Just Ask!

I have found myself doing a lot of asking lately. Asking for help, asking to switch dates, asking for donations and asking if someone would like to join me somehow. And I've discovered a few things: It's not that hard to ask. People genuinely like to help and give. It's not up to me to provide the answer, just to ask the question. And, it's contagious.

Here are just a few "asks":

I asked people to help me with many aspects of the Jingle Bell Blitz. They all pitched in.

Using Facebook, I invited many Facebook friends to come to the Jingle Bell Blitz. They in turn invited their friends until there were 175 invites.

I watched volunteers ask if shoppers wanted to shop for the Food Pantry. They grabbed a bag and filled it with food.

I was invited to join a friend and her mother to an art show. I accepted and then asked them to coffee.

Together with a friend, I invited another friend out for her birthday. We had a great time together.

I have been invited to many Christmas events, and I also have extended invitations to others. What a wonderful time of year to "ask"! I hope we all continue to look for opportunities to ask and invite in the new year too.

One Plus One...They are Growing!

What else does one do at 4:25 in the morning, but blog? I am obviously not sleeping and have found something to do that wont disturb my whole family. Someone has to be first so, why not me. I am going to make an attempt to remember as many invitations as I can that I have extended or received since the inception of our theme for WAVE this coming year. At this point I am not going to force the notion of listing them chronologically. Just remembering them will be a feet in itself. The invitation was extended to the women of Valley View to consider collecting their pennies to represent their invitations and place them in our jar. These will then be counted and added to our Alliance Women's global project in May. Each month our leadership team has been sharing their stories and adding their pennies diligently. An invitation was given to family and friends to serve at our community dinner. Over twenty accepted and since then two clients of our community dinner are now serving on a regular basis. That is so cool. I accepted a lunch invitation to reconnect with a young woman who is now a high school senior that I took care of for two years when she was just the precious age of two. What a beautiful princess she is, and she has such an amazing story for such a young thing. We extended an invitation to two couples to join us for American Thanksgiving. One couple was able to join us and it has been really special to connect with them since then. Three invitations were personally given to friends in our community to join us for our JBB. I personally handed out about 100 invitations to community shoppers to join us for the JBB. The invitation was given to fourteen of our youth to serve at the JBB and each one accepted. For three weeks I have been inviting others to purchase products that will help support the costs of our community free breakfast as a way of saying thank you for helping us fill the Newmarket Food pantry in one day! I have accepted an invitaion to join a group of women who have a desire to change the life of another one project at a time. Most recently four invitatoins have been personally given to friends to join us on Christmas Eve for the production of Uncle Phil's Christmas Diner. Well, hope this has inspired you to not only blog your invitations, but to keep extending and accepting invitations with a desire to see one ife changed, one inviation at a time. Who know's, maybe that life changed will be yours! Don't forget to collect and add your pennies to our jar...they are growing one penny at a time!