Anti-Poverty Mom Snow Day Activities

I'm noticing today that some DC schools are still closed or delayed and I bet that's true for a lot more as well. Believe, me East Coasters...out here in the Midwest we know what you are going through. The first day is all about digging out and having some giddy snowball fights and sledding runs. The next days bring the celebration of children as the snow days continue and you think "Well, I have enough milk to make some more cocoa." Then, you're eventually tearing your hair out because it's no longer novel, the kids are starting to bicker, and you'd really rather be getting back to work as well.

So, here are my three favorite snow day activities that keep kids busy as the snow plows finish their excavation. You can use this time to help make the world a better place to live in when everyone is all dug out again!

#1 Write letters or pictures for Congress

A picture of a very sick girl with a crying mother
followed by a recovery picture where she is even
given a crown. What can I say?...it was the
princess phase. 

Always a favorite of mine. For younger kids, it's more of an arts and crafts project where you tell them about a subject and ask them to draw a picture of it while you write the real letter to Congress. For older kids, it can involve a bit of learning as well. It works best if you can show a video to either age group to make it real.

Here are a few great videos to show them about global health for kids. Ask your kids to draw a picture or write a letter about what they saw. Then, send it in to your US Representative asking them to "Please co-sign the Reach Every Mother and Child Act (HR 3706) to help save the lives of moms and kids using best practices like nutrition, immunizations, and care for moms before and after childbirth."

Living Proof: Rotavirus Vaccine Success in Nicaragua  

The People who Made India Polio Free

Don't know your representative? Look it up here. 

#2 Clean closets and look for donations 

This is such a good activity because it gets kids involved in giving in a way that is very personal. Plus, you will gain a lot of closet and dresser space! You need to do this anyway every year as your kids grow, so put them to work now. Gently used toys, clothes, shoes are always needed in any community. In the St Louis area, we have many families who were recently forced out of their homes by freak winter floods and need to quickly replace everything. A quick internet search or a call to a local house of worship can usually direct you to a place to donate. 

Still can't find a local place? Schoola is doing a fundraiser collecting used clothes and giving 40% of the proceeds from selling it to the Malala Fund to secure girls' rights to a minimum of 12 years of quality education, particularly in the Global South. Fill out the form on this link and they will send you a bag, postage-paid, to send back full of your old clothes.

On our last big snow day, we excavated 2 big garbage bags worth of treasures. I was rewarded with an incredulous daughter standing in her closet saying, "It's soooo big now!"


#3 Social Media Blizzard!

Get creative for your favorite organizations and tweet out pictures with their handles and hashtags. Print out signs or get messy and make pictures of an organization's logo with glitter and glue. You can even tweet messages to your members of Congress. The senators may not be in their offices now, but the internet is always open for business! Don't want your kids in the picture? No problem. You can just take a picture of the sign or put yourself in the picture.

There you go! And after you're done saving the world? Go on out and have a little more fun! Wheeeeee!

Make a New Year's Resolution Worth Keeping

A friend on Facebook recently posted: "What's your favorite New Year's resolution that you actually kept...and...GO!!..." Of course, the answers she got back ranged from the serious to the silly: 

• Drink more wine
• Setting up plans with people I said I'd make plans with the prior year
• Try to drive the speed limit (It seems this friend felt she drove too slowly)
• To get rid of toxic things in life
• To love more and judge less
• Never to make resolutions
• To fight poverty

I guess it comes as no surprise to anyone that the last one was my answer. That same poverty-fighting goal has been a Lenten promise, a New Year's resolution, and any number of self-improvement plans for me over the years. Sometimes my methods differ from year to year, but it's rooted in the same desire to put me on the track to end poverty and suffering in the world. The trick is always to keep the motivation up to make real change for such a big problem. I've written about that before...how it's hard to keep fighting the battles we need to fight continuously.

Here's my observation about resolutions and promises to oneself. They can be cyclical. They can be repetitive. It might take a while for them to stick or you might make the same promise in a different way. But the resolutions and promises should be absolutely worth doing. To me, what is more worthwhile than making systematic change to the world we live in to save lives? I plan to keep chipping away at the senseless deaths of children and mothers in poverty. I'll keep working to get more kids in school worldwide. I'll lift my voice to feed the hungry in my country and in others.

