Tis the Season for Unselfish Giving
A goal of mine this holiday season is to teach my kids more about generosity. You may think that since I write a cause blog I must have that area covered. But the blog is called Selfish Giving for a reason.
The whole idea of true generosity is really kind of alien to me as I constantly focus on win-win partnerships. I live in a tit for tat world. I want to give my kids exposure to an unselfish world so they can see both sides. I owe them that much.
I've been thinking about this a lot since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday. I would do anything for the families of those poor kids. I've already donated a little money, and thanks to the urging of Ifdy Perez at Razoo.com, I've created a fundraising page for the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary.
So far we've raised over over $1,000. It felt good to give and help without interest or motive.
To educate my two kids, Cate and Ryan, on generosity, my wife and I have decided to do a few things over the next couple of weeks.
- We're giving each of them a Razoo giving card for Christmas and will let them research and pick a cause to support. I also want to talk with them about other ways they can help their chosen cause beyond giving money.
- As a fun family project, we plan to participate in this fun fundraiser from Luckie + Company. We all love the movie Elf and Luckie is donating $25 for every scene you reenact and post to Instagram. The kids are already working on their Buddy the Elf hat and we plan to have some fun with it!
- Over the next few weeks, we plan to donate our time at an area nonprofit. I'm thinking a good one would be Cradle to Crayons. This Boston-based organization provides kids 0-12 with all the things they need to live and play. Shifts in their warehouse are just two hours long and they can put anyone age 5 or older to work! C2C is taking a much deserved break over the holidays so I may need to explore other options if I want to get this in before the end of the year.
What are you doing to educate your kids about generosity? Razoo got wind of my post and was nice enough to give me a couple of $50 giving cards so leave a comment below, or use the hashtag #unselfishgiving on social media. Maybe I can help you with your own experiment!
