Light the Night 2008 July 19, 2008
Posted by Tracy Gullett in Giving.add a comment
Following is an e-mail I received from close friends who have been deeply involved in a charitable effort for Leukemia research and whose young son is continuing a successful battle against the disease. This entire family has put many hours and much effort into supporting the cause of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and we are very proud of all that they’ve done. I wanted to share this because also included in his note is a nice example of kids learning the value of giving.
Hello everyone . . .
Once again this fall we are going to be participating in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light The Night Walk 2008.
http://www.active.com/donate/ltnShawne/Stallo2008
I have a co-worker that is an avid quilter. For the past couple of years she has quilted a quilt and we have sold raffle tickets for it. Then the night of the walk, one lucky winner’s name is drawn out of the box.
This year I am expanding this to online donations for a 3 week period. Any donations that come in, starting today and going through August 8th, I will fill out tickets and put them in the quilt box for you. Every $5 gets you 6 tickets. The quilt is king size. Check out the picture of it at the bottom of this email.
When it comes to donations to this or any other charity, no donation is too small. They all add up. Last year the evening of the walk, I witnessed something that I hadn’t expected that I would like to share.
While we were standing there enjoying the activities I had 2 young girls under the age of 8 come up to me and each of them handed me an envelope. When I asked them what was in it, they said it was money they had been saving up and wanted to give it to us for the walk, to help kids like Ryan. Talk about bringing something into perspective. . . After talking with their parents I found out that they had earned weekly commissions by doing work around the house. Before they knew about the walk, they were already been putting a percentage into a “giving” envelope. As the walk was approaching the girls were asking why we were doing it and who it helped. Once their parents explained it to them, they both decided to donate all of the money in their “giving” envelope to the Light the Night Walk.
They were so proud to take their envelopes with them that evening to the walk and give it to us. You could tell from the look in their eyes how excited they were to help out. In their eyes, they were helping Ryan and they felt great about it. Their donations mean just as much to us as anyone’s did.
Ryan continues to do well. He had his normal monthly treatment just yesterday and everything went well. He went in, they took draws and he got his chemo through his port. All of his lab work came back great.
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light The Night Walk is a nationwide walk to help raise awareness and funds to cure leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. Participants carry illuminated balloons to celebrate and commemorate lives touched by cancer.
We have decided to participate in this and help them raise money for this very important cause and I’m asking you to help by considering to make a contribution. Please use the link in this email to donate online quickly & securely. You will receive an email confirmation of your donation. We thank you in advance for your support, and really appreciate your generosity!
If you would like to join us for the walk it’s September 27, 2008 at Hyde Park in Saint Joseph, MO.
Thanks again for your continued support. Please feel free to forward this on to any friends, family members, co-workers, etc that would be interested in reading more about Ryan and learning about Ryan’s story.
Chris and Suzanne Stallo
http://www.active.com/donate/ltnShawne/Stallo2008
~ live your life from your heart – share from your heart and your story will touch and heal people’s souls ~
Savings, Giving, Spending July 8, 2008
Posted by Tracy Gullett in Giving, Saving, Spending.add a comment
Each week on “pay day,” my kids deliver their checklists to me and I pay them based on our individual agreements (base pay minus red Xs). But rather than let them go blow all their money on video games and gifts for their dad, my wife and I have them use an envelope system to divide their earnings. They have three envelopes: Saving, Giving, and Spending. We’re trying to teach them the basics of budgeting and saving towards goals.
Our 5-year-old, M, captured one of her goals last night. Ever since her big sister started looking at electric guitars, M has had her eye on a ukulele. Well, she finally took the plunge and bought a baritone ukulele with $54 from her Savings envelope. She was so proud of her purchase and couldn’t wait to get home to show her mom. Her sister taught her how to play some notes, and she wants to sign up for lessons to learn how to play like Jake Shimabukuro. It’s amazing how much enthusiasm a kid can have for something she’s wanted for a long time and paid for with her own money.
The way the pay day money is divided is based on percentages. Roughly 50% of the money goes into the Savings envelope, which may only be used to pay for established goals. Another 10% goes into the Giving envelope, which is used to give to a cause of the girls’ choice. FInally, the remaining 40% goes into the Spending envelope, out of which all “fun stuff” is bought. The girls take their money and divide it up themselves, with my help with the math if needed. It’s crucial to the training that they do this themselves. Otherwise, they don’t see where the money comes from and where it goes. My kids usually count the money in each envelope each week so that they can keep track of how fast it is growing.
Originally, we based the distribution percentages on the base pay, with Savings and Giving coming first. In other words, with M’s base pay of $5 per week, $2.50 would go to Savings, $0.50 would go to Giving, and the remainder – whatever that might be after red Xs were tallied – would go into Spending. Using this method, she would get no money for her Spending envelope if she received 8 red Xs for the week (i.e. she failed to do 8 jobs).
Well, we have revised the system just a bit by making the red Xs more proportional. Now the percentages are based on the actual pay. In the above 8-red-X scenario, M would receive $3 for the week. Applying the percentages, she would technically put $1.50 into Savings, $0.30 into Giving, and $1.20 into Spending. However, since we don’t like dealing with anything less than quarters, we may round it to $1.50/$0.25/$1.25.
Is anyone lost at this point? I hope not! Once the system is established, it’s really quite easy to follow! Pay Day has become a time that the whole family looks forward to each week and is a good bonding opportunity for Dear ol’ Dad and his little girls.
