Easter Buddies
Our biggest crew yet, for the year of biggest blessings - Easter Buddies 2009
As
I've mentioned several times, this Easter Buddies thing has always just
been something a bunch of us ladies get together and do each
year. We each spend some time shopping in the weeks leading up to
Easter and then we all bring our loot to the assembly day and enjoy
seeing all that we have been able to score collectively for the kids in
the hospital. This year we did all that. We each enjoyed
fun shopping trips with our individual families, as usual. Only
one of our trips wasn't so usual. Tina G was checking out with
her cart full of goodies at a local Dollar Tree when she was greeted by
a curious cashier. Obviously Tina was not your typical mom just
shopping for her own crew ;-) Trying to allay rumors that might
get started about the spoiling levels going on at her household, she
began to explain that she was shopping for the kids that needed to be
in the hospital over the Easter holiday. This conversation was
overheard by the store manager who happened (God thing) to be 2
registers away. Before she knew it, she was agreeing to pick up
donations from the Dollar Tree, thinking we could always use a few
extras. A few extras turned out to be nearly 15 boxes full of
items - Easter baskets, sand pails, more sidewalk chalk than you can
even imagine, mounds of stuffed animals and so much more.
Tina G (our hostess) with her kids and some of their friends who generously joined in to help with all the extra work.
Just a sampling of all of the stuff - By the way that is Tina B's, son Jake and her daughter, Lauren in the backgrounds.
Easter Buddies was started based on the passage in the Bible that said God would bless Abraham and make him a blessing. We all recognized that we had been blessed to be a blessing. So what to do with all the extra wonderful blessings. This year not only were we able to fully supply our usual closest Children's hospital with Easter baskets for each child that had to be in that hospital over this holiday, but we also were able to get baskets to the next closest Children's hospital and two local food pantries.
Laurie enjoying some "girl" time with Lauren.
Our hostess' eldest daughter, Shelby.
The girls are all grins even after all the hard work.