We asked Ashley Vardijan to share a little about her 5 daughters' unique birthday celebration of service. Their selfless act of giving to others is so admirable. Kindness truly has no age limits! At KindCraft, we believe in the power of teaching kindness and service from a very young age.
Here is what Ashley had to share:
Each year, for their birthdays, our girls choose a charity or cause to request "gifts" for instead of presents for themselves. This helps remind them to count their blessings and think of others. Also, it's a wonderful way to extend the celebration of our lives over more than just party day! Some past service projects they have chosen include quarters for bingo prizes at Villa St Francis; food items for Catholic Charities; money to sponsor a KindCraft event; and items for the children's shelter.
This year we couldn't have a party and lots of those group events are not currently happening. The prominent service in our family right now is making sack lunches for Saint Mary's food kitchen each month. So they decided to go with that and commit to 50 lunches each for the 4 oldest girls! And so the project began...
September 24 - We posted the following to social media. "It's Vardijan girls birthday time which of course looks a little different this year! The girls have a loving request for all of our family and friends Above all prayers for a happy, healthy year ahead for all of them."
September 29 - We posted a sack lunch birthday project update to social media!
October 4 - Sack lunch making day!!!
Thank you all for sharing this with us! What a FUN day!! We made and delivered 200 lunches thanks to generous donations from family and friends!
Overall, the girls raised $765 (plus a $40 WalMart gift card) and collected
252 bags of chips
250 quart ziploc bags
56 fruit snacks
36 applesauce cups
128 bottles of water
720 napkins
54 rice krispie treats
11 loaves of bread and
250 grocery bags.
WOW!!!
We are SO blessed and grateful that we can pass our good fortune along to others. And a special thank you Nancy Vardijan, Frank Vardijan and Mindy Ste and your crew for helping us make, load and deliver our trailer full of lunches! After our delivery, we got to celebrate together with food, fire pit fun and general shenanigans until dark.
They were able to meet their 200 lunch goal for the month of October. Even more exciting, they got to share the lunch making fun with great friends. And...they have lots more leftover to continue to share their blessings. Don’t worry they have BIG plans for all of the extra donations!
They are planning to make 100 lunches each month for the November and December food kitchen service days. Also, they will be purchasing 100 items to donate to the Catholic Charities “fill the pantry” drive going on at Prince of Peace on October 24th. There may still be more opportunity after that (unbelievable) so they are committed to brainstorming and seeking out ways to help others in the community.
Thank you Nanny Trina Romero Wilson for helping make our special bday shirts!!
God bless,
Ashley