Wordless Wednesday - We Love CHF!

Back to School 2011 with CHF and Chick-fil-A

It's that time of year again! Time to fill backspacks for Children's Hunger Fund! As an added bonus this year, they teamed up with Chick-fil-A to offer you free food when you donate $10 or 10 items! Wowza!

Just take the 10 items or $10 to any of these participating locations and enjoy a free Chick-fil-A sandwhich!

1. FM78 Chick-fil-A
7010 Fm 78
San Antonio, TX 78244

2. Pavilions Chick-fil-A

27 Ne Loop 410

San Antonio, TX 78216

3. Stone Oak Chick-fil-A
1555 North FM 1604
East San Antonio, TX 78232

Yum! :D

Justice League Project - CHF

Today we went to TriPoint where they were just into their first week of The Justice League Project! CHF was the first organization they featured. This was the first ever mobile CHF Food Pak experience ever! There were so many people there, and KLOVE was also there set up with prizes and stickers! It was a beautiful day to do some great things. We took Brogan along with us and grabbed the Flip so we could share with you how much fun we had!

If you want to know more about TriPoint and their young adult ministry, Segue, check them out here. And if you are free the next few Sunday afternoons work your way over to see them and be a part of The Justice League Project! They are also teaming up with TOMS for a Style Your Sole party next week, then Strong Foundation to help the homeless, and are hosting a South Texas Blood & Tissue Center blood drive after that! While you are there stay for the Sunday night service and check them out!

CHF also has a new website and it is awesome! They worked really hard and it definitely shows. It is our new favorite website to explore. As a matter of fact, to celebrate we would like to invite you to do as many of the Social Media Fan actions on this page. If you are the first one to tell us that you did any 5 and can share some links to where we can see it, we will send you a CHF shirt of your choice! Also, if you can spot us on the site let us know and for the first few we will send out a CHF bracelet!

Back to School ~ Update

Like Frankie said, I love shopping for good deals! And after school starts, the school supplies go on clearance quick! It's like Christmas for me! I LOVE shopping for school supplies (almost as much as I love shopping for kid's toys ;) so when they go on clearance I can't help myself!

So, from last year, we already have 3 backpacks (each purchased for under $4!) and binders. To fill these for CHF we shopped last night at Target. Now that school supplies are in season again you can take advantage of more great sales! Pencils for $.44, gluesticks for $.25, eraser packs $.50, etc. With these low prices we filled our backpacks for only about $3!

