OK, OK, I promise I will talk about Living Simply With Children next week, but this week I just have to share a nice story. Last week I talked about volunteering, and here in Portland it’s a pretty easy thing to do. I went online to find a Service Day event for my family only to find everything that was appropriate for a 5-year-old filled. The park cleanup effort needed 24 people and had over 60 signed up. The food drive canvassing party was filled and the post removed when I went to look at it again five minutes later. No one else was needed to serve breakfast in the shelter. It was wonderful that so many people were involved here, but it wasn’t going to help me get my family volunteering!

We were talking about this dilemma when Georgia said, “I could ask people for food for the Oregon Food Bank for people who don’t have enough food.” Her school had recently gathered food, and it was fresh in her mind. But I don’t like the idea of soliciting our neighbors cold, so I asked our ersatz mayor of the ’hood if he thought it would be OK to use the neighborhood email list to see if Georgia could gather food from willing people. He thought it was a terrific idea, so I sent this note:

Dear neighbors,

We want to participate in Monday's Service Day, but all the kid-appropriate events are filled to capacity! (How wonderful!) Georgia (five years old) had the idea to have a food drive here and take the food to the Oregon Food Bank. I didn't want to solicit neighbors without your permission, but if it's OK we'd love to come by your house on Monday to pick up one non-perishable item for the Food Bank. Or if you prefer you can drop it off at our house and we'll take it there. Please let me know if you don't mind a little visit from a well-meaning five-year-old to pick up some food! 

Yours in the volunteer spirit!

Seventeen families said they’d be glad to open their doors to Georgia, or at least leave something on the porch for her to pick up. It was blustery and cold. “Seventeen pieces of food! That will be too much to carry!” she worried, but she and Hova set out Monday with her little red wagon, a sign that read “Georgia’s Food Drive” and seventeen copies of a hand painted thank you note – a picture of a family with bare shelves, but smiles because their hands are full of canned food. One neighbor had left a stuffed moose holding some soup, and told Georgia she could have the moose for herself. She went from house to house, and felt so accomplished when she came home with much more than her little wagon could hold, “I bet this will fill up one whole shelf at the food bank!”

We are lucky to have a wonderful, involved neighborhood, and that Service Day gave us a little kick to get something going. It was really such a small thing, a very little effort, an easy way to connect with neighbors, but it was a big way for one little person to know that she can make a difference.