Cookies for Charity

Every year, Erik and I donate turkey dinners through Human Services and other avenues to families who can't afford them for Thanksgiving. This year, we have enlisted the help of our children. Alex is just at the age where he understands the idea of giving, and through this process we hope to begin instilling a life-long sense of charity. A recent Success Magazine article discussed the fact that it is never to early to teach children about money, saving and charity. I agree. Both children have piggy banks, which periodically will be converted into cash in their saving accounts. They understand it takes money to buy things, and that not everyone has the money they need to buy the things they want.

As part of the educational process, Alex, Izzy and I have been baking cookies to sell this weekend to raise money for our turkey dinners. Today at Grandma school we will bake more cookies, in the shape of our hands which we will then decorate like turkeys, all part of their schooling experience. As with every exercise, Alex will have to open his left hand completely while his right hand (with my guidance) helps him trace his left hand on the sugar cookie dough. This is a good lesson for anyone who has a child with CP that affects the hand. It's fun, not too taxing, and rewarding to watch the hand turn into a turkey.

I read a lesson plan online which we used this week to reinforce our idea of thankfulness and giving. We cut out shapes of leaves we found during our outdoor hikes, and then wrote on them what we are thankful for. We put up a thankful tree on our kitchen wall and as we think of thinks we are thankful for, we add them to the leaves on our tree. The children love this exercise and it has sparked many positive discussions. I think they will be prepared at Thanksgiving this year as our family goes around and talks about what each of us is thankful for.