Service...With A Smile!

This past Thursday our Scouts did a Thanksgiving Themed Food Drive for Pack Meeting. The boys and their families, plus us leaders divided up the streets and collected the food.

I hate to admit this, but I did NOT want to do this at all. In our planning meeting I was trying everything I could to find an excuse to not do a food drive. I didn't want to keep track of x amount of boys running up and down the streets, yada, yada, yada. I also didn't want to have to take my baby out in the cold that long or to keep track of Lex. Plus, I knew that Eric would be "overjoyed" to participate.

Well I pretty much got shot down and the food drive is what was decided upon. The day of the food drive I was getting really stressed out. Tanis had a book report due the next day and we hadn't yet finished the book, so we had to finish the book and then we still had to put the book report together (More on that in a later post).

It was about 6:00 and we had to be at the meeting place at 6:30. I hurried to get a bag together for the little boys to go with Eric. We decided that Eric would go hang out with some friends while I took the older two kids with me. Remember I did NOT want my baby out in the cold for that long - I should mention it's because he's had a bad cold and I didn't want to make it worse.

So we finally finish up Tanis' book report around 6:15 and hurried to get ourselves presentable and headed over to the place we were meeting. I was still a bit stressed out and not looking forward to the night, but whatever.

We arrive at the place and not a lot of people have shown up yet, so that eased some of the stress I was having. Eventually six families show up so we have the usual Presentation of the Colors and the boys did a cute little skit before we headed out.

There are 3 streets in our ward area, so 2 boys and families were sent to each street. Tanis and his friend Taylor ended up going with me and another set of leaders to our street. At our street we divided up yet again to have each scout do one side of the street. Tanis ended up with the other leader and Taylor with me (still not sure how that happened).

I will tell you that by the 3rd or 4th house, my attitude changed. About halfway down the street one of the other Scout leaders came by in his pickup to empty the food out of our little wagons so we could have room for the rest of the food.

I was overwhelmed to see that the truck was already almost half full and we had only gotten halfway down the street. We completed our side of the street and started up the other side of the street as Tanis and the leader he was with weren't quite as far down as we had gotten.

We made sure we had the scouts go to the doors to collect the food and explain what we were doing in case the people had missed the notes we had passed out. It was fun to see Tanis get over being shy and explain what was going on. He still had all the quirks people do when they are shy and talking to people, but he did it and that was cool.

After we finished our street we headed back to the home where we started for cookies and hot chocolate. It was so very interesting to see how much food was collected. The food filled up the back of the pick up and I was so very impressed. (I blurred the boys' faces so that no parents would be offended, hopefully)

Now, we could have left it at that, but on Monday the Scouts delivered Thank-Yous to each of the houses in the area. One of the scouts moms was smart enough to think to make the thank-yous.

I also had the opportunity, last night, to help sort through the food with a few other ladies in the Relief Society. I don't usually get to do the service type things because of Eric's delivery job, so when the opportunity presented itself on a night Eric would be home I had to do it.

It was amazing to actually see how much food there was. We had 14 families to take the food to and each of them got roughly the same amount of items and then a bunch of extra items. (I should mention that us R.S. ladies didn't take the food to the families, the bishopric took care of that.) It is so great to see how a little bit from everyone can go a long way.

I've always heard that service makes you feel better and all that you usually hear about it. But, I've never really experienced it quite the way I did this time around. I am so very thankful I had the opportunity and that it was able to change my whole outlook on the day.