Helping always helps

Whew for the last 9 months I've been waiting for life to slow down.  Each month I have proclaimed that the next month will be better or if I just make it through these next two months I'll be good.  Well surprise surprise I have been wrong every time.  Still, I'm hopeful August will be the sweet spot!

Ok so I'm committed to being delusional.  But my brain needs a break from constantly tackling crisis and managing projects (and people, aka family).  Last year around this town, I was frantically wrapping up what was perhaps my worst job ever.  I couldn't wait to get it done, but I was grinding hard to make my last consultant payment big. My last week of conducting trainings, I powered through my headache and sore throat.  I went through packs of Hall cough drops daily.  But I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  Then just in for my family reunion and birthday celebrations, I went down.  A cold turned into a sinus infection and then a C. diff infection.  I was laid out and not able to eat for weeks.  The weight loss was great!!  But there went my August and by the time I was well it was time to drown in the paperwork and errands of starting a first grader in a new school.

But while I was sucking on cough drops I found one spot of sunshine.  I was flipping through a magazine and learned about Operation Backpack.  It was a simple concept, buy a backpack fill it with supplies and donated it to a homeless kid.  It seemed like the easiest thing in the world compared to everything else on my to do list.  And if you know me you know that aiding kids who need a hand up is my passion (kids that are brats are my cryptonite!) So it wasn't enough for me to donate a backpack, I decided to recruit, friends, family and strangers to do the same.  The result was a donation of 30 backpacks!

It was a lot of work and a lot of trips to target to buy supplies on behalf of others, pick up backpacks all over town and double check that all supplies were included.  I was so weak by the end that I had to recruit a friend to sit assist in the labeling before the final drop off.  But it was the one thing that made me happy every day. And I was happy to be able to demonstrate the joy of charity work to Duckie.  So now I'm counting down the days until I get to do it again!

Luckily for me that day is Monday (July 11th) and this year I've got two collections spots in town (though I'll still pick up from you if you like) and a crowdrise site for those who prefer to contribute money toward filling a backpack. Backpacks go to kids at Volunteer of America Shelters in northern New Jersey and in NY City. So stay tuned details will be posted by Monday.