Spirit to Serve

Doing service feels good. We all know that.

Service is one reason I'm grateful that each year of my professional career,

I've had a day set aside by my employer for service in the community.

With Deloitte, as part of "Impact Day", I got to clean up a school yard in southwest DC (2008) and work on the sloth bears exhibit at the National Zoo (2009). On my first Marriott "Spirit to Serve" day (2010), our team went to a neighborhood park

[read about it here and see pic of Ryan and me below].

This year, we were scheduled to do painting and pruning at a therapeutic riding horse farm. Due to rain, not as many went up for that, and I ended up back at Marriott HQ.

The time was put to good use, though, doing various craft projects for the sick kids at The Children's Inn at NIH. We tried to be creative and make them fun, and these are some examples of the journals that I came up with:

I tried to make some guy ones, since most of the volunteers on this project were ladies and chose to make girly ones with lots of pink and purple and hearts and that sort of stuff. Little boys need to have something to remind them of sports and playing, too, right?

Thanks to companies like Deloitte, Marriott, and others that recognize they are part of the community and can do so much to benefit less-fortunate people around them.

And these days are a great reminder that we can also do service with our church groups or friends or even on our own anytime we'd like!