Pay It Forward {Day 3/Year 2}

Three days in.

Twenty-seven left to go.

Today Liam and I went out to one of our old favorite trails. It can get quite muddy out there in the fall but we decided to give it a whirl anyway. We brought along two plastic grocery bags and thought we'd pick up a little trash along the way. Because paying it forward doesn't always have to involve money.

Liam loved this! He loved having a task (shouting TRASH when we saw some) and a responsibility (holding the bag while I collected the discarded items). He loved it so much that he lasted THREE hours on a hike. Awesome!

It gave us a great opportunity to talk abut taking care of our environment and taking care of the messes we do create. He couldn't understand why people didn't just "throw it in the trash can".

We collected two full bags of trash and found two more full of picnic trash left out at the rocks in the river. It was interesting to note that the trash all but disappeared 45 minutes into the hike. As if that is the magical time frame where the careless hikers/walkers ended their trip and the "leave no trace" folks began.

It was also very disheartening to see the scores of plastic bags in the trees. We saw no less than 60 or 70 of them strung out and twisted amidst the branches of the trees. It would seem that a fair amount of them got swept up in the trees from Hurricane Irene. Some the regular plastic bag from the grocery or department store and others full size trash bags. Several adults could have spent whole days out there cutting them down with ladders.

Have you found a way to pay it forward yet?

Pay It Forward {Day 2/Year 2}

Baltimore trash collectors make an Olympic sport out of discarding trash containers at the curb. Some day I think I shall video tape these heroic clashes of man and trash.

For today, I will simply tell you that someone in our neighborhood took the time to collect our lid from who-knows-where and our can from some other far flung place and to put the two together and upright out on the curb. While not a monumental act, it did take some time and energy and they did it knowing that we'd probably never know who to thank. Just being neighborly for the sake of it.

Gotta love that!

For my part, I decided to take action. I have been meaning to give to a particular charity for some time now and have just allowed it to not occupy the number one place on my priority list. I took all of the advertising revenue from my blog last month and donated the entire amount to Life Wrap in hopes that my donation does a small part to save a woman's life.

Some facts from the Life Wrap website:

"The leading cause of maternal mortality (deaths from pregnancy and childbirth related complications) is obstetric hemorrhage in which a woman bleeds heavily, most often immediately after giving birth. A woman somewhere in the world dies every 4 minutes from this kind of complication." The LifeWrap (generic name: Non-pneumatic Anti-shock Garment or NASG) is a first-aid device used to stabilize women who are suffering from obstetric hemorrhage and shock. It is made of neoprene and Velcro^TM and looks like the lower half of a wetsuit, cut into segments. This simple device helps women survive delays in getting to a hospital and getting the treatment that they need. It can be applied by anyone after a short, simple training. To date, it has been used on over 2000 women."

"American women have a lifetime risk of 1 in 4800 of dying from childbirth related complications... Afghan women have a 1 in 8 lifetime risk of maternal death."

Take a moment. Pay it Forward.