Teaching my Kids and Helping Others!

I want to start this off by telling you a little bit about our family for those of you who do not know.  My husband and I have two beautiful children.  We have a 6 1/2 year old daughter and a 4 1/2 year old son.  Yes they are almost exactly two years apart!  If our son would have been born 9 days later they would have been EXACTLY 2 year's apart lol.   

Our kids!

Anyway as a mother I find myself wanting to teach our kids important lessons at a younger age then when I learned them.  I think that certain lessons at a young age helps them learn to respect all people, hopefully help with them NOT being bullies, being thankful for the things they have and to help others!   So you're probably wondering why I am post about this on my Coupon, Samples and giveaway blog right?  Well I also consider my blog a family blog first of all and second of all this "life lesson" has a lot to do with free samples and coupons!

Helpers!

I get so many people asking what do you do with all of those free samples you get in the mail or why do you stock up on so many of the same free products.  Well besides the simple fact that the samples are free and certain products at the store are free with coupons.  I also love to donate to others!  Don't get me wrong my family always comes first.  I try to always make sure our family is stocked up in case of an emergency but once we are stocked my next step is to donate. 





There are a lot of ways to donate!  You can find a local shelter for homeless and donate to them, with the USA being in a rough spot at this time it's pretty easy to find others that could use help... So give to neighbors in need or complete strangers!  Get creative!  Trust me if you want to help someone you can always find a way to donate.    I learned a lot about homeless people as a preteen/teenager.  I honestly got a smack in the face wake up call.  I remember as a kid my parents would say things like finish your dinner... There are kids out there that would love to have that food.  It honestly didn't really hit me until I started going on mission trips and started finding out that homeless people are real.  I mean I knew their where homeless people but I never really thought it was that bad.

Getting ready to fill socks

  You see on a few different mission trips I went on we would get people to donate products to us for our mission trip.  Normally stuff like socks, small bottles of soap and conditioner (like the ones from hotels), Body Wash, Floss, Tooth paste and tooth brushes.  We would take the products and stuff the socks with them.  Once they were done we would take them out and hand them out to the homeless.  This was a wakeup call for me.  At the moment when a person is so excited about a pair of socks, soap and tooth care items that they will follow you to get a set and are so grateful for it.  You would think that we just bought them the biggest and best new flat screen TV when all you gave them is a pair of socks and some other little items.  That was my smack in the face.  At that point I realized how much our world was hurting and those of us who have the luxury of a house and other things should donate any time possible! 

My little helpers

  So our kids and I had a sock stuffing session.  Don't worry our little kids will not be passing socks out to the homeless they just helped me stuff them.  Our 4 year old didn't really get it he just had fun helping but our 6 year old daughter couldn't believe that there are people that don't have those simple little items.  I think it made her realize how lucky of a little girl she is.  That's a big deal because she is normally not grateful for things at all!         My husband and I put the stuffed socks in our vehicles because we see homeless people all the time.  When we do we have items in the car to hand them. 

The filled socks we keep in our vehicles

    So it really just comes down to when you have more than you need or you have items you don't need donate!  What ways are you donating??