Now, the other cool part is the rest of the stuff that I bought last year- notebooks for $.12, pencil pouches for $.37, and [really cool] rulers for $.37! (and a couple other nifty itmes.) CHF didn't ask for these school supplies, but Ecclesia did! They are collecting supplies for some 70+ kids who are living with their families in Houston as Iraqi refugees. Several churches are serving together to love these families as they rebuild life in the US. So one church is collecting backpacks, and our church is collecting supplies! I can put all my supplies to use and serve families in SA and Houston! How cool!

~~~~~

7-14-10

Something about Taylor that I love is that she is always, always, always, looking for great deals, and when she finds them she buys and stock piles. It's not always something that we would need, but things that she gives away. We have closets and boxes full of small socks, toys, shirts, underclothes, soaps, lotions, silent auction items, bug spray, sunblock, and so much more!

I joke with my family that August and December are my favorite months of the year, because around August we get to unload the silent auction gifts for the annual ALS benefit and in December we put together Christmas shoe boxes for orphans so there goes the rest and I get all my storage back! ;) Well, for a few days anyways, then the after Christmas sales begin and we start all over again...

Now thanks to CHF I can add July to my list of relief months. This month they are collecting 7 items or 7 Dollars for families with children in need. You can help by buying 7 school supply items (pencil, paper, scissors, binder, glue stick, eraser, new backpack) or by just donating $7 to cover the cost of these items. All of the help aids families that are struggling a little right now and can't exactly find the money to cover these few items for school. I know that this will truly bless them and show that there are really great people who love them.

Children's Hunger Run - Update!

We just found out this morning from our friends at CHF that we don't need to drive all the way to Utah to run for this great cause! San Antoino will be hosting the same 5K race on the same day, at the same time! How exciting is that?! Any SA friends want to join us?!

The Fight Against Summertime Hunger

One of the reasons we decided to live off $10 a week this year is because we know that there are other families out there that are struggling. Families that need help making ends meet, feeding their kids, and feeding themselves, and it didn't seem right that for the amount of money we were spending on our own food in a month we could help feed 25 of those families. It makes sense to cut back a little if it means life for someone else.

That is why we decided to match our food budget each month with a donation to food/water organizations that know how to help people who really need it. We are a little behind on our pledges, three months behind (it seems like summer is flying by), but we won't let our lack of dedication to schedules stop us from doing what we promised! This month we would like to look at a different need of one of our favorite charities. They do such great work and have REALLY great staff. ;) Children's Hunger Fund has been around for 19 years and have been dedicated to helping others, at home and throughout the world.

"Children's Hunger Fund seeks to alleviate the suffering of children by equipping God's Church to communicate the Gospel through effective compassion ministry."

Their mission this time of year is to aid in summertime hunger. You can read all about Benton Harbor, Michigan here, a city where 86.9% of the school-aged children receive free or subsidized lunches, but not during the summer. Without the schools what will the kids eat? In this video, a man (who seems to be working at a local clothing distribution of some sort) says this: "We've given food out to families who haven't eaten in 2 or 3 days. It's unfathomable in this country." It is. We live in America and some of our very own neighbors are hungry. Not only for food, but for hope as well (but really for food, too). "It's in towns like this, like Benton Harbor, MI, where CHF hopes to equip pastors, local pastors, who love the people of that town, to come in and begin to minister with compassion to the people of that city."

This story is not just a Benton Harbor story, it is one that is told all around the world. People in our own neighborhoods are in need, and we are all called to love them. Kids are hungry in our cities, especially now, during summer when they can't receive food services at school. CHF is equipped to fulfill this need and bring the hope of our Savior to these hurting families. We're glad to be able to give and see the work of such a faithful and necessary ministry.

[Our friends over at "Seed A Need" are also working to fight hunger at home which they say is twice as great in the summertime. Check out a video of theirs with some great ideas here!]

We love the work and the people of CHF so much that we have also decided that we would love to sweat with them... lol. On August 28th in Salt Lake City, Utah, USANA with be sponsoring the 2010 Children's Hunger Run, a 5K! And we will be road tripping all the way! We haven't even announced this officially to our families yet, but we are just so excited to go and run for a great cause! So stay tuned on the details of our trip, it is coming up soon!

