GIVING BACK

HOW PERI’S GIVING BACK

This year I have been very involved in my daughter Allie's elementary school where a group of us decided it was time for a new playground and an exciting new outdoor learning center.  Eight moms and one dad came together and together we galvanized the community!  We raised nearly $150,000 over 2 1/2 years and engaged parents in our community who have expertise in all of the areas in which we needed help!  We have an architect, a TV reporter, an attorney,  a caterer, a political activist,  grant writer, a professional fund raiser, an environmental educator and more!  And all we had to do to get them involved was ASK!  When we began the community was very demoralized and felt that "our kids" would simply never have a new playground.  Once we got the ball rolling,  asked for help from professionals, shared information regularly, made a case to our community why we needed funding, found a fun way to get the community together to raise money and moved quickly to spend the money in responsible and visible ways the entire mood of our school changed!  We became the "little school that could"!  I couldn't be more proud!

HOW YOU CAN GIVE BACK

YOU can make these same kinds of changes in YOUR community!  Remember to include as many people as possible, invite in the "nay sayers" as well as your supporters.  Give people specific and reasonably sized volunteer tasks to complete.  Dream big - but tackle the dream in bite sized pieces.  Believe in yourselves and in your vision!  And share your success stories here so that others can learn from your experience!

LEAVE A COMMENT TO SHARE HOW YOU’RE GIVING BACK

I hope that you'll share your GIVING BACK experiences here for others to celebrate and learn from.  If you are working on or have completed a Bar/Bat Mitzvah "mitzvah" project, if you are the chair of your social action committee, if you are the youth group director looking for new ideas . . . you've come to the right place!  Just click the "comment" button below - and share your experiences!  Together we CAN make a difference!