There are many ways to use social media. You can use it to get your view’s across to others. You can use it to meet people and make new friends. You can use it to promote products. You can use it to tell other’s how to get great deals, or teach them about how to save money. You can use it to make money. You can use it as therapy as an outlet to help you get through hard times. There are many many ways to use it. Social media can be a wonderful thing when used in certain ways.

One way I love using social media is to help other’s and for charities. I love to give. There is nothing more rewarding to me than to see a smile on a person’s face. Whether it be a child, a grandmother, a teen, my husband, or anyone. To give without expecting anything in return and to give surprisingly to other’s is the BEST part about social media to me.

I love to be able to make a difference in people’s worlds, even if the difference is small. Change can be good and to help other’s through a change is so rewarding.

I can remember when my family was down and out. We had to use food stamps and stand in the dreaded lines at food banks. My kids hated it, and so did I. But it was the only way to provide for my family at the time. My husband had lost his job due to a grant not being renewed (he worked in research). And, I wasn’t able to work at the time.
It was rough. It was painful. And at the time, I didn’t have social media, or I wasn’t aware of it.
But I can tell you all of the people who knew of our dire situation and who knocked at out door and made us a meal, or sent us a gift card. Or those who brought toys to my kids at Christmas time. Those people I honestly will never forget.
Those people gave without expecting anything back from me. And those are the people I hope to become.

With that in mind, it is back to school time. Many American’s all over the USA are out of work. But school will come no matter what for the children of those people who are out of work. And nothing builds self confidence in children like new back to school supplies. – Remember how you used to feel getting brightly colored tablets, folders, new pencils, and pens, and crayons ? Remember the smell of them (esp. the crayons?) I can still to this day remember my mom buying me a new coloring book and crayons when I was sick. I would have to stay home from school and she would bring me those to lay on the couch to keep me busy. It made it all better to me back then. Remember how it feel’s to get a new dress, or new jeans or shoes? Remember how confident it makes you feel. Shoot, even today it makes me feel good to buy some new clothes.
It helps to build confident, self -esteemed people.

But these parents may not or can not afford even a 25cent box of crayons. Some of them scrape to get by daily. Some people cannot afford all the supplies that are needed to help their children academically survive. And the teachers try and help sometimes, but they cannot afford to supply every child with supplies either. Some schools do provide, some don’t.

So, this is where social media comes in. Remember the saying, “It takes a village” ? Well, I say it also takes a “Social Media Village”.

A few weeks back I was asked to participate in a project with Elmer’s and Collective Bias. (You know the glue company?, which by the way makes soooooooo much more than glue). They asked that I do a project where I buy 2 reusable shopping bags from Walmart and fill them with some back to school supplies. Three of the products in each bag had to be Elmer’s.
Then, I would keep 1 bag for my kids and donate 1 bag to a child in need.

Which got me thinking. I am not rich, but I am not poor. There are sooooo many kids who are in need this school year, that I wanted to try and rally my troops (anyone I knew from Pittsburgh and nearby) and see if we collectively could do more. You see, I am not looking for anything in return. I just want to help some kids in or near “My Village”. So, I got in touch with this guy named - Bryan Douglas, he to me, is the king of helping charities and people. I asked him if he could help me on this project. And within days, we had posts up online and we were talking to people. Family members, member’s of People Helping People and meetup, etc.

Within days later he got back to me and said, People love this idea and are going to help. I was excited. He asked me what my goal was. I told him, well, this is the first year, so we will have to see how it goes. But that I would love to see 50 children ages 5-17 get a backpack filled with school supplies.
His response, oh this should be no problem.

About a week went by, supplies started to trickle in. I shopped and got $100 in supplies. But everywhere we asked to donate backpacks, we heard no responses.

I asked a few more people to help and asked them if they could volunteer at an event planned at Panera Bread. Some could, some couldn’t, which is fine. People are busy, and I totally understand.
Then the media contacted me. Said they would like to hear this story. They said they needed some “good news” to put on (which I totally agreed) so I gave them the time and date at Panera Bread, and they said they would send someone to cover the event on the news.

More supplies trickled in and I went and bought some more as well. Bryan started getting items in the mail. Another friend of mine – Alaina, asked a movie store to help out, to “host” a collection box so people in her area could make drop off donations.

Things were falling into place.

I started to get a little discouraged when I saw we were getting an awesome amount of school supplies but only had about 30 backpacks.

Until TODAY.

Today, Bryan contacted me via Facebook and asked if I had gotten his message (which I didn’t) a man named Joe Deible and EF Tours sent Bryan 120 brand spankin new back packs for the kids !!!!!!

Praise the Lord, Praise the People. I was so touched that I not only doubled my goal of 50 backpacks, I tripled it!

By using social media and outlets like Twitter, Facebook, and Skype I have been able to participate and put together an awesome project benefitting 150 children in the Pittsburgh area!

When I heard the news I was shaking, crying, and so filled with joy. There is nothing like this feeling in the world.

To do good and great things, to “Pay It Forward” and for this project to “Bag It Forward”. Without wanting anything back but to see that smile on those children’s faces as they get their self-esteem boosted, and their confidence boosted and to know that people in THIS VILLAGE care. We want them to learn and not have to worry about adult issues.

This my friends, THIS IS HOW I LOVE TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA.

“Even on my worst day, there are people who have it much worse than me, and if given the chance, I am certain they would love to trade places with me … I think about the poor people that would love to have my problems.” — Ed Buettner

You can see what other’s are doing to #BagItForward by visiting http://www.bagitforward.org

You can also send your own “virtual bag of school supplies” to a friend and help to raise $10K for Adopt-A-Classroom by posting this info. to your site, read more HERE.

The Plus Size Mommy

*Disclosure- I am being compensated for working on this project. Part of it I am donating back to the project.

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