Part 2

OK. I'm sorry I kind of just ended that last post with out giving any suggestion. But maybe you needed sometime to think of ideas on you're own if you wanted to. But I completely understand. You decide you want to do something but have no clue what to do. I've had that problem...well...countless times. But God has showed me answers. One way is through a book I got for my birthday. It is called Generation Change by Zach Hunter and it's pretty much a whole bunch of ideas and stories about people who have done similar things and such. I'm going to list some ideas....

1. Skip a meal and use the money you would be spending to feed someone who truly is hungry. If you want to go a step further skip one meal a week and then you can save up a lot of money. You can possible use that to buy one of the animals at World Vision to give to someone in another country. Or you can do something locally and use the money to buy canned goods to donate to your local food bank.



2. Or maybe instead of going out to eat one night eat at home and calculate the money you would save and donate that money to feed someone who is hungry.



3. In Generation Change it suggested a Burrito project. Beans and rice and tortillas aren't expensive. So you can buy the goods make some and then go to a downtown area and eat burritos with the homeless people downtown.



4. If you are an artistic person you can use the gift God has given you in many ways. One is you can paint, draw, knit, crochet, weave, etc. and then sell what you make and use that money to donate to a good organization.



5. For Christmas you can ask for just money and then donate that to a good organization that helps other or buy cans for the food bank or whatever.



6. Make a hut out of cardboard and duct tape and sleep out in it for a night. You can get a whole group. You can get people to sponsor you for the night. You can sleep in front of the school, church building, house, or whatever works for you. In Generation Change it talked about this idea. The book also talked about writing facts about homelessness. It's a really good idea.



7. If you are gifted with being athletic you can run, ride a bike, swim or whatever for a mile or whatever and get people to pay for mile and donate the money.



8. In Generation Change there was a really good idea. I know the closest big city close to me does but some maybe several cities have places where you can paint pottery. In the book students designed bowls and then had a dinner. They invited families from their church and the family paid for dinner and they each got to select a bowl to put on the dining room table. But the bowl was to remain empty to remind the family of the people who don't get to eat.



9. Help with a Habitat for Humanity build.



10. Or simply be kind to people. Open doors when their hands are full, helping people carry things when they look like they need help, saying hi to someone, we both can think of hundreds if not thousands of ways we can be kind to other people. It's just simple and easy.

I honestly had another idea but I forgot. Sorry. I'll post it later if I remember.

UPDATE

11. Collect spare change to donate. Some people say to collect spare change to pay for a vacation but you don't need to go on vacation. Whenever I go to trips I save the coins I have left over. My parents let me keep them. I give them the bills but The change amounts to something after a while. Me and my sister have collected over $20 worth in change. Sure it isn't that much but we plan to donate it to someone.

From personal experience there won't always be people interested in helping. Some ideas require a collaborative effort. And sometimes support is very hard to find. And you might get put down. But pray. I had the problem where my friends didn't care and whenever I suggested anything they just said, "Whatever" and laughed it off. It sure doesn't make a person feel good. And recently I told my friend we needed to do something and she said she wanted to. She had seen a video about Invisible Children and wanted to help with that organization. She wanted to do something big. We weren't quite sure how to get things started but God is sure amazing! So if you want to start something you could get put down by you're friends. But there is someone else out there willing to do great things with you and who wants to. They just might be looking for someone who wants to stand up too.

I highly recommend Generation Change by Zach Hunter as well as Be the Change by Zach Hunter. I just finished Be the Change and am over half way through Generation Change. Great books.

Update:I do realize some of the suggestions aren't really practical for everyone. I think you have to be 16 to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. But some things you can do as a family or with a group of friends. Sorry I should have remembered to put this earlier.