Yes I make the title work...Trust me...
VENT: I need to stop getting married in hurricane season...
PSA: Read all the way through today peeps. There's some public service at the end and you all know how I loves me some charity.
BLOG: After another 2 hour car ride I am safely entrenched in Basking Ridge...Lord knows how long it will take to get home but I will cross that bridge (if it isn't closed by a crested river) when I get to it. As much as it aggravates me to no end to sit in a car for that long it's not as bad as being evacuated, watching the water rise, etc. etc. I can't complain. I will but really I can't.
I am not going to discuss organization, ADD, my kids, my wedding or blah blah blah...Today is all about the charity. Why it's important, why it's necessary and how it can and will make you a better person. I don't do this for the photo ops, for fun, or anything. I do the things I do to make someone else and myself feel better. To teach my kids how important it is because I was raised on both sides of that spectrum. I was one of the kids that Santa had to visit early at Christmas. I got a Barbie doll. I still have that doll that a stranger gave me dressed as Santa Claus and you know what? He was Santa and I am eternally grateful to him though I will never know him as anything but Santa. I've spoken of my beloved grandfather in past blogs and it is him and that man and, ironically enough, my mother that taught me the charitable spirit. As a child, my mother baked cookies (and if you're part of the inner sanctum sanctorum or the fire department you get some if not you're beat) religiously every Christmas. I mean LOTS and LOTS of cookies involving 2 weeks off of work and baking sun up to sun down. She gave them away. Never accepted a dime for them. We lived paycheck to paycheck and she gave the cookies away. She took people in that had nowhere to go. She gave her time if she had nothing else to give and still does. Time is more precious than money. If she hears of someone that needs help she will move heaven and earth to help and I am thrilled I got that from her.
My grandfather did the East Brunswick Lions Gift Drive yearly. Stay tuned cause I will be blogging the holy hell out of this event...Consider this the first of the bunch...My exhusband inherited it and now it's mine. These families are given to me and I screen them and talk to them and every little girl that asks for a barbie doll gets one cause I was that little girl and the only thing I want and would love to see is that little girl grow up and pay it forward. If that's the only smile she gets this year the so be it but dammit she will smile. I don't believe for a second that a "poor kid" shouldn't be allowed to ask for what the other kids ask for. A kid is a kid and wants what every kid wants and if the EBLC, myself, my family and my friends can help we will. I will never be the star my grandfather was but I will keep his memory alive in this way for as long as I can.
With the recent floods there are lots and lots of our neighbors and friends throughout the state that need help...Reach out where you can and do what you have to. Consider it the start to your holiday season. It will make you and them better people and in this age of technology there is no reason we all can't help (unless you're totally heartless which is your sin...not mine). Below are a list of Central Jersey Resources that you can use for help or to give help. Would it kill you to buy a notebok for a kid that lost school supplies, or a pair of jeans or a onesie...I think not. And yes I did these things and still do them...
Monroe Township/Jamesburg/Helmetta suffered ridiculously with Hurricane Irene. These are neighbors and friends and children that need our help. There are tons of ways on the site for you to do something like cooking a meal for a family, getting some school supplies. sitting and talking over coffee, clean up efforts, buy some school lunches for a kid...just do something...Here's how to help.
http://www.leaguelineup.com/welcome.asp?url=iwanttohelpmonroe
St. Peter's Church (that gorgeous little white one with the cemetery on DeVoe & Main) suffered great damage and is in need of supplies for Sunday School for the children, I spoke with Fr. Shelly and his charm and positivity are contagious. As you can see from the website, they lost the classrooms, hall and need restoration work done on top of other issues. This is an organization that gives back to the community spiritually and literally. Give back to them. Buy a box of pencils, some stickers, some teacher supplies...something. I saw the water coming into the cemetery and it took all I had to not cry. Again, these are your neighbors...Oh and BTW the insurance is NOT covering what happened so help out...
http://stpetersspotswood.org/
For everyone on Facebook...got to Hurricane Irene New Jersey Outreach Page for other ways to help your neighbors. Time is valuable, a box of pencils at Wal Mart is 74 cents...do something...
Be the person that gives the Barbie doll...
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