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The Salvation Army – Red Kettle Reason

Posted by Brande on December 24, 2014
in Community Issues, Giving Back/Charity, Holidays, News Worthy, Seasonal Stuff, Uncategorized

“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Influence Central for The Salvation Army. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.”

‘Tis the season to be giving and what better way to give than to The Salvation Army. I’m sure you’ve seen people ringing their bells near that red kettle.

This is one of the oldest and biggest providers. Established in London in 1865, The Salvation Army has been serving people for about 150 years internationally and over 130 years in the United States.

Here are few great facts about The Salvation Army.

“In 2013, The Salvation Army’s 3,600 officers, 59,000 employees, and 3.4 million volunteers served nearly 30 million American in need. That’s almost one person, every second, every day.”
“The Army has nearly 7,600 centers of operation covering nearly every zip code in the country.”

How did The Army’s Red Kettle start? In December of 1891, The Salvation Army’s Captain McFee decided to provide Christmas dinner to the poor. He needed to raise money and put with the approval from the authorities, he place a large pot on the Oakland Ferry Landing in San Francisco. By Christmas of 1895 there were 30 Salvation Army locations.

You can help online or via text messaging! Anyone can become a virtual bell ringer and raise money for their local communities by creating an Online Red Kettle at onlineredkettle.org.” Or “Donors can text the word “KETTLE” to 80888 to make a $10 donation to support the campaign.” End of the year giving is extremely popular and is also tax deductible with the proper documentation, please make your donation by December 31, 2014.

I believe giving is very important throughout the year, however around the holiday’s it seems a bit more meaningful to my family. I look at what I have and wish that for everyone, I have meals on the table and a loving, healthy family. With a 6 year old daughter it’s sometimes hard for her to understand the real meaning of Christmas. I really have instilled that Christmas is not all about gift, but, giving and thoughtfulness.

Please visit The Salvation Army at RedKettleReason.org.

#RedKettleReason #Sponsored #MC

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Back to School with CampusBookRentals.com

Posted by html404 on August 26, 2014
in Books, Deals, Education, Giving Back/Charity, Saving Money, School, Uncategorized

Back to School with CampusBookRentals.com

Are you headed back to college or know of someone who is? College students should know about the perks of renting textbooks from CampusBookRentals.com I am sure my daughter will want to look into this for next year when she goes off to college.

Here are some perks:

-Save 40-90% off of bookstore prices

-Free shipping both ways

-Can highlight in the textbooks

-Flexible renting periods

-They donate to Operation Smile with each textbook rented

-Live customer support

….and so much more.

CampusBookRentals.com RentBack Program

CampusBookRentals.com started a new program, RentBack. RentBack is new initiative that allows students to rent the textbooks they own – to other students… which is an awesome opportunity for them to make 2-4x more money compared to what they’d make through buyback options! Buyback is selling their books back at the end of the semester.

Isn’t that a great idea?! Check out this CampusBookRentals.com RentBack video:

This is a featured post.

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Holidays with CaringBridge

Posted by html404 on December 18, 2013
in Giving Back/Charity, Health and Wellness, Holidays, Seasonal Stuff, Uncategorized

“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting (#MC) for CaringBridge. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.”

Holidays with CaringBridge

I have blogged about CaringBridge before and how friends of ours have used a similar site to keep us all up to date on how their child is progressing through their medical situation which started at birth and on through the past five years. It’s a great tool. With so much love and joy surrounding the holidays, it’s important to take the time to share your support with friends and family in need. CaringBridge, a non-profit that provides free, personal websites, aims to help people to stay connected and receive support during any type of health journey. CaringBridge serves more than 500,000 people each day to amplify the love, hope and compassion in the world, hoping to make each journey a little easier.

Watch and share the video above or follow the link below to help spread the word about CaringBridge and how a small word of support can inspire hope and impact the lives of our loved ones this season: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe2H_eM05V8

Here’s to a hope filled Christmas for families in need.

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CaringBridge Contest

Posted by html404 on November 1, 2013
in Encouragement for Moms, Family Stuff, Giving Back/Charity, Health, Kids Stuff, Parenting, Uncategorized

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting (#MC) for CaringBridge. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.

