Charity through the eyes of a child

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Most of the time I think my children are pretty amazing. I know...I'm biased. I freely admit that. I think that, as a parent, part of my job (along with being their biggest advocate) is to be my childrens' biggest cheerleader.


And then sometimes they do things that simply blow me away (in a good way!). First, a little background. My children get 3 gifts from us (their parents). Jesus got 3 gifts on his birthday therefore my children get 3 gifts on His birthday. This does not include stocking stuffers or the gift that Santa brings - just so we're clear. But from us, as parents, they each get 3 gifts.


One of the things I try to teach my children is a concern for others as well as a sense of responsibility toward those less fortunate. One way that I try to do this is to have them go through their toys and select 3 toys that they no longer play with that are still in good condition. My goal was to have them donate those toys to an agency that gives toys to less fortunate children at the holidays.


Well, my daughter took that idea and ran with it. First, she decided that she has too many toys and that there are more than 3 toys that she is willing to part with. Then, based on the fact that one of our neighbors just had a yard sale a few weeks ago, she decided that we should sell the used toys in the yard sale instead of simply giving them away.


At first, I hesitated. I didn't want her to sell them, I wanted her to <span style="font-style:italic;">give</span> them. But this is where she blew me away. She then proceeded to tell me that we should take the money that we make from the yard sale and use that money to buy NEW toys for other kids whose parents might not be able to buy the toys themselves.


When she told me this, I sat there with my mouth hanging open for a few seconds. Once I gathered my thoughts, I asked her what her reasoning was. She told me that just because kids didn't have a lot of money doesn't mean they don't deserve new toys and that we could probably raise a lot of money by selling our old toys so that buying new ones wouldn't be a big deal.


Wow.


So that's what we're going to do. We are going to have a toy sale and sell off a lot of the kids' older toys. My children are not usually too rough on their toys (though there was <a href="http://homefrontsix.blogspot.com/2006/09/my-children-have-lost-their-brains.html">this one time...</a>) so most of their toys are in pretty good shape. Most of us know that people tend to <span style="font-style:italic;">donate</span> more when a price is not named and the proceeds are going to a named charity so we are not pricing any of the toys. It will be donation only and we will have a specific entity that the proceeds will be benefitting already chosen (we're looking at choosing children from the Angel Tree on post). My hope is that people will be generous and therefore allow US to be generous. I have a budget already set aside for this purpose so any monies raised from this sale will just add to that. I would love to be able to buy gifts for an entire family and not just 1 or 2 kids. We will see.


Sometimes I forget that she is only 5. She loves to surprise me in ways that I never see coming. She is amazing (and so is he).



Pau.



- hfs


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