• Drive thru drop off of in-kind donations was hosted on Feb 13th at the Marietta High School parking lot.

• Volunteers Hosted a "Mini" Drive and gathered non-perishable food items from their neighborhood, friends and family.

• Local Businesses Became Drop Off Locations including: West Cobb School of Rock, Medalyn Salon, Bach to Rock of East Marietta, Braintrain.  Boxes donated by Two Men and a Truck Marietta.

• Monetary Donations to purchase food.

COBB SENIOR SERVICES:  Cobb Senior Services is helping curb food insecurity for our senior residents in Cobb County.   

THE CENTER FOR FAMILY RESOURCES:  The Center for Family Resources offers many services to community members to provide assistance for basic needs to stabilize families in crisis in an effort to prevent homelessness and hunger. Including food & shelter.  

COBB SALVATION ARMY: Cobb Salvation Army offers many different services for our community members both in emergency situations and daily needs.  Food donations will be used to feed people in the Cobb County area. 

M.U.S.T. MINISTRIES: M.U.S.T Ministries website states that they have distributed over 1.9 million pounds of food since the pandemic began.  That is a clear need to help collect & donate more food so M.U.S.T Ministries can continue to serve our community.

KIDS CARE would like to encourage individuals & families to be a great Kindster & volunteer in your own neighborhoods to collect non-perishable food items. 

You choose!  However you want to do it and whichever way you prefer to collect.  Collect from within your neighborhood and social network.  Have friends, family and co-workers drop off their donated food items to your door or mailbox.  Food can be donated to your charity of choice or we can help guide you on how to deliver to one of the organizations we deliver to.  Give it a Go & see how much you can collect to GIVE TO OTHERS IN NEED!   

Let's see what you can do!  Challenge your friends, challenge your neighbors! This a great way to participate in community service in which you can safely give back to our local community.  Have fun - post on social media, set your own goals, and HELP US make an IMPACT!!  Email: volunteer@kids-care2018.org for questions/assistance.

CANNED FOOD: POP-UP LIDS PREFERRED

• Canned Soups

• Canned Vegetables

• Canned Fruit

• Canned Beans

• Canned Meat

• Canned Tomato Sauce

BOXED FOOD:

• Pasta

• Instant Rice

• Mac-n-Cheese (individual microwave servings & regular boxes)

• Breakfast Bars

• Granola Bars

• Protein Bars

• Crackers

• Breakfast Cereal (low sugar)

• Pancake Mix

BAGGED FOOD:

• Rice

• Snack food (individual servings)

INFANT/BABY:

• Infant/Baby Formula

• Powdered Milk

• Baby Food

• Snacks for babies/toddlers

DRINKS:

• Juice Boxes

• Powdered flavors to add to water bottle

• Individual Drink Bottles (excluding soda)

MISC:

• Applesauce (individual serving sizes)

• Oatmeal (Individual serving packets & canister sizes)

• Peanut Butter

• Jelly

• Ramen Cups

• What is Community Service?  What does it mean to you?  What types of Kindness have you given to others?

• Why do we want to Give?  What is Empathy? What is Compassion?  What is the difference between the two?

• What is Kindness? 

• What do you think the receivers of gifts/kind actions feel? How does it feel to have Hope?  To feel Grateful?

• What is the Ripple Effect?

• Who can WE help?  What do you want to help? People?  Animals? Environment?

• How can We help? When? Where? How do we start?

We will use ideas from this list for future experiences and make some of these ideas become a reality.  We are loving being able to guide the youth through these conversations and lead them through an action plan.  Here is the Kindness List they Created:

• Homeless care packs/food

•  Animal Shelter

•  Beach clean up (Acworth Beach)

•  Kids in hospitals

•  Snorkel clean up in the ocean

•  Give out water in summer to homeless/needy

•  Backpacks for kids with lunch

•  School clean ups

•  Car wash/bake sale to fundraise and donate money

As part of KIDS CARE environmental awareness learning we tried out a new learning game that we created for our group - the "Trashy Timeline".

1st = For this learning exercise the participants were given a litter/waste item and asked how long they thought it would take to naturally breakdown or decompose in nature. Each item had the answer taped shut on it.

2nd = Participants were asked to line themselves up in a timeline starting at a few weeks on one end to millions of years on the other end. Participants were still not allowed to look at the answers.

3rd = Were they right? Watch & see as they view the actual time it takes for their litter/waste item to naturally decompose.

4th = Participants were asked to re-arrange into the correct timeline of how long this litter/waste takes to naturally decompose.