It wasn’t too long ago that I posted about CaringBridge. Just to jar your memory the post shared about a family we know who used a site like CaringBridge to keep friends and family up to date on how their child was doing just after she was born with a rare condition. They still use the site today for the same reason since their child is still going through treatment several years later.

This post is to celebrate and support caregivers, the strong personal heroes who tirelessly help families get through one day at a time when experiencing a hardship, CaringBridge, the nonprofit caring social network, and Hallmark Cards are kicking off the “Caring Messages” card contest during National Family Caregiver Month.

From October 28th through November 17th, the “Caring Messages” card contest encourages participants to draw on personal experiences as a caregiver or as someone receiving care and create a message of love and support appropriate for a caregiver. Participants can submit one card idea in each of the following categories to www.hallmarkcontests.com:

Support and Encouragement: What can you say to lift someone up or help them get through the day? Let them know you’re thinking of them, send happy thoughts and cheer them on.
Compliments and Appreciation: Let someone know how much you admire them: What they do and how they do it. Words from the Wise: If you’ve experienced something yourself you understand what it’s really like. Write a supportive message for others based on what you’ve learned or what you needed to hear.

This partnership aims to provide patients, caregivers and supporters with love, hope and compassion. Winners announced in February will receive a cash prize, and their entry will be sold at Hallmark.com with in-store sale to be determined.

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CaringBridge

Posted by html404 on August 1, 2013
in Encouragement for Moms, Family Stuff, Giving Back/Charity, Health, Kids Stuff, Parenting, Uncategorized

“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for CaringBridge. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.”

We have friends in our old church who had a child born with a facial birth defect. She has had numerous doctors appointments, wonderful care and has experienced great progress in her growth and development. However, when she was first born many things were pretty much up in the air because lots of discussion and follow up had to be done in order for the parents and doctors to the right path of treatment for this child. In order to keep all of us who were surrounding them with love, care and prayer, the family created a webpage dedicated to update specific for this child. They used a site like CaringBridge to send out updates and photos.

Most of us have experienced a life-changing illness or had a family member or friend who has. CaringBridge is a nonprofit organization which has served families for more than 15 years, offering hope and inspiration to struggling families. Sona Mehring, the founder of CaringBridge shares a collection of these important hope-inspiring stories in her new book, Hope Conquers All. The stories range from young children with cancer, to adults awaiting transplants, these first-person accounts reveal the importance CaringBridge had in their personal journeys. If you have someone special who needs your love and support through a troubling health issue, or you are even faintly interested to learn how brave these individuals were through such hard times, consider learning more or purchasing Sona Mehring’s book here: http://caringb.org/hope. All author proceeds will go to CaringBridge.

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Mother’s Day 2013 Charity Gifts

Posted by html404 on May 17, 2013
in Family Stuff, Giving Back/Charity, Holidays, Parenting, Uncategorized

This is a paid post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Our family enjoys giving when we can, which isn’t as often as we use to give. We feel it is an important aspect of our parenting and beliefs to give back. That is why giving charity gifts during the holidays has appealed to us. It helps us take the focus off ourselves and what we get onto others and what we can give. Usually the season of giving is Christmas for us. We never really thought about too many other holidays to be honest. Have you?

I know I wrote a little Mother’s Day 2013 Wordless Wednesday post the other day, but motherhood is a wonderful enough blessing (and challenge, I might add) that’s worth mentioning again. Most of us in North America are not as challenged as mothers in third world countries. We haven’t had to see our child struggle to survive because there isn’t enough food. Nor have we had to see our child battle health issues because there is no doctor available to help diagnose what is wrong with our child. We have access to health care, food, clean water and educational resources. Does that mean other mothers don’t care? No. It’s because these things are not readily available to them for their families. That’s why I wanted to share an idea I never even thought about – giving charity gifts in celebration of Mother’s Day 2013 to help other mothers provide these things to their families.

Unicef offers a variety of charity gifts to give back. Perhaps you have yet to send your mom a gift – you could send her your gift and tell her you also gave a gift in her honor for Mother’s Day. Or maybe you would like to send a gift of your own in celebration of your own motherhood to help other mothers in need.

