Christmas Donations 2018

We’ve added a new tradition to our Christmas Gratitude Traditions.

1) For several years my mom has given a donation in each of our names to a charity of her choosing. Habitat for Humanity is one example, and this year it was Save The Children.

2) Within the family in this house, each Christmas Buds and I put a red envelope on the tree. (This year it was pink because I ran out of red.)

Inside the envelope is a list of the money we have donated to folks who have needed an extra boost during the year. We don’t tell the children the names because these are often people they know, too, but we tell them how much money and why we chose to support these particular folks.

As examples, we helped friends who were facing bankruptcy, friends who weren’t going to be able to make their rent, and friends who didn’t have the money needed to buy groceries, two different times during the year.

3) This year we added a new piece with the help of Buddie’s parents.

The children will have to decide if they’d like to continue it in future years, but I love how it went this year.

After talking with the kids to see what they thought, Buddie asked his parents if they would consider donating to the children’s chosen charities, rather than giving them gifts. The Grands thought it was a splendid idea and readily agreed.

The children have taken their time choosing where they would like their donations to go. They thought about what is important to them, what they have heard and read about that stayed with them, and Buds and I offered suggestions from what we had read and what our church offered up for opportunities to help. (We’d ask them, “What do you care about?” They’d respond, “I want to help animals…the environment…other kids.”

Buddie’s parents told them they each had $100 to disseminate. Here’s what they each decided:

Yessa:

$20 to a friend’s family to purchase a Christmas present for their child (Family dealing with cancer, so no money for gifts.)
$15 Southern Environmental Law Center (Using the courts and all three branches of State and Federal Government to protect the environment for the states in our region.)
$5 Proverbs 12:10 (The pet rescue that brought MoonStar and Waffles into our life.)
$25 Earth Justice (Tagline: The Earth needs a good lawyer.)
$10 Container Recycling Institute (CRI’s mission is to make North America a global model for the collection and quality recycling of packaging materials.)
$20 SIFE Fundraiser at Church (Students with Interrupted Formal Education program: Recent immigrants to Nashville with little formal education in their previous country and have generally experienced trauma through brutal conflicts. Guatemala, Yemen, Burma, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. One of Yessa’s Religious Education teachers is a math teacher in this program at a local middle school, and she alerted our congregation to this tremendous need.)

Buster:

$30 to a friend’s family to purchase a Christmas present for their child (Same family as above.)
$50 Electronic Frontier Foundation (Fighting for Net Neutrality and access for all)
$20 FLUSH (Campaign at church for “Facility Longterm Upgrades to Sanitation and HVAC)

Monkey:

$60 Alley Cat Allies (Nation’s Leading Cat Advocacy Group)
$40 JED Foundation (JED exists to protect emotional health and prevent suicide for our nation’s teens and young adults.)

I was intrigued by the decisions each person made, and amazed at some of the great work being done by so many non-profits around the world. There really are so many more people trying to improve the world compared to people out to do harm. It can be easy to forget that.

Thanks for the reminder, children.