Making A Difference

So as I mentioned in his birthday post, Sam had a "toonie party." (A "toonie" is the nickname for Canada's $2 coin. The $1 coin has a loon on it so it became a "loonie" and then when the "toonie" came out it somehow just grew into a rhyming nickname. I don't really like it but that's what it's known as.) He decided to donated his charity portion to Mennonite Central Committee and make school kits. (You can read more about MCC here and school kits here.) We bought a lot of the supplies on a trip to Target last week but, after getting some advice from MCC, we made another stop yesterday at Wal-Mart to finish things off.

The cashier was very patient as Sam pulled things individually out of the cart and put them on the belt. Then Sam counted out the required number of toonies to pay for everything.

Sam and Rachel outside the MCC building, ready to deliver the kits.

Ray, a volunteer, took the delivery of Sam's FIVE school kits. Sam's are in the plastic bags and he is holding a sample kit all packed up and ready to go.

The volunteers went above and beyond and Sam even got to help pack up his kits in the official cloth bags and put them in the box to be sent overseas. The volunteers told us they were collecting kits for a shipment to Syria.

The top five bags in this box are the ones Sam donated.

Sam standing with one pallet all ready to go and another pallet of kits which just needs three more boxes. The MCC Material Resources volunteers gave us an awesome tour of the school kits packing process and I was so pleased that Sam got to be involved in the official sending off of his kits.

And a huge thank you to everyone who donated toonies for Sam's party. He couldn't have done it without you.