Community Service

Here's my little Florence Nightingale - isn't she sweet? I will now annoy you with a bragging tale of how wonderful my child is, so if you are not interested (but why on earth wouldn't you be?!), please feel free to go read Perez Hilton or The Angry Arab.

Nina is a member of the Daisy Girl Scouts and naturally I wanted to be involved, so I volunteered as the service project coordinator. I hemmed and hawed about the project - should we feed the homeless, dress the orphans, plant seeds for Mother Earth? Well, not sure of how this girl scouts thing really works, I decided to do an easy valentine's project. Our troop would make and send valentines to a nursing home. They were quite cute, actually. First we made hot pink door hangers and then the girls decorated the valentines that went inside. I was told to drop off the valentines at the girl scouts' office and then they would be taken to a local nursing home. Later, like about a week ago, I found out that actually our troop should pick a place in the community to deliver them. I recalled a place very close to our house that looked a little runned down and therefore could use some cute little girl scouts to liven the place up. I notified all the moms that this Sunday would be the day to do our part and deliver the valentines to the sick and the elderly.

Well, only one other little girl showed up. Not that I blame anyone for not coming - it was short notice and a Sunday afternoon to boot. The two girls were taken to the first floor of the nursing home (I was told that these residents were a little more "with it" than the ones on the 3rd floor) and went door to door giving out their special creations. Although it looked like a hospital and smelled like one too, Nina didn't seem to notice or care. She boldly went into each resident's room and greeted them with a "Happy Valentine's Day". Nina's not the most outgoing kid, but yesterday she must have been having a moment because she was friendly and talkative to all the residents. She didn't even get scared when some people were drooling, or sleeping with their giant bellies hanging out, or had tubes up their noses. I for one was getting pretty depressed and thinking, "Please don't make me live in a place like this when I'm old", but when we were all done, Nina exclaimed, "That was fun!". The other little girl didn't seem quite as enthused but it was a great experience nonetheless.

So although we do not belong to any organized religious group, even my mom would have to agree that we had a very Christian day. Maybe it even took off a few black marks on my own record??