Whatever your goal is this year...make it a good one. Make a plan, find support, stay focused, seek inspiration, take action. Don't give up. And if you do? Make the promise again. 

So, I doubt that you are wondering, but in case you want to know my resolution for this year? To fight poverty...harder.

What is your resolution this year and - most importantly - how do you plan to keep it?

Need a Last Minute, Heartfelt Gift? Charities to the Rescue!

Help! You forgot someone on your Christmas gift list and it's the week of Christmas and you hate the mall parking situation and there is no time to mail anything and...ahhhhh!

Or maybe you just like giving thoughtful gifts that don't require using Earth's resources to pack and ship objects.

Is this you?

It's okay. Sit down. Have some tea. Or wine. Anti-Poverty Mom has got you covered. Here are some wonderful charities for international giving that will help you out by sending a holiday email notification that you made a donation in honor of your recipient. They are in no particular order because I love them all. You'll show how much you care about your loved ones and the world. Plus, it will make it look like you planned it all along!

Kiva
This is a neat charity gift because it's super interactive and really not a "charity" at all. Kiva leverages the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions to let you lend as little as $25 directly to an individual in poverty to help them start a business. The recipient uses your money to earn more money, then pays you back, so you can loan it out again. 

Kiva electronic gift cards are a great way to introduce your friends and family to microlending, giving them the opportunity to choose borrowers to support. The best part is that when their loans are repaid, they can use those funds again and again to make even more loans on Kiva. It's really a gift that keeps on giving!

By the way, the digital Kiva card can even be scheduled to be sent in the future, so if you're like me and frequently miss birthdays, this might be a good opportunity to get all set for the next year as well! Woo-hoo!

Heifer International 
If you have heard people refer to giving or getting a "goat" for Christmas before, this is probably what folks were talking about. Heifer lets you sponsor livestock (everything from chickens to water buffalo) to be given to people in rural areas living in poverty. Rather than giving a food handout that lasts only a small amount of time, Heifer gives animals and husbandry training to not only help the recipient family in the long run, but hopefully the community around them. 

The core of the model is "passing on the gift." Families share the training they receive and pass on the first female offspring of their livestock to another family. It extends the impact of the original gift, allowing a once impoverished family to become donors and full participants in improving their community.

Now, down to the nitty gritty of gift giving. Giving with Heifer is also nice in that you can decide how to send the gift: email, Facebook message, text message, postal mail, or printing a card at home. Maximum flexibility of delivery. Cool!

Samaritan's Purse
You might know Samaritan's Purse from the famous "Operation Christmas Child" project they run where folks are invited to donate a shoebox full of useful items like toys, hygiene items, and school supplies for a child in need. But I learned during the Ebola crisis that they do so much more than that. They are also a skilled and competent organization of first responders in the face of disaster in developing nations. They have responded admirably to the Ebola crisis, the Nepalese Earthquake, human trafficking, and are currently responding to the refugee crisis in Europe. Samaritan's Purse is a Christian organization, so it seems to me that it is a perfect charity to support in celebration of the birth of Christ.

Samaritan's Purse lets you send an email card or download a card for face to face giving. 

Partners in Health

"We go. We make house calls. We build health systems. We stay."

What I love about Partners in Health is summed up in that one statement that ends with "we stay." Partners in Health is a organization of health care providers that truly treats communities as partners. While they do end up as first responders sometimes, as in the case with the 2010 Haitian earthquake, their model is to work with the people they are helping and not leave when an initial crisis has passed. 

Whether to Liberia, Rwanda, or any of the countries they work and live, they go where they’re needed most. They care for patients in their homes and communities. They work in close partnership with local government officials and the world’s leading medical and academic institutions to build capacity and strengthen health systems. And they stay, committed to accompanying the people and communities they serve for the long term.

Partners in Health will send an email to your gift recipient with a link to a lovely image like the one shown that I received from my dear friend and fellow RESULTS leader Richard Smiley.

Have you got a favorite charity that will do electronic cards? Do tell!!!

Share it with us in the comments!