Women of Wonder: Mission #4

My mission for the week was to Rediscover My Happiness. I was supposed to spread the joy and volunteer at a children’s hospital. I was so excited for this one, but once I started looking into it, I realized that it could take a few weeks to become a volunteer, and with the time crunch, it wasn’t feasible at this time. I’m definitely keeping this in mind though, and plan on becoming a volunteer at the children’s hospital at another time!

After emailing back and forth with Danie (she’s the amazing woman who helps answer all of my questions), I was given some new options. I got into contact with a few other organizations who all rejected me because we couldn’t work something out to fit my time frame. When Danie suggested that I donate some warm clothes and food to a homeless person, I found myself on The Mustard Seed website, looking at their wish-list of things they’re always in need of. I rounded up my family, and we headed to Wal-Mart.

We stocked up on some of the essentials: Toiletries (razors, shaving cream, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo and conditioner), food (pasta, pasta sauce, coffee, tea, crackers, soups, baby food, juice) and even a few towels and face cloths. It all adds up so quickly (price wise), but I didn’t want to leave anything out! While we were at the check out, I started getting nervous when I saw that the total started creeping above my budget. Luckily, my sister decided last minute to pitch in some money. Thanks, Jess!

We grabbed our bags (which were heavy!) and then went and picked up my Mom. There was no way she was missing out on this. While we were in the car, Jessica was talking about how excited she was getting. There didn’t even seem to be a particular reason; we were all just happy to be spending our Saturday afternoon doing something for someone else. While we were at home, my Dad even got in the spirit and go out his hotel toiletries collection to donate! We were all impressed.

After getting everything together, we drove downtown to The Mustard Seed. After stopping to make a brief video, we all walked over to drop off our donations. It wasn’t a big affair (not that I was expecting it to be), we just dropped off our bags by the donations shelves and filled out a form with our email addresses so we can be updated on what’s going on at The Mustard Seed. What really impacted me though was that as we were walking in, we passed by a group of a few men and a woman. The woman had a black eye and was talking about the things that had lead to her getting it. My heart went out to her. It made me feel better that I was doing this, and made me realize that a one time deal just isn’t enough. I think my family all agrees that we need to do this more often, so I’m hoping to get them together and do it again soon!

I used to volunteer quite a bit in high school, but for whatever reason, I fell out of that habit. I used to volunteer every Saturday morning for the Calgary Special Olympics, getting up early to help the bowlers. It didn’t matter that I was giving up extra sleep, I was just happy to be there with the amazing men and women who all made me feel so welcome and were genuinely happy to see me every week. They’ve had a big impact on my life. This mission helped me to remember the sheer joy I would get out of volunteering my time to make someone else happy. I loved seeing how excited my family got to be there to make the donation with me! I’m definitely going to be looking into getting into volunteering again.

Here’s a little video recap of the mission. My family is a bunch of hams, so I had to cut out a few giggling fits, but I left in the peace sign my Dad gives the camera at the end. Enjoy.