Grateful Giving Calendar

I always struggle with what meaningful activity we can do in November to express gratefulness and thanks for my life with my family. I am not always interested in being crafty, so last year we decided to make November a Grateful Giving month without any crafty projects involved. I was spurred by a Facebook post from the Rochester, MN, school district that was posted in advance of National Hunger and Homlessness Awareness Week. The project required me to print a calendar and provide a jar for the donations. No crafts or supplies from the store were needed.

The post was of a calendar that asked a family to make a deposit into a chosen container based on the prompt on each day of the calendar. For example, one calendar prompt was, “Deposit 25 cents for each heat regsiter in your home.” Such prompts were great for getting my son involved in actively counting heat vents (and on other days light switches, etc). On most days we deposited money into the bowl. We may have made no deposit on exactly one day. That was likely the day on which it asked us to deposit if we’d been to or rented a movie during the month.

By the end of the month we had a bowl full of coins from our daily deposits. We made a donation to a local charity we chose together that assists families experiencing homelessness (The Road Home). 

In additions to our donation benefitting a local organization, our family had conversations about prompts like, “deposit 25 cents if you had lunch today,” that caused us to reflect on our own situation. My son was an 8-year-old 3rd grader when we completed this. Discussions of food insecurity and its effects hopefully made him think a bit about other families. 

If we do this again this year (sorry, I have been unable to locate a 2018 version of the calendar as of publication of this post), I will edit a few to be specific to our family. I know I will include

• make a deposit for each day of vacation your family took this year,
• make a deposit if you had a birthday party this year,
• make a deposit if your family has eaten in a restaurant more than once this month,
• make a deposit if your family has employer provided health insurance,
• make a deposit for each dessert present at your Thanksgiving celebration,
• make a deposit for each summer camp you went to, and
• make a deposit for each sport, school, or music activity you are involved in.

I will also ask my son for input about prompts he thinks should be included. I personally think me may suggest “make a deposit for every marble or HotWheels car you own.” That donation could be large. He may also suggest, “make a donation for each piece of Halloween candy you received.”

Please note that this is not meant to be a November exclusive activity. You can always print a calendar for ANY month of the year and fill in each calendar box date with your own prompts based on the ones in the calendar above or ones you and your family decide are meaningful to you. This would be an awesome activity leading up to December holidays. It would honestly be meaningful any month of the year.

I hope that you are able to find something meaningful to your family to do to be grateful or give thanks. I advocate making your expression of gratefulness and thanksgiving something that can actively involve all members of your family. Having to talk and actively assess each day based on the prompt on the Grateful Giving calendar was meaningful for our family.