on | 1 COMMENT

Minimum Requirement: 5 Minutes and a Heart

The holiday season and the start of the New Year is always a great time to reinforce your charitable values with your family. If you are looking for a simple and meaningful charitable exercise for your kids that works for any age and engages them on a personal (and not just monetary) level, here is a suggestion: have your child make a card with a personal thank you message to our troops and their caregivers. The card can be delivered through Homefront Hugs and their Operation Healing Angel program.

Here is an example from one of my sons:

This simple exercise creates a great opportunity for some teachable moments with your child. It's also guaranteed to generate positive energy on both sides of the send/receive equation.

On a related note, for those of you with a FamZoo virtual family bank, now is an excellent time to review any outstanding balances in your children's FamZoo charitable accounts. If a balance has accumulated, take some time this week to sit down with your child, choose a charitable organization, and make a contribution. Some quick suggestions: DonorsChoose.org (mentioned in last year's holiday blog post), NothingButNets.net, and "charity:" (mentioned in a recent blog post by the president of Charity Navigator).

As of today, a total of $3,106.01 has been added to FamZoo charitable accounts and, of that, $186.10 has been distributed so far. This leaves an aggregate undistributed balance in FamZoo charitable accounts of: $2,919.91. That's some serious money. Help your kids put it to work this week.