Time to Share

We all lead busy, hectic lives these days.  Time is short.  I have often felt helpless in the past that I could not make more of a difference to the lives of  people who are suffering or in need.  Well now thanks to yet another inspired idea by Sally Whittle.  We all can.  I am thrilled to be involved in this amazing campaign. 

Do you love the idea of supporting a charity through your blogging ?  Have an hour or so to spare ?  Then read on :



Time to Share: Bloggers sharing their time with good causes



Bloggers represent a powerful and influential online community, and the British parent blogging community is one of the most active around.



The Tots100 ( http://www.tots100.co.uk/ )  is a network of 2,500 UK parent blogs, which have a combined audience of more than 2m readers. These blogs write about everything from pregnancy and raising children to careers and crafts. The blogging community is also enormously supportive of charities and good causes, with high-profile campaigns by the likes of Unicef and Save the Children being written about and shared on social networks by hundreds of parent blogs.



This year, the Tots100 is inviting its members to share their time with good causes. The Time to Share programme will match UK parent blogs with charities in need of volunteers. During March 2012, we’ll be providing our members to share their time with local charities, lending a hand with everything from planting trees to walking dogs and visiting schools.



The project aims to:

- Give bloggers, and their audience, a real insight into the work being done by charities across the UK, and the vital role played by volunteers. We hope that the programme will inspire more people to get involved in volunteering in their communities

- Give charities the opportunity to raise awareness of their work by connecting with influential bloggers – research suggests that content on blogs is much more influential than magazines or television, and Tots100 bloggers are highly active on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook

- Provide blogs and charities with a platform to promote volunteering on the Tots100 website, with all posts and projects promoted across our network

The Tots100 is keen to hear from charities across the UK who would be interested in connecting with bloggers, and providing volunteering opportunities to bloggers during March 2012. Interested charities can register their interest online at:

https://blogcamp.wufoo.eu/forms/time-to-share/


Parent bloggers who would like to volunteer an hour or more of their time can register their interest in the programme online at:

https://blogcamp.wufoo.eu/forms/time-to-share-for-bloggers/

Choose a Christmas Charity

Once upon a time (in the 1960s actually), there lived a beautiful, sad and lonely girl.  She spent her days dreaming about the family she never knew, the life she thought she would have had (an American G.I. father was her favourite.  One day he would come back to England and take her home to her family).  The beautiful girl lived in a children's home, no family, no love, no hugs, just the essentials required to bring an unwanted child up. 

The beautiful girl found herself in her sport.  She excelled at running.  She ran and ran everyday.  Running from her pain and towards her future.

One day, like many innocent girls with nobody to guide them, she met "the one" she loved him with all her heart and believed his promises of eternal love, she soon discovered her dreams were dust .  She was carrying a child and was alone again.

Scandal in the children's home, she was 16 years old and pregnant, she was sent away in disgrace to a Salvation Army Mother and Baby home. A christian charity, one of the few in those days who would take unmarried pregnant girls in. She had to work for her keep, cleaning, scrubbing floors, washing.  Long days, no love and all with the knowledge that when her baby came it would be taken away from her and put up for adoption.

She lay awake at night talking to her baby, muffling her cries into her pillow, crying for the life she never had, lonely and alone.

On her hands and knees scrubbing floors, the baby decided it was time.  The beautiful girl was taken to hospital and there her tiny baby daughter was born.   They told the beautiful girl "You must nurse the baby for six weeks and then we will take her away from you " .  Every moment of every day she marvelled at her beautiful child and loved her more and more.  A seed started to grow in her heart, she would fight, she would never give up her tiny child.

When the day came for the baby to be taken away, the beautiful girl refused.  She would not let anybody have her baby "don't be a silly girl, you are only 17 years old, you have no family, you cannot go back to the children's home !  what do you think you will do ?"   She refused to give in, holding tightly to her tiny baby.  "She is mine, she is all I have, I will not let you take her from me".

The beautiful girl won her battle to keep her baby and was moved back to the Salvation Army Mother and Baby home where she worked and worked and worked.  Her baby by her side .

The beautiful girl is my mother and I am the baby .

Please join me this year in the run up to Christmas and actively support a charity on your blog.  If you are unable to raise money for your chosen Charity at least raise awareness for them by blogging, tweeting and facebooking about them.