Last December, I shared with you my personal mission to give back to my community in a meaningful way. A result of my love for volunteering and supporting others combined with my guilt after indulging in some Black Friday shopping, Operation Giving Back was born in hopes of inspiring others to join me in helping those may need and/or appreciate it most.
OGB for short, Operation Giving Back became my annual challenge for the month of December. For each of the 31 days in December, I completed one Random Act of Kindness, and I blogged about it here on The Happy Homeowner (you can click the link above to learn more about it!).
My original goal was to “31 posts filled with stories of inspiration, smiles, and good vibes by the end of the month.” While I ended up combining a lot of the posts in an effort to not lose this blog’s focus on personal finance, the effect was still the same: OGB was a mini movement to inspire other bloggers to get on the giving back train. And it worked!
But as I was recently reading an article about the annual Christmas in July sales ads that are about to bombard us, I started to wonder why I’d saved OGB for December. Sure, it’s an appropriate time of year to help people and it’s certainly easier to get others to join in the fun when everyone has Christmas on the brain…but what about the other months of the year?!
When I realized that I couldn’t answer this question, I knew I had to do something. Therefore, I’ve decided to transform Operation Giving Back into a biannual event. 31 days in December; 31 days in July. Christmas in December; Christmas in July.
Join me as I launch Operation Giving Back: Summer Edition on July 1st. Show the graphic above proudly on your site or a post, Tweet about it, share it on Facebook, let your readers know how you’ll be giving back.
As we all begin to celebrate summer, let’s not forget those who can’t simply kick of their flip flops, lie in the sand, and sip a margarita. Perhaps it’s the elderly neighbor you have who lives alone or the single parent struggling to put food on the table–whatever the situation, I urge you to find a way to help those in your community….and encourage others to pay it forward.
There’s just over 2 weeks left in June and I’ll be using some of that time to prepare for OGB…Will you?
