Making Blankets for #GivingTuesday
I know we've all heard about Black Friday (now Black Thursday AND Friday - ugh!) and Cyber Monday - which has now morphed into Cyber Week, but have you ever heard about #GivingTuesday?
To my mind, #GivingTuesday is the perfect antidote to the commercialism that has started to overwhelm our holiday spirit. It was developed by about 50 different charitable foundations and companies to designate a day specifically for giving back on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (yes, I'm a little late - hey it's been a busy holiday!)
This year was my first #GivingTuesday and I joined the gang from MomItForward and the United Nations Foundation to help make 150 tied fleece blankets to be donated to our local children's hospital.
C'mon, aren't they just the most darling ladies ever? Me, Brooke Johnson, Aly Brooks, MomItForward founder Jyl Johnson Pattee, Kathy Dalton, and Cari Stewart Thompson. Not pictured: Jill Greenlaw from the MomItForward, who was miserable and sick that night.
To my mind, #GivingTuesday is the perfect antidote to the commercialism that has started to overwhelm our holiday spirit. It was developed by about 50 different charitable foundations and companies to designate a day specifically for giving back on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (yes, I'm a little late - hey it's been a busy holiday!)
This year was my first #GivingTuesday and I joined the gang from MomItForward and the United Nations Foundation to help make 150 tied fleece blankets to be donated to our local children's hospital.
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| Photo Credit: The awesome JustinHackworth.com |
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How fun is this? There were people crammed into every corner of the room at the Glass House in Daybreak and all of them were cutting and tying these blankets - kids and adults alike. We even had multiple people working together on the same blankets. And everyone was chatting and laughing, and having a lovely time! No one ever said that doing good has to be dull or boring!
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Gotta have some treats to fuel all this hard work, so we had milk and cookies donated by the Utah Dairy council.
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By the end of the night, we had a STACK of finished blankets.
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However, we also had about four huge bags of unfinished blankets. But that's OK, we know people. Terrific people! This is my good friend Linda - she's a teacher at a low-income school. She wanted to do a holiday craft project with her class, but didn't have the funds available to get the materials needed for a class project. Talk about a match made in heaven!
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Linda, Jill, and I and another teacher friend got together one Saturday morning and cut the rest of the blankets for Linda's class - in fact, the entire 5th grade at her school. They and some other teachers finished up the rest of the blankets for us. Who would have thought that a simple project like this could benefit so many different people? It provided a fun night for a group of bloggers and their families, an afternoon of crafting for students at a couple of different schools, and then we end up with these lovely, soft blankets to give to the kids at the hospital.
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That to me is exactly the way to spend a holiday. The shopping, wrapping, baking, and partying are all going to happen somehow, but the good stuff like this, somehow you have to squeeze it in, because this IS the important stuff. Spending time with other people doing worthwhile things, is just more fun and fulfilling than standing in yet another line for yet another sale. At least, that's what I think. And next year, I'm thinking we'll do it up even bigger!
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