Teaching your kids about giving

As a Christian, there are some pretty clear things God tells us to do, and what starts in Sunday School needs to continue at home as family discipleship.  One of those is to care for those who are less fortunate than us, and being in the United States makes us pretty much better off than the vast majority of the world.  I want my kids to grow up understanding because of the many gifts God has given us we should be generous as well.  This is not some version of “White Man’s burden,” but an acknowledgment of where I am in comparison to others.

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When teaching kids how to give, find a place they can give

All that to say we look for ways our kids can contribute, but most volunteer places want your kids to be at least five before you can bring them anywhere. 

We get a lot of our opportunities through our church, and this time it was Children’s Hunger Fund (link updated because their link had changed and the old one was… sus).  Our job was to fill up a box with food to be delivered to a family who is in need.  And this wasn’t the usual fill-up-the-box with stuff you don’t want from your pantry, but a very specific set of food.

Future Ticia 2023 here, If you want to do this yourself, here is a link to their current list: Project Food Pak, it has changed slightly from what we did over 10 years ago (shocker I know)

First, give them a goal

We went to the grocery store and happily perused the aisles looking for our bags of beans, pasta, spaghetti sauce and the like.  I was really amused at the list of items.  They’re not things you necessarily want to eat all the time, but if you were eating off this list you would get the basic nutrients you need.  It just wouldn’t be as much variety as you might prefer.  I’d say this box would give a family of 4 enough meals for dinner for 3 days for sure, maybe 4 if you measured portions.  It’s hard to tell because we’re so used to the huge unhealthy portions.

Future Ticia 2023 coming in, it will also depend on if you have teens going through huge growth spurts. That will drastically change how much your family eats. There were some days I was amazed at how much my teen boys could eat. I’ll also add now that I’ve seen the current list, I think it is now geared towards 1 or 2 meals for a family and some snacks for a child. Here’s what’s on the current list:

• spaghetti noodles
• 15 oz. can tomato sauce
• 15 oz. can of vegetables
• 15 oz. can of beans
• 2 5 oz. cans of tuna
• 4 pouches of fruit snacks
• 2 applesauce pouches
• 4 granola bars
• 16 oz. jar peanut butter

When you are done shopping for all of the food, make sure to smile for the camera and show off your food.

Oh, one more comment from Future Ticia 2023, each box is supposed to be packed with some kind of snack or splurge item. Even when you need help, it’s nice to have something fun to eat. We picked up Cheez-Its, Cheese Nips, and granola bars. We packed three boxes, one for each kid.

Then we carefully went through and packed up all the boxes with their required ingredients.  The boys really loved doing this.  We just had to encourage them to be careful with the jars of spaghetti sauce, which I found out after we’d packed all the boxes were supposed to be cans.  And here I thought I was doing good buying this nice jar of sauce.  Oops.

One very carefully packed box.  I think it has almost all of the required stuff.  As you can see it’s a lot of staple foods, beans, rice, pasta.  And ones that if you pack them all just right will fit exactly into the box.  There was no room left over after all of the stuff had been added.

And poor Princess was all tuckered out from our busy schedule and she slept through most of it.