"Helping other kids who don't have toys"

Addie and I held our station for the Salvation Army kettle bell ringing yesterday at the mall. Benjamin really wanted to participate too, so he and Brian came in for the first 5 minutes with us.

Then it was up to Addie and I to "help other kids who don't have toys." She sang, she danced, she wished people "Merry Christmas."

After the first hour and 35 minutes or so, she got a little tired with it all. She was still energized whenever someone came up to us to donate money, but otherwise she was sort of over the waiting.

She did this for a bit, and a woman came up to me and said, "her being pathetic like that actually adds to the point." She was a little annoyed by the bells, so she told me, "If I sing, will you stop ringing the bells?" That worked for a while til she got tired of that too.

I have to say how humbled I was by the whole experience. I would bet that 90% of the people who stopped to donate put in at least one dollar bill. Someone put in a $20 bill. A few put in $5 bills. I don't know if we'll get told how much we collected, but I venture to guess a few hundred dollars. It was totally worth two hours of our time. We'll be volunteering again, hopefully next week, to do the same.