Blessings

First an update for the end of Week 1 of the 17 Day Diet - down 6 lbs!!  With the radical change my diet has experienced, I would have expected a 20 lb loss, but I'll take 6.  Trekking forward into this new healthy lifestyle.  For those I promised menus and recipes to, that will start soon.  I need to get a bit more organized and continue to figure out how to cook like this.  Let's face it those recipes that I typically use aren't exactly on the 17 day plan.

On the topic of food and eating , I think it is something that most of us take for granted.  We go to the store, buy a cart full of groceries, spend $100 and think nothing of it. Heck, half the time we end up throwing a portion of it away.  We stop on the way home from work and pick up something convenient, give our kids choices at dinner and send our kids to school with a full stomach each morning.  Our kids have a snack cabinet full of healthy and unhealthy choices that they can freely pick from when they're hungry.  This, however, is not the case for many kids in our city, state, country.  We all are aware of those children that suffer in other countries, but we rarely talk about those who live right down the street from us.

I grew up in a family where giving back came naturally.  My dad participated in Big Brothers Big Sisters, my mom donated her time freely and often, my dad took in any kid that was struggling, and those are things that have stayed present in my mind as I've become an adult.

We, personally, have spent a lot of time trying to figure how best to give back.  We are clearly blessed and have so many things to be thankful for and so many things that we take for granted.  It's easy to take the approach of "oh I'm just one person, what can I really do." 

After a lot of time and a lot of research we chose to adopt an IPS school for the Blessings in a Backpack program.  Every school in the Indianapolis Public School system qualifies for the Federal free breakfast and lunch program and a high percentage of children qualify to participate in this program.  This means that for many young students the only meals they receive are breakfast and lunch Monday - Friday.  They come to school hungry each morning and starving after a long weekend of few if any meals.  The Blessings in a Backpack program sends a backpack of food home each weekend of the school year with these students. In those schools that have been fortunate enough to particiapte in this program the results have been outstanding:  Test scores go up and problems go down when children come to school fed and ready to learn each Monday morning.  It costs just $80 to feed a child for an entire school year - that is less than most of us spend on one weeks worth of groceries.

We chose a middle school in Broadripple with hopes of raising enough money to feed 175 kids this school year.  In this school, 100% of the children qualify for the federal meal program - 100%!  Our fundraising efforts have been slower than we expected, but we know we are doing the right thing.  Even if we can impact the lives of 50 kids, it will be more than worth it.

For more information check out their site:

http://www.blessingsinabackpack.org/home

Tomorrow Buffalo Wild Wings in Broadripple is sponsoring a give back night for us.  15% of all those meals purchased showing our flyer will go towards the fundraising efforts.  If you're in the area, come out and join us!

Cheers...