T-Mobile Changemaker Challenge: Inspiring My Kids to Make a Difference!

If you all have followed my blog for a while, you may know I work at our local church food bank. This project is very near to my heart and something I enjoy doing.  It not only helps people connect with our church, but can be a huge help to folks in our community during their time of greatest need!

There are a LOT of families and kids just in our local area that do not have enough to eat, or may not have nutritious foods available on a regular basis.  This is where food banks come in! I love being part of blessing families in this way.

Although it’s an amazing experience helping in the church and food bank, it’s also important to instill a love for helping others in the younger generation.

If I can say one thing about the younger generations now, it’s that they have a huge heart for others! We are always reading in the news about a project started by school kids or teens, designed to help others. That’s awesome! Sometimes they need ideas, however. That’s where my Mom Changemaker Challenge comes in.

The Idea:

The Goal of my Challenge was to inspire my kids to be the change! Something that will stick with them for years to come.  So, in getting them involved in the Food Bank we sat down and came up with some practical ideas to help teens and younger kids get involved for good:

• Have kids pick out 1 extra of their favorite non perishable food at the store on a grocery trip to donate to a food pantry.
• Arrange at least 1 day to volunteer as a family- this is especially important with teens and older kids!
• For younger kids have them make a card and write down their favorite back to school foods like pudding cups or packs of crackers, so when families pick up items from the food pantry they know the items were picked out by other kids.
• Kids can also write cards for the families picking up groceries at the food bank. This is a fun idea for church and social groups, and home-school groups too.

More About the T-Mobile Changemaker Challenge:

• 30 teams won out of over 330 entries
• These Changemaker Challenge teams won a visit to T-Mobile Headquarters on an all expenses paid trip, new devices, a portion of $58,000 in funding, and a chance to create a big idea to pitch to T-Mobile Corporate
• The teams were made up of teens and young adults
• The goal was to create a positive, long term change!

These teams are going forward trying to be one of the CEO’s picks.  The list of ideas presented by these teams is pretty lengthy but also inspirational!

There are some very specific ideas and some that help the community at large.  If you’re thinking about your own Mom Changemaker Challenge like I did, check out the T-Mobile Changemaker Challenge for more.

“Additional Disclosure: This post is sponsored by T-Mobile.”