For a glimpse of the charity gifts offered, here’s a list:

– Mother’s Day Measles Vaccine to protect 100 or 200 kids
– Mother’s Day Family Water Pack
– Maternal Health Kit
– School-in-a-box
– Therapeutic Food
– Pencils
– Story Books
– First Aid Kits
– Footballs
– Bicycle
and more…

You can check out all the Mothers Day 2013 giving opportunities at this link provided.

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Johnson & Johnson Donate a Photo Plus Giveaway

Posted by html404 on April 13, 2013
in Baby Products, Community Issues, Contests, Coupons, Giveaways, Giving Back/Charity, Personal Care Products, Uncategorized

This is a compensated post by The Motherhood and J&J. I also free J&J product for my participation.

Everyone is familiar with the Johnson & Johnson brand and probably use at least one of their products, if not more, in your home. Well, they are running a campaign right now called The Donate a Photo, using The Donate a Phone app. The campaign is encouraging people to donate a photo and for every photo donated, J&J will donate $1 to one charity of your choosing.

The campaign kicks off with three charitable partners to choose from:
Keep America Beautiful: One photo helps restore a community park.
Save the Children: One photo helps a newborn get medicine to thrive.
Safe Kids: One photo protects seven children from a preventable sports injury.

The Donate a Photo app is available for download in the App Store and Google Play. Be sure to head over to HealthyEssentials.com and register to save on J&J products. J&J coupons will be available in newspapers and online starting on Sunday, April 7, which was last week.

The app is really easy to download and use. Very user friendly. All you have to do is sign up for an account, click the buttons through to donate a photo and voila! you are done.

Here is an excellent video about how to use the Donate a Photo app. Video below, direct link here – http://youtu.be/SoNv_BGxfyk

Donate a Photo is a fun way to help give back to three great causes. I just donated my first photo today but plan to donate more over the next week or so. Johnson & Johnson has curated a list of trusted causes, and you can donate a photo to one cause, once a day. Each cause will appear in the app until it reaches its goal, or the donation period ends. If the goal isn’t reached, the cause will still get a minimum donation.

J & J Giveaway

You can also enter to win a box of assorted J&J products – valued just over $100.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

No purchase necessary. Open to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and District of Columbia, Eighteen (18) years of age or older. Sweepstakes end May 20, 2013. Prize(s) provided by Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products Company Division of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Inc. Void where prohibited.

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Charity Outreach and Jumping into a Frozen Lake

Posted by html404 on January 4, 2013
in Giveaways, Giving Back/Charity

You all know that I love to help in charity outreach when I can. But I really don’t think I’d be willing to jump into a frozen lake during the dead of winter.

My friend and fellow blogger Jen from Life With Levi is competing with a local PR rep to raise money for Haiti Outreach by jumping into a frozen Minnesota lake next weekend. That’s dedication, eh? To help spread the word, she’s giving away $20 PayPal cash to one lucky winner! She’s even pre-written tweets you can send out in exchange for entries.

By the way, she loves to win that’s why I’m reaching out to you to help her out! So in the name of charity outreach and jumping into a frozen lake…brrrr! Please support her effort!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received a link back in exchange for sharing this post.

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Operation Christmas Child #OCCGiveBack

Posted by html404 on November 6, 2012
in Family Stuff, Gift Ideas, Giving Back/Charity

Years ago at a church we attended we participated in Operation Christmas Child with our two older children, they were wee things, but I don’t think we have done it since. The past couple of years one of our daughters has been asking to do up shoe boxes for children but we just have never got around to it….shame on me! Then BlogFrog sent out an invitation to participate in this year’s Operation Christmas Child shoe box campaign. Of course I had to do it, if only to hold myself accountable to get it done! I still found myself getting the shoe boxes and contents for it together at the last minute due to my tooth issue and the fact that I never put it on my Google calendar. I had it on my blog calendar and BlogFrog’s calendar but not mine, which is the one I use to send myself reminders of events, important posts coming due etc. We finally took a trip out one day last week to gather enough items to do four shoe boxes – 2 boys and 2 girls. I paired up our children so they could all participate in putting a box together for a child.

