Pay it forward
Sometime last month in one of our Club board meetings, we were asked to help think of ideas for our yearly service project. MOMS Club is a non-profit organization & in order to keep that status, we have to have a certain amount of money in the bank account & provide a service in the community at least once a year.

This got me really excited. I really love doing service projects & volunteering for those in need. While I was still active in the church, I participated & helped organize events with Habitat for Humanity, "adopted" needy families at Christmas (& did "Christmas in April too), I got friends together & made cookies for the homesick missionaries, the list really goes on & on. After I left the church, I didn't have as many opportunities to volunteer as much, but I still organized free fitness seminars & talked to elementary school kids about health & exercise.

Paying it forward means so much more to me now that our family has been on the receiving end of community services. Without these support systems in place, I wouldn't have been able to get the ultrasound needed to check out the lump last month or the dental exam that I had last week (because we don't have dental insurance & this was before Bill made his career change). I was going to come to our next meeting with a list of ideas for The Club to vote on because I had a sense of personal responsibility to give back to those that gave to me.

In our Club meeting last week, we voted on a lot of projects. We're going to make blankets for traumatized children (by abuse or other horrific life experience) so they have their very own comfort item. This was important to us as mothers with children who have many lovies & soft blankets. We understand how import these are to our own kids. I brought the Komen Foundation suggestion, where we will have a Pink Playgroup day. Everyone will wear pink & make a cash donation to the foundation (lots of pictures & details will come from that day in a few weeks). We will also make a cash donation a the end of the year to the womens resource center who works with the Komen Foundation here in town.

I was the contact for the resource center because not only were they the ones who facilitated the ultrasound for me, but they were the ones who found a dentist for me too. It was purely by chance that I found out how desperate they were for funding. I was there for my dental consultation just days before our monthly meeting & told them that I would make sure to suggest helping the center too. They were thrilled, to say the least.

They called me a few days ago asking if I could meet the director for coffee. They wanted to talk about organizing an event for next year. Of course I said yes & told my photographer/workout friend who is also the co-president of our chapter. We all met this morning while Logan & Little M ran around & had fun together.

We are in the works in organizing a huge event in our small town. We're putting together a family "moms & tots" 2 mile (1 hour) stroller walk for next spring where the resource center will pull permits, organize a pre-walk breakfast, have a post-walk park playtime & advertise this all over town. This is unbelievably exciting & I'm so happy that I can be a part of it. I hope we can have a successful event that raises enough much needed funds for our community. For me, this is really paying it forward.