Tuesday is one day of the year… the We365 app is for everyday. For everyone.
Because
Charity begins at home
Margarita Ibbott is a travel and lifestyle blogger. She blogs about travel in Canada, the United States and Europe giving practical advice through restaurant, hotel and attraction reviews. She writes for DownshiftingPRO.com and other online media outlets.
What a great concept. The sooner kids understand the importance of giving the better. Thanks for sharing this app.
I love this app and want to thank you for giving it the recognition it deserves. It is so difficult to remember to be giving all the days of the year and not just the ones that remind us.
I love this app! What a great way to remind us to volunteer and do for others 365 days a year 🙂
i love the idea of Giving Tuesday. it means a lot to give back and especially show your kids the importance of being charitable.
A “we” mindset is just what this world is lacking, it seems. Giving Tuesday should not be once a year, it should be everyday. This wonderful app helps remind us daily how much more there is to life than just thinking of ourselves (I love the pun on the selfie-selfless gen, it really hits home what kind of mainstream culture our kids are growing up in sadly). I think that not only kids but parents as well should download it and set an example. I definitely will!
I think the more people get involved in Charity, the more life would be meaningful for more people. The We mindset can really make the world a better place.
that’s so interesting! an app that is sort of like foursquare but for charity. i just looked up free the children, and looks like they’re a great organization. they’re highly rated and have great financial transparency. i hope that when we have children we can teach them the lessons of generosity as well as smart giving.
I love that there is an app like this to get more people involved in giving. There are so many great causes that it’s easy to find something you are passionate about and can donate time or money to.
I love this app. My son is going to college next year and it would have been a great idea to keep track of his hours of giving. And it’s free too…I’m off to download that and use it for him to track his hours. That looks great on college apps.
I love this idea. Just yesterday I was talking to the little girl i nanny and telling her how important it is to donate to charity and support causes that are important to her. Yesterday she donated to the Ian Somerhalder Foundation which helps and supports animals and she also donated to The Jed Foundation/ Love is Louder Foundation. Charity is very important and I think it’s so important to teach them from a young age to donate and give back to charity.
I too believe that charity or giving begins in the home. My son is only 3, but this holiday season I’m using the opportunity to start teaching him about giving. I have never heard of this app, but it seems like something that I would be interested in checking out. Thanks for sharing!
What a great app! I think it’s a fun way to learn about giving back and showing gratitude, espeically this time of year!
OK…this is really cool. Whoever came up with this app concept is truly genius. It’s like the perfect way to encourage people to do good, stay motivated, and have fun all at the same time. I like how you can earn ‘Pins’ for the things that you do. I also like the ‘challenge’ aspect of it all. I think this is also a good way to get teens more involved.
Giving Tuesday is such a wonderful thing! I too, believe that charity begins at home and we strive to teach our kids gratitude and charity.
What a great app! Growing up (and attending a Catholic school), there was a huge push to get the students out and into the community. Over my 12 years of K-12 education, I had to complete a certain number of hours each semester at a local food bank, senior center, soup kitchen, etc. This app would have made organizing all of those days and hours so much easier! 🙂
I totally agree it does begin at home. Teaching children while they are little too is super important because it will help them to have giving hearts later in life. This app sounds like an amazing resource.
I love this idea. We donated some food to our local food pantry on Tuesday!
This sounds like such an awesome app! We love donating to children and animal shelters. Each year I have my kids go through their toys and clothes. They really get into the spirit in giving stuff to others. We also love the Angels network where we buy gifts and clothes for children during the holidays. I let them pick stuff out. I’m grateful that they appreciate how blessed we are! Everyone deserves to be blessed and it starts with a giving heart! Great post and great cause! Bless your heart and family!
This is a great app! Charity is something we could all focus on a bit more. Thanks for the info.
The we365 app sounds very interesting! My daughter belongs to a Christian home school group and they do a lot of volunteer work and charity events. We support many local charities and a few long distance ones as well such as Operation Christmas Child.
Charity really does begin at home and I am all for supporting others and giving to causes whenever I can. I think the we365 sounds like a fantastic cause and giving immunisations to children is such an important thing to give them a fighting chance at life and to prevent awful diseases. Isn’t it so sad that there are so many charities almost begging for money each year and then there are people who go absolutely crazy on days like Black Friday to spend money on pointless items, the world is so unfair. I’m supporting #GivingTuesday.
Charity does truly begin at home, I have been brought up to share, respect and care for those in need and I do not think of it as a burden but as a privilege to be in a position to help. The we365 app sounds like a great and convenient app.
Being charitable does begins at home! It’s so important to support those charities that are near and dear to your heart. For me that’s my local animal shelter all year round and Toys for Tots during the holiday’s. It’s so important to give back. This app seems amazing <3
Wow that is a pretty cool app. I love how easy it makes it to give back.