Participants were amazed at what they learned in this experience and it shows what our societal perceptions/knowledge of litter/waste decomposition times are. This was a fantastic learning experience that we hope sticks with the participants & viewers for as long as it takes a ziploc bag to decompose (that's 500 - 1000 years).

In addition to mentioning these items as litter, consider how many times you use these items in your daily life - how many times do you throw these things into your garbage can? It still takes time to decompose in the landfill. Let's all Rethink our daily needs and try to modify our choices into more Earth friendly actions. We learned a lot with this "Trashy Timeline" game and we hope you can all learn a little something by watching the video. Please pass the knowledge. We like to share!

#monopine #plastictreeparts  #celltowercamoflauge #celltowerpollution We are again going to point out that there is still unnecessary litter falling from the cellphone tower in the corner of Laurel Park. The litter that has fallen is the fake tree parts that are supposed to be "camouflaging" the cell tower into a tree. If it's happening here you can bet it's happening everywhere.

We consistently find many large clumps embedded into the Earth.  We also find individual blades of plastic that are supposed to look like Pine Needles.  These plastic parts are also seen broken into microplastics. They have become a part of the grass & soil within the drop zone of the cell tower.  The clumps and pieces also blow around and can be found outside of the drop zone. In addition, these plastic parts are found down near the water.  It is incredibly disturbing to see it sinking into the Earth.

Thank you to our Earth Heroes for cleaning it up, protecting our wildlife, protecting our waterways, our soil and respecting our Earth Home.  We applaud your compassion and action.   

Watch our Youtube Investigation: https://youtu.be/t3xx6MyOiJM

Kindness: Do you think people are Kind?  Answer honestly now!  Do we live in a Kind world? The topic of KIDS CARE Youth Meeting on 10/15/21 was KINDNESS.  We asked the youth & families:

Do you think people are Kind?

What do you feel when someone is unkind to you or a loved one?

Where do you feel that in your body?

What do you feel when someone is Kind to you or a loved one?

Where do you feel that in your body?

How can we be Kind to others?

How do you think they would feel to receive Kindness?

Creating the time, space, place and real life face to face opportunity to pause and think about these questions is essential to teaching Kindness.  Kindness needs to be taught, practiced & reflected upon.  #kindness #teachkindness #learnkindness

Sometimes Kindness is not easy to do.  It can interrupt our day - you literally have to stop what you are doing to be Kind to someone who could use it in that moment.  And sometimes Kindness is not appreciated.  It is not always easy. #practicekindness  #deepkindness  

BUT - WOW does it feel good to GIVE & RECEIVE KINDNESS!!!  It is essential to our human happiness.  We must open up and choose to place Kindness as a priority in our lives to keep our beloved human connection alive.  

Teaching youth about Kindness is Fun!  They are so full of great ideas on how to be Kind.  They need to see that not only is it OK to be Kind (because it's not a regular sight for them) but that Kindness is extremely important.  #leadbyexample #choosekindness

We heard from the Youth that they really don't see a lot of strangers being Kind.  Can we change that please?  You can help - start role modeling for the youth & adults in our world.  #kindhumans #kindnesschallenge

😊Why is Kindness important?

😊How do we practice Kindness?

😊When are we supposed to be kind?

😊Are you aware of other's needs?

😊How do we connect with other Humans?

😊What do you expect in return?

😊Not everyone will accept your Kindness, then what?

😊Recognition of our your personal sacrifices & choice to be kind.

As volunteers returned most were overjoyed with Happiness while some spoke of the difficult feelings of having their Kind gestures rejected. These real life experiences were discussed individually with families and/or individuals and all the Big Emotions were a relevant, important & significant part of the service.  A verbal poll taken at the end of the day showed that even though several people experienced rejection --THEY ALL WANTED TO DO IT AGAIN. Because the negative feelings of rejection were minimized by the Great Joy & impact that was received by those who did accept the gestures. Most youth participants filled out a Reflection sheet as well.

THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING DONORS: 

⭐RICK GUTIERREZ:  Stickers, buttons, Kindness Cards

⭐CHERYL CARSON:  65 Kindness Cards & Gratitude Rocks

⭐OWENS FLOWER SHOP IN MARIETTA: 50 Carnations

⭐ PUBLIX STORE 0122: 30 Apples, 30 Bananas, 1-1/2 Cases of Water

⭐THE NUTRITION STOP: 100 Gift Cards for a Free Smoothie & a Free Green Tea.

⭐KIDS CARE DONORS: Monetary donations in the past were used for this event.

⭐CAMPBELL MIDDLE SCHOOL KINDNESS CLUB: Wrapped Mystery Gifts 

⭐ EVERFREE ALC: Kindness Cards

⭐ SALON MACCLESH: 25% off Haircut Coupon