Teach your kids to make a difference

8 ways to spread cheer from the office
Virginia Brucker, author of Gifts from the Heart (Insomniac Press, 2006) shares ideas for getting your workplace involved in community charities.

1. Donate items your family has outgrown such as a crib, bedding, baby clothes, or baby toys to a family shelter.

2. Organize a collection of gently used children's books for a family shelter.

3. Develop a new policy at work -- make helping others an annual tradition at your workplace. Instead of exchanging gifts with coworkers at your office this year, pick a charity to help. If each person donates a few dollars, it will add up to a sizable donation. Or collect toiletries for a shelter. On your lunch hour, have a "work bee” where your staff works together to fill small gift bags.

4. Organize a warm coat collection for children and adults. Do any necessary mending and wash or dry-clean the coats. You may find a local dry cleaner will volunteer to do them for free.

5. Organize a noon-hour Sock Hop at your workplace or school. Ask participants to bring a pair or two of warm socks to donate to a homeless shelter. Cotton tube socks in dark colours are best.

6. Rather than putting up a Christmas tree, put up a “mitten tree” in your school or office foyer. You'll need a bare-branch tree in a sturdy pot of sand. Ask the students or your coworkers to decorate it with warm winter hats and mittens that will be donated to the homeless.

7. Visit your local library and sign out one of the many excellent children's books about homelessness to read to your children.

8. Let your local, provincial and federal government representatives know that you are concerned about homelessness and feel this issue should be made a national priority.

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Virginia Brucker is a teacher/librarian from Vancouver Island who wrote Gifts from the Heart: Simple Ways to Make Your Family's Christmas More Meaningful. A newly revised and expanded edition is available at bookstores across Canada. Virginia's royalties support research for the Canadian Cancer Society. To date, book sales have raise $98,500 for research. Published by Insomniac Press, 2006, $19.95.

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