The Tweens first Daffodil Day

Cancer is something that has effected my family quite personally.
 
My Aunt Deb, a really close friend and sort of my idol (she was only 6 years older than me) died from cancer when she was just 32 years old, leaving behind a four year old son. Later two of my nephews who were only pre-schoolers, lost their mother Julie suddenly from it (within 4 days of diagnosis!), whilst she was only in her 20's. Two deaths of two very young mums taken by this really awful disease.  The Papa's own father died from cancer also, but it was before I ever met him.
 
For this reason every year I volunteer to sit on the local stall on Daffodil Day to collect money (sell pens, raffle tickets, etc) to help raise money and awareness.
 
For any international readers who don't know what Daffodil Day is, it is the Cancer Society's annual flagship event and one of the most important fundraising and awareness campaigns in New Zealand. As well as providing an opportunity to raise awareness of cancer in New Zealand, it's a major funding source for the Cancer Society.
 
The daffodil is one of the first flowers of spring, whose bright yellow blooms remind us of the joys the new season will bring. It represents the hope there is for the 1 in 3 New Zealanders affected by cancer.
 
This year I felt The Fashionista was old enough to sit on the stall with me and so I asked her if she'd like to volunteer with me. Of course she said YES!  Agent Smelly, never one to be left out of anything, decided that she'd like to come along also. So here are my sweet girls working their first Daffodil Day.

 

 

Here they are sitting outside our local dairy (milk bar, corner store, etc) at the table. Yes I was a proud Mama sitting nearby!
 
 

 

Aren't their hats cute? Usually I get stuck wearing one, so kind of glad with them both working I didn't have to wear it this year!

 

I love that both my girls understand how easy it is to donate a bit of time to worthy causes and am hoping that it is something they continue to do throughout their lives.

It's Been a While ...

I thought I should try and touch base with those of you who have kindly been wondering where I have been. Despite the picture below, we haven't been lazing around in our "onesies" snoozing; it has been very busy for the past few months.

How I found Agent Smelly one night after a particularly busy day out.
Completely knocked out - I had to carry her to bed!

We finish term officially in NZ on Friday. We have taken on some new hobbies and adventures and hopefully at some stage I will get to fill you in on them all.

Now where to begin ... first of all I thought I'd share that I have been doing some volunteer work. One Saturday a month, for four hours, I assist at a local second-hand shop where all the money raised goes to the local retirement village. Our local retirement village is quite unique. You have the option to buy some land in the village and build your own home or buy one already built (great for some of our local farmers who want to move off their farms but are not yet ready to go into a retirement village), or rent one of the smaller units closer into the middle. As a resident becomes less independent it is possible for them to move into the Residential Care Unit, which is right at the heart of the village. Residents on the whole stay 'in their own home' as they may progress through the care stages of rest home level and hospital level care.

In the first six months of the shop being open we raised enough to donate $20,000 to the care unit so they could buy some fancy shmancy new hospital beds; the ones that lift and help the residents who need help getting into and out of their beds. Awesome ey!

I am really enjoying the opportunity to get out amongst the "real" world and am also enjoying working in a shop environment which I have never done before. I am teamed with a 'senior' person, who are usually much older than I am and so far they have all been so darn sweet.

We check and clean the clothing and other products that people drop off when we are there and then we price them and place them out on the shelves. I generally like to keep busy so am often re-arranging items on shelves to make things look nicer and easier to get to.

We also have eftpos so that's another new thing that I have learnt that I have never done before. I am quite enjoying the actual work involved and have been thinking that one day it might come in handy for me to pick up a part-time job also.

I wasn't rostered on in June due to us having reduced hours in winter so am really looking forward to getting into the shop again later this month.

Phoeneys Courageous Combat

Recently I started following a page on Facebook called Phoeneys Courageous Combat. Phoeney is a just a wee baby girl who at 18 months old was diagnosed with an aggressive childhood cancer, Neuroblastoma.

Only last week this little darling went through a ten hour surgery, (was only supposed to be six) to have her tumour removed! I seriously do not know how her Mama and Papa survived the day. She came through the op and all went well but has since suffered a little setback with something called Chyle Leakage, which means staying in hospital for another 4-6 weeks.  

This little bubba has quite captured my heart and her Mama recently mentioned that her little one loves horses ... hmmm, what two girls do you know that also are mildly horse obsessed?

So I showed my girls Phoeney's facebook page and then suggested to them that they might like to gift some of their horsie stuff to Phoeney. They were absolutely thrilled with the idea and took off to their rooms like shots. They got very excited and bought out some things for Phoeney. I popped down to the Post Shop to grab a post bag and got the biggest I could find (stuffed horses are a bit bulky). Imagine to my surprise when I got home and found even more stuff on the floor. I did laugh and make them put some aside as we couldn't fit it all in.

There was not even time to get out of their PJ's ... packages had to be wrapped. We went with tissue paper, after checking that Phoeney was up to unwrapping pressies.


Whilst I was nearby in the kitchen and the girls were brushing and plaiting pony hair and wrapping them, I overheard The Fashionista say "You know this is a lot of fun" and Agent Smelly replied, "Yeah, you know doing it for another person is cool". I was so very pleased that they were learning so much from this simple excercise.