Menu Monday x2

We hope you all had a blessed Memorial Day! We spent the day with my Air Force Daddy and the rest of the family, relaxing after a long, fun day at SeaWorld on Sunday!

Summer has thrown us off a bit lately, with me being out of school and back and forth between SA during the weeks, and it continues to be out of the norm... last week I spent Mon-Fri in SA then Frankie came down for the weekend and we came home yesterday. All he had to buy for food was some cheese and he was set with pizza and some anniversary leftovers!

This week we will only be home for three days, leaving for SA again on Friday to meet Fred Martin from CHF! He's been wanting to meet us since our original Food Pak adventure and now's our chance! (More on that later!) So this week we aren't buying groceries, which I always think is fun! We'll work with what we have leftover from whenever which includes: some flour, more never ending instant mashed potatoes supply, a bag of brown rice, a can of vegetarian beans, a little bit of bread, pepperonis, avocados from Frankie's grandma :), 6 eggs, and a few other miscellaneous things. And tonight, we have special reservations at Chik-fil-a to try their new Spicy Chicken Sandwich for free!

I think we'll make it. ;)

Do you want to be a part of something huge??

A quick note about an awesome event worldwide that is happening today!

I received this reminder email from CHF this morning:

Tent City Worldwide is tonight... Are you ready? Together, friends of Children's Hunger Fund all across the country will be pitching tents, sleeping in tents, and texting TENT to 85944 at 8 pm tonight! If your plans don't involve camping out in your living room, backyard or school gym, we still invite you to join with us by texting TENT to 85944 and give $10 toward ongoing relief in Haiti.

Text TENT to 85944!
Tent City Worldwide calls us all to remember that right now, Haiti is being flooded with rains. Children there are living in conditions most of us wouldn't be able to handle for even one night. Please help. For more information, go to www.ChildrensHungerFund.org/TentCity, and text TENT to 85944 today.

We cannot help but wonder what could happen if every person getting this e-mail, participated in this call. How many suffering children and families could be helped? 1.2 million people were left homeless by January's quake.

How many of these people lost family or friends in the devastation? How many of these people were left crippled? How many of these people were left without hope? Please help support the efforts of local churches in Haiti as they deliver much needed resources to their communities, by texting TENT to 85944 now.

We love camping, and this would be a ton of fun, but we will be on the road again to SA. So will you join us by texting tonight? I can only imagine the turnout for this will be simply amazing!

CHF + Haiti

Children's Hunger Fund is a great organization that we both love. We first really got involved with CHF at a "Bigger Than You" city wide gathering with Oak Hills Church in San Antonio. CHF was there to distribute 10,000 Food Paks to be filled and returned to bless the hungry in the city of San Antonio. We grabbed some boxes then and from that moment our lives were changed. We have come to know and love the heart of this group and the ways that God is working through them.

One of the things that we really like about CHF is that they are active in our city- giving food, sharing love, and making a difference. But they also work internationally doing great things for people around the globe. For this month's giving (February, actually) we have decided to participate in their campaign to raise $65,000.00 for tents, water, and food to help the people of Haiti.




"For about $65 each, we should be able to supply a family with a waterproof tent and a household water filter to help them through this crisis. In addition, we will supply Food Paks and French Creole bibles for the churches to provide as ministry tools. Again, our desire is to supply these items to a minimum of 1,000 impacted families. To do so, we are seeking to raise at least $65,000 in the next few days." ~ CHF

This is a bit more than what we had decided to donate each month, but we are so blessed and the need is so great. Praying that as people continue to become aware of how great the need still is and the pratical ways to help that God will continue to move hearts to care for His people.

Thank you CHF for what you do! Thank you for allowing us to be a part of it! Thank you God for blessing us so abundantly so that we can give so abudantly!

Our Special Dinner Guest :)

Tonight we had our friend, Amy, over for dinner! We met Amy through our volunteer time at CHF in San Antonio but she is currently on assignment here in Houston! So we get to hang out! How cool?! Amy is a fellow blogger as well so check her out here or click her pic in our "followers" section! :D

Christmas Gifts ~ Given and Received

