Giving Back & Paying it Forward

After having a nice conversation with a good friend today, I sat here thinking how blessed I am. My friend's teenage daughter has Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, which in her case is a mix of Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis & Scleroderma. Can you imagine that as a teenager? It must be hard enough as an adult to have such a disease, but being given this diagnosis as a teenager must be extremely difficult. Her beautiful daughter is a very active girl with cheerleading and typical teenage activities, so to live with the pain she has to endure daily, must be the hugest challenge. We all know how unkind children can be in school, so her challenges are many, both physically and emotionally. Yet, this kid keeps on keeping on with a smile on her face. No doubt thanks to her very involved and caring parents that make her the strong young lady she is. So, as I sat her thinking about all this, I decided to donate 15% of all Shore Makes Scents sales for the month of May to The Lupus Foundation. Which brings me to my point of today's blog entry.

Some of you already know that we are always involved in one cause or another, be it a Fundraiser, Animal Shelter, Horse Rescue, etc. But, I want to go a step further and have decided that every 3rd month, we will choose a cause and donate 15% of our sales for that month to that particular cause. I have already decided that the August cause will be Rheumatoid Arthritis and our donation will go to The Arthritis Foundation. I chose that because someone very near and dear to me suffers from that affliction specifically. I'd like to ask my Shore Makes Scents people to choose an organization or foundation near and dear to your heart that you'd like us to make one of our every 3rd month donations to. Once we have a bunch of suggestions from you, we will write them on a piece of paper and draw one out every 3rd month and continue on with this donation idea. And if you have a story to go along with your suggestion, we'd love to hear it. Feel free to post your suggestions and stories below in comments.

I will end this by saying that by no means are my husband and I rich, but I feel like we are due to the caring, thoughtful and loving family and friends we surround ourselves with. So, I'd like to show my appreciation for what I have by giving back and paying it forward. Because after all, isn't that truly what life should be all about?

Til next time....keep it glowing  :)