Once the package was packed and all ready to go, TF said "we should do this more often" and then they both asked if they could to which of course I said yes.


If you'd like to follow Phoeneys-Courageous-Combat then just click on the page link. I am sure her Mama would appreciate the extra encouragement and strength that people around the world share with her.

One Proud Mama

Earlier in 2012 I suggested to the girls that they set aside some of their pocket money each week to donate to a worthy cause. I explained the reasoning behind it, but I didn't force them into it as sometimes that doesn't really teach children anything, except maybe resentment. I simply explained the concept, we discussed it further, and I left it to them to run with it if they wanted to.
 
Last month, just before Christmas, I overheard both girls, who were sitting by the coffee table, counting their money discuss donating money. My ears pricked up and I looked over to see The Fashionista emptying the change out of a money box onto the coffee table. She told her younger sister, that she was giving that money to the SPCA. Agent Smelly replied that she was going to give her money "to the cancer people".

I tell you it was a pretty amazing moment for me. I kept doing what I was doing in the kitchen but a HUGE, warm, glow spread through me. I was so proud that rather than be tempted into spending the money in those containers they chose to donate it. I had in fact that I had suggested it to them earlier in the year.  Granted it was not a lot of money but it did work out to be a a few weeks of pocket money (imagine you donating 3 weeks of salary) and I think the act is more important at this stage of their young lives than the amount.

Today I could see Agent Smelly being rather industrious at the table but I didn't bother her, because she was being quiet and I could see that she was just making something with some craft supplies and causing no harm. Later that night I saw this sitting on the bench. She had popped a $2 coin in the bottom of the canister and plans on filling it for 2013. 

I am really chuffed with the way they have both taken on board the concept of giving money to others. Both the Papa and I donate regularly to causes and we feel that we have been so blessed morally and financially because we do.

Operation Christmas Child Letter

Today the girls and I worked on a letter to go into their shoeboxes.

We thought it might be fun to let the little girls know who cared enough about them to send them a care package.  This is what we came up with.

Hi, I would like to introduce myself to you.

My name is XXXXXXX and I am very glad to meet you.

I am eight years old. 

I live in New Zealand. I live in a house, in the province of Waikato, with my family.

If you look at the map I have coloured in whereabouts I live.

In my family, besides my mum and dad, I have an older sister and a pet goat named Molly. We have a family dog called Scruffie too.

I like to visit my Grannie who lives nearby, go to the beach and visit my mum’s family in Australia. I have lots of cousins there to play with.

I also like to play with my sister, swim, ride horses and my bike and play with and look after my goat.

I hope you like the gifts I packed for you.

This is me.

Bye

We included the OCC sign, a picture of the map of New Zealand and of course a photo of the child sending the letter and package on the page. I am not yet technically savvy enough to work out how to include them on this properly.  My girls have each given me a list of a few extra things that they would like me to purchase for their boxes before they are complete, so with some luck they'll be ready to go in the next week before we start back at school.

Operation Christmas Child

A few years back a fellow Guide leader introduced me to Operation Christmas Child which is run by "Samaritan's Purse" in both Australia and New Zealand.

"Operation Christmas Child is a unique project of Samaritan’s Purse that brings joy and hope to children in desperate situations around the world through gift-filled shoe boxes, It provides an opportunity for people of all ages to be involved in a simple but hands-on project that has the power to transform children’s lives.

In 2010, our teams in Australia and New Zealand delivered 305,976 gift-filled shoe boxes to South East Asia and the South Pacific. Over 8 million children around the world received shoe boxes last year. Over 130 countries have received shoe boxes since 1993. As each shoe box gift is delivered, it is treasured by the child that receives it, and is a lasting reminder that he or she is precious to God."
Quote taken directly from the Operation Christmas Child website.


Essentially what happens is that you pack a shoe box with items, like pencils, a toy to love, soap, toothbrush, hat, etc., for a child (you choose the sex and age group) and pay $9 towards the freight and it is delivered to them.

Today we started on our shoe boxes. In the past I have only packed one box but now that the girls are getting older I thought they could pack one each. My friend, Crafty K, is now packing five of them, one for each of her kids, so in comparison I have it easy!
 

Agent Smelly chose a girl aged between 5 - 9 and got wrapping her shoe box with some help from The Mama.

The Fashionista chose a girl aged between 10 -13 and did pretty well wrapping her shoe box all by herself.

I then let them grab some things out of my gift box that I had been putting away for the past few weeks without them knowing.

They have also written up a list of other things that they would like to include in their boxes and so we'll pop into town later in the week to get them. Last year I managed to find some $2 jandals (thongs / flip flops) so fingers crossed I can find some of them again to go in too.

Even though the girls have already spent a couple of hours putting this all together they have really gotten into the spirit of things and are still showing a continued interest.

What I personally really love about this project is not just that you are providing gifts to small children in need but that you can actually follow your box online to it's destination. How cool is that?

So how about instead of spending a fortune on your own children, or nieces or nephews, grandkids, etc you cut down just a wee bit and make up one of these boxes for a child who never gets anything. This could even be something you could do with your own child, (over the school break even), like we are doing here. You will be so glad that you did but, get in quickly as they need to be by the end of October which is national collection month.

Click through here Operation Christmas Child to find out more.  Do let me know if you decide to do one too, I'd love to hear all about your experience.