We are finally getting around to posting our Christmas gifts! We were so excited about it in December, but we couldn't post about it until the recipients had opened their gifts as not to spoil all the great surprises! (And obviously we couldn't post about the gifts we received until after we opened them! lol!) And believe it or not, we just recently finished gifting! Since we went to Michigan to celebrate with my family during Christmas, Frankie's sister and mom came up to celebrate before, and we finally now made it down to Devine to celebrate with his dad and step mom! Way to drag it on, I know! But we've gifted and now it's time to share!

The big idea this year was to spend less on our gifts for our family members so that we could spend more in honor of them to help others. It's just a win-win deal! So to spend less, we had to get creative! We took advantage of sales, made handmade gifts, bought via cheaper dealers, and just simply cut back! With the saved money we donated a set amount according to individual interests or to correspond with the gifts! It was really fun choosing what and how to donate for each person!

Here's what we did!: (For larger pictures, just click.)

Slippers for Frankie's Dad and Rose and shoes through Children's Hunger Fund!

A sewing machine cover for Frankie's mom, and seeds through World Vision. The fabric on the inside of the reversible, homemade cover represents the seeds.

A purse for Frankie's sister and medicines through World Vision! Also represented on the inside of the reversible, homemade purse! (Kathy is a pharmacy tech!)

Crackers and cheese for Dad with a wine tray! (An "add your own wine kit"!) But we turned the wine to water and donated through charity:water!




A picture and scripture we put together for mom, along with a donation to Morning Star Foundation, an orphanage very dear to her heart.




For my older brother, his all time favorite movie that he didn't own and a good ol' Food Pak! ("Stealing from the rich to give to the poor!" lol! Cept we didn't steal it!)

For my younger Brother, a movie he wanted and a donation to a homeless ministry that he loves.

For the little kids, we made a set of wooden people to go with their wooden block set. We also donated toys through Children's Hunger Fund!

And here's some of the awesome gifts we received!:

A whole bunch of change for "Chump Change for Pump Change" for Ecclesia, a beautiful painting purchased through the Etsy shop "Water for Christmas" (all proceeds went towards clean water projects!), a cook book for eating simply! ;), a "Water for Christmas" water bottle, TOMs shoes giftcards!!!, H2Africa decals for our cars, a "Water for Christmas" bracelet :D, and a Product (RED) shirt whose proceeds benefit Aids medicine!

Thanks to our wonderful families for these gifts, and for teaching us that giving is even greater than receiving and that receiving can also be giving! :D Merry Christmas, everyone! ;)

CHF Southwest Grand Opening

Last weekend we were back in San Antonio for Children's Hunger Fund's Southwest Grand Opening! It was a great day- the weather was beautiful, the sky was blue, and there were balloons at the entrance!!! (We love balloons!) The inside of the building was just as great. A lot of hard work and dedication was finally revealed!

At the start of the tour we walked through the break room to the assembly room. Here we were stopped to see a long line of kids that spanned the whole length of the room- youth volunteers from CBC. A rolling surface moves box after box after box, from one end to the other while the kids place there designated item into the box. From the rollers, the box is taken, packed, sealed, and stacked. This is the room where all of the processing will be done, and with the new layout and set up, boxes can be assembled so much more efficiently!

We were then moved through sliding doors into the training room,. This is where the important relational training takes place to teach people how to distribute the boxes to local families. Everyone who wants to hand out Food Paks needs to go through this training in this beautiful new room. There were also vegetable trays and fruit trays for snacking - they treat you real god when you volunteer! Yum!

Next on the tour was a room that we had been in before when we helped process the boxes a few posts back... But this new and improved room had shelves with stocked water, rice, beans, canned food, toys= everything you need to run an organizations as great as this one! Much of it was recently donated. At the end of each aisle was a table stacked with items and a description of what it is, how it serves, and how it is distributed.

