End of Day 20: $3136.00

Thanks to another generous donation received in the mail, the amount raised from the bowling fundraiser, and an extremely generous donation from a friend who, in lieu of party favors at her wedding, has pledged to donate a small amount for each of her guests to help with the construction of the community center, the total is now over $3000.00!  Thanks again for the continued support!  I am still amazed, and honored that my friend chose to donate to this cause as a part of her wedding!  She is a special person, so doing something wonderful like this on her wedding day does not surprise me, I just feel like I cannot thank her enough.  Find out how you can help too!

One of my favorite days when I was down in the community was when we organized the kids on a community clean up.  I had told the kids we were going to be doing a "fun activity", but didn't tell them what it was going to be.  So... when they found out it was picking up trash, I decided to frame the activity as a competition, and there would be a prize for the group of kids with the most garbage collected.

 A few of the kids with a sack of garbage

 Looking for trash

 Trash in hand on the way to the bag for this team's effort

 Garbage, garbage everywhere...

Posing with one of the many bags of garbage collected

In the end, the kids filled all of the bags we had for them, and all anxiously awaited for me to announce the winning team.  But, there was a catch.  I told them they were all winners, and asked if someone knew why.  One of the kids spoke up and said that they were all winners because now the community was cleaner.  I was so happy.  We went on to talk about how the garbage affects their health and the environment.  We talked about water quality issues and pollution, and we ended the activity with popcorn for everyone.