The shoebox campaign is a wonderful way to teach our children kindness, compassion and generosity! At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I love opportunities like this because it helps us instill these values in our children by doing not just saying it.

Our Shoe Boxes

As I said before, I decided that we’d do four shoe boxes because I thought it would mean more to the children if they were able to pair up with a sibling and do some of the gift selections and shopping on their own…with a little guidance and a few parameters.

We chose a few things from our school supply stash and then we went to Dollar General, Family Dollar and Walmart for the rest.

Here is a video of the children as we put the shoe boxes together:

Our older boys were probably the least enthusiastic and our older daughter had to take our youngest son out of the room before we even started because he was trying to eat the treats we bought for each shoebox!

Junior was after all the treats for the shoe boxes so my oldest had to take care of him while we did up the boxes! Then he got into a tube of toothpaste. Never a dull moment around here.

I am never for sure how much the younger children take in on projects like this, but I do know from raising our older daughters giving back projects eventually means a lot more to them than it did. That’s why I like doing special compassion projects to make them aware of other people’s needs and put them first instead of themselves.

We are already planning on participating in putting together shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child next year! We thought we’d start right away so we could give more shoe boxes – my second oldest’s idea.

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Funk Buddy and Breast Cancer Awareness Month Plus a Recipe

Posted by html404 on October 2, 2012
in Books, Giving Back/Charity, Health, Health and Nutrition, Recipes

Do you know anyone battling breast cancer? October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast dancer in a lifetime and 289,000 new cases are expected to be diagnosed in US women in 2012. Incredible and sobering. I just went to a seminar on hormones this past weekend and according to the speaker (who has seen NO breast cancer patients in his practice) low progesterone may be the cause of breast cancer in some women. So keep that in mind as suggestion to loved ones and friends, and if they do want to look into it and get their progesterone tested it should be at 10 or above, even if the test says 5 is normal because labs averages are skewed in a major way. Labs throw out the first and last 100 and make the middle numbers their average. Just something I learned at the seminar.

I wanted to help share the news of Funky Buddy and Breast Cancer Awareness Month by sharing a couple of other resources with you.

Funky Buddy

Funky Buddy is simply a buddy program created by Dr. Kristi Funk of Pink Lotus Breast Center in Los Angeles. It’s purpose is to pair newly diagnosed patients with patients she had already treated.

Best Friend’s Guide to Breast Cancer Book

Food is Medicine: The Best Friend’s Guide to Breast Cancer has an appendix of 30 tried-and-true family recipes! I am featuring one of those recipes below that I am really looking forward to trying – have to get zucchini and blueberries first!

Lemony Blueberry Zucchini Loaf (Source: The Best Friend’s Guide to Breast Cancer)

Zucchini is a good source of vitamins A, K, and B6, as well as vitamin C, which has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Another bonus: it’s rich in the minerals potassium, manganese, and magnesium, which help with immune function. This loaf packs an even greater nutritional punch thanks to the blueberries, well-known as one of nature’s most potent cancer fighters. To top it off, the hint of lemon tingles the tongue and gives a boost to the blandness of the zucchini.

The loaf is hearty enough for breakfast and handy for snacking, too. Because it’s not too sweet, your friend or loved one will find that it’s mild enough if she’s queasy, and the ground ginger will soothe her churning stomach as well. I’ve found that it’s easy to get down when most food isn’t appealing. Of course, it’s a tasty treat when she has her appetite, too!

You’ll need:

1 cup of blueberries
2 cups of peeled, shredded zucchini
3 eggs
¾ cup of vegetable oil
1 and ½ cups of sugar
2 teaspoons of lemon extract
2 and ½ cups of flour
1 teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon of nutmeg
¼ teaspoon of ginger
1 teaspoon of baking soda
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 cup of chopped walnuts (optional)
Crisco

1) Heat oven to 350°. Grease only the bottom of two glass loaf pans with Crisco.

2) In one bowl, beat the eggs, then add vegetable oil, sugar, and lemon extract until well blended.

3) In another bowl, sift the flour, salt, nutmeg, ginger, baking soda, and baking powder.

4) Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until well-incorporated, then fold in the zucchini, then blueberries and walnuts. Pour into the two loaf pans.

Bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.