Lending a Helping Hand

I was in Denver last week for a business trip, my first one since Jake-Os was like 5/6 months old so I was a little worried he would have a hard time because he's definitely a Momma's boy and would know this time that I was gone.  He did pretty well and so did I.  Riley was fine because we FaceTimed every night and I sent her pictures of the snow we got in Denver and of my room so she was happy.  Plus I brought her home a bag of M&Ms (her request).  It was actually a great meeting, I love my immediate team and my broader team is just a great group of people.  The purpose of the meeting was to get all of the Category Managers from across the country together, I missed last years' because I was on maternity leave so this was my first year and it was great. 

We took off Wednesday afternoon and headed out to Boston Elementary School in Aurora, a suburb of Denver and built 126 bikes for all of the kindergarten and first graders.  All of the kids are underprivileged and have never gotten anything new so it meant a lot to build these bikes and be able to give them to the kids.  The school rates a 1 on GoodSchools so to help bring these kids a little bit of joy was an awesome experience.  (Ironically, all of the parents were taking pictures with iPhones but that's a different debate)  We got to meet the kids.  I helped fit a kindergarten class with their helmets, they were so cute and made me think of RiRi and realized how truly lucky we are in life that we can give our kids everything that they need in life, plus a whole lot more.  It also made me realize that I love kids, mine and others and maybe my calling is doing something with kids that make a difference.  Really, how important is it to get an extra box of Eggo on the shelf???  But touching the life of a child, that could make all of the difference.  Maybe it's time to re-evaluate my career???  My last girl of course cried because we ran out of heart helmets, she totally reminded me of RiRi with her reaction, think arms crossed, head down, big crocodile tears saying over and over "It's not fair."  Total RiRi reaction, I guess she's not that unique after all!  I mean in the realm of everything she was getting a BRAND NEW bike but the focus was on the accessory, something Ri would definitely focus on!  Of course if it was Ri I would tell her to get over it or else she wouldn't get a bike but I couldn't tell that to a girl I didn't know and who didn't know me, so I tried to be sympathetic and convince her the green helmet with "flowers" was awesome!  I finally got her to try on another helmet and sent her on her way but it took a lot of coaxing, one of the teachers told me that once she got over to the bikes the tears had stopped.  Phew!

Overall it was the best team builder that I have ever participated in.  Watching the kids ride off on their bikes was truly heartwarming.  I'm so proud to work for Kellogg's, an organization willing to help and give our time!

Each kid wrote us a thank you card and the teachers made a super cute thank you collage of pictures of each of the 6 classes.  Thank you is spelled out in crayons, a total Pinterest project that I'm going to have to use for the kids' teachers! :)