{How to Be an Everyday Philanthropist ~ January}

January~ Use Your Body

This year one of my personal goals is to encourage my two oldest children to partner with me in a year long quest to give back. My previous post {here} will shed more light on this:) 

We are using

 Nicole Bouchard Boles book~ "How to Be an Everyday Philanthropist"  as our guide to achieve this. 

We choose to designate a chapter for each month in 2012; and each one offers different ways you can give back. For January~Chapter 1, it dealt with using your body. Their were many suggestions and strategies listed so I encouraged the kids to agree on one that was special to them. 

The kids both agreed that they wanted to plant a tree as a way of giving back to our environment! 

So here is the Journey of completing our first months task and learning how to give back; even if in small ways, and hopefully along the way instilling the importance of philanthropy! 

We read through the chapter and Treven and Ava decided that Planting a Tree was our months goal! 

We arrived at our local Nursery to pick out our tree!

We asked for help in choosing a local variety that would grow in our area well.

After scanning the aisles the kids both choose a Sugar Tree, quite possibly for the name alone:) 

We went inside and researched more about the specifics our new tree would need so that we gave it the best possible home.

We even made a new friend while giving back; Butterscotch

After purchasing our tree we headed home to water and care for it for a week before planting.




The Big Day!! {Take two}
We had attempted to plant the tree prior to this occasion but only to find out that in our hurry to beat the setting sun we had forgotten our tiny shovel after arriving. It really was a blessing in disguise because it would have taken us forever to dig with that tiny thing!! haha
So I borrowed two shovels and we were back on track a few days later! 

Headed to our location to plant our tree!

The kids picked a spot they liked and got to work digging the hole

With the tree securely in it's new home the kids made sure to give it lots of water

Mission accomplished! Tree Planted!

Treemert <3

This was a wonderful experience and even with bumps along the way, some bickering, and issues with trying to find the time to accomplish what we set out to do; by the end of it the kids were so happy and proud they named their tree "Treemert" and decided to come and water and visit it every Monday:)