Nothing gives me the chills, or makes me stand at attention like the presence of our military. I am proud to be an American and I salute and give thanks to the many man, women, and children that have sacrificed so much to give us the freedoms we have today. Our children often go months without saying their mother or father as they serve our country. Men and women have given their lives to help protect our freedom. Taking place this year on November 19, Family Volunteer Day is powered by generationOn, the youth division of Points of Light, the largest organization in the world dedicated to volunteer service, and sponsored by The Walt Disney Company.
We decided to help AdoptaPlatoon
AdoptaPlatoon strives to provide a better deployment quality of life by sending cards, letters and care packages to lift the morale of Troops as they serve far from home and assist military families. AdoptaPlatoon provides an on-going mail support system, creates projects that meet the need of military requests, and establishes special projects that benefit deployed Troops representing all branches of the U.S. military.
With the holidays approaching my daughter and I decided to get ready for Family Volunteer Day by creating some holiday cards for our soldiers. Find a project to do or join a project using Family Volunteer’s website: http://fvd.generationon.org/ There is no wrong or right way to create cards. Look around the house and grab a bunch of fun arts and crafts supplies like these…
My daughter is all about crafts so it wasn’t to hard to find a ton of supplies to help us create our cards. However after we got everything together my daughter remembered the Cricut Machine that we own. We decided to pull it out and use it to make our AdoptaPlatoon holiday cards.
We have had several people in our family connected with the military such as my stepfather, uncle, and my husband’s grandfather. Sitting down and explaining to the children what being in our military means was a great way to start the holidays beginning with Thanksgiving which is a great time to give thanks and volunteer. My celebrating in Family Volunteer Day on Saturday November 19th you can show your kids how important it is to give back and help others.
While we do plan to send a care package with our holiday cards later in the month we had a great time creating our cards and getting prepared. We downloaded some fun Cricut projects specific to the holiday season and together we made some beautiful cards that we can’t wait to send to our platoon.
Like I mentioned above you can make your cards out of anything. We may have used our Cricut but you can do the same thing with construction paper, markers, and stickers. It is not what your card looks like but the thought behind the card. Like my mom always says, “It is the thought that counts”. For this reason it was important that the kids knew that in addition to the cards and care package we would be putting together it was important to send a personal note. A note do let the solider know that we are thinking of them and are thankful for all that they do.
From our family to ours we encourage you to take part in Family Volunteer Day, Saturday, November 19th, powered by generationOn. Pick a charity, organization, or something local and volunteer your time in some shape or form. It is a great lesson for the children and a great way to kick off the holiday season.
I am a Family Volunteer Day Blogger Ambassador. This post is part of a sponsored campaign. I received compensation for my participation, but my opinions are my own.