Chairs filled the center of the room and a stage was make of Food Pak boxes! In each chair was a book mark and a card. Everyone picked a seat after taking the tour and waited for the opening ceremony to start. We got to meet and visit with James Massey, the Missions Coordinator at Oak Hills church. During the ceremony we heard from about five different people, all of them excited and thankful for the great things that are happening in San Antonio with the opening of this new location. Lot of prayers, lots of praise, lots of cheers for CHF and God's plans for the future! At the end, everyone was asked to fill out the card to support CHF through prayer and the bookmark is to help us remember the different points of the ministry pray for. At the end of the morning we got to meet and see a lot of great people. Dave Phillips, founder of CHF, and Michael Richards, Regional Director, and our friend Charlene Webster :) were there as well as a few more people from CHF- sorry we can't remember everyone's name! We even made a new friend Amy, Hi Amy! It was a great day, and we has such a good time! We were glad to be a part of such an exciting event and so excited about what God is going to do through the new location and all the wonderful volunteers who serve there! We even left with two new really cool shirts!

Check out our morning in pictures:

the training room

Dave Phillips

Us and Charlene!

Sweet, new shirts!
(The back has a picture of the Food Pak and also the website.)

All We Want for Christmas

It's that time of year again, and family and friends have started to ask the question "What do you want for Christmas?" And even though we would love for everyone to participate in Advent Conspiracy, some people still like to give gifts. So for those people, here is our response... this is the Official TaylorFrankie Christmas Wish List!





1. A reusable water thermos from charity:water. Thermos partnered with charity:water to create hydrationforall and this really cool thermos. The best part is that 100% of the profit from this product goes to building wells for people who need clean water.

2. This H2Africa hand made bracelet by Amy Smith is at the Water4Christmas Etsy shop. This shop features a variety of sellers whose product sales are donated 100% to finding a solution for clean water in villages in Liberia, West Africa.

3. Children's Hunger Fund Menu features great gifts for giving and receiving. You can send food, Bibles, shoes, bikes, toys, and other goods to people in need. Anything from the Menu would make us happy, as well as a lot of other people.

4. charity:water bracelets are a great way to show support to a good cause, and again, 100% of the profits go to building wells!

5. A stained glass water drop ornament by Barb Bulluck also for H2Africa at the Water4Christmas Etsy shop.

6. For every pair of TOMS shoes sold, another pair is sent to a child in need. These shoes are awesome and are a two-for-one deal!

7. This Every Child's Right Shirt raises money for a family's adoption. Also, when you purchase this shirt, you can mention another family (we found out about it through the Block Family) and a portion of the profits goes to help fund their adoption as well!


Water, food, homes, shoes, life... this is what we want for Christmas.

Mystery Can

Out of all the food we received, one can stood out from the rest.
One can was just a little too plain and had us scratching our heads.
This can was large and had no paper label, instead printed on the side were the words Pork in Juices.

I think that the fact that it was meat, and not tuna or chicken, made us grab it. But what we would do with a can that looked like it could have a whole snout in it, was a mystery. After pushing it aside for a week, we decided it was time! We looked online for something to make and found a recipe for BBQ pork. We opened the can to find a solid chunk of meat (about the size of a snout, lol!) and forked it out in clumps into the pan. It actually turned out to be like pulled pork sandwhich meat. :) I made some BBQ sauce from a few things we already had and also some rice and beans. When it was all done the scariest can in the pantry turned out to be the best dinner we've had during our Food Pak inspired eating!

Week 2

This is our second week of our Food Pak inspired eating, thanks to the free surplus we found at Grandma's house.

Lunch today is tuna and crackers... yum!

Day FIVE! In the Field!

So, this morning was GREAT!! We went down to the Children's Hunger Fund warehouse in San Antonio and we helped out with "repacking" the boxes. (Checking for variety, adding extras/fillers, and checking expiration dates, etc). It made us just that much more aware of what the whole process and experience is like.

Plus, volunteering is a great way to really get into something and be a part of something bigger. The people there were great! The staff was amazing and the other volunteers were so happy to be there, too! The 25 of us together processed 7 palletes of 75 boxes for a total of 525 Food Paks that are now ready to serve!

Being around the staff also gave us a deeper understanding of why Children's Hunger Fund operates. The Food Paks are a vital key to nourish these families but to also open the door to share Jesus! His love is so much more nourishing than beans!! Here are some of the pictures from this morning:

To finish up our second Food Pak we had the rest of our fruit for breakfast, pineapples for me and pears for Frankie.

For lunch we had tuna crackers and peanut butter crackers with some dried apples.

It was all good and tasty until dinner...dinner was a different story tonight- the rice and refried beans did taste good, but I craved something different, really craved something more. Not peanuts. Not noodles. Not pintos. My mom was making scrambled eggs with ham and cheese for the kids. I love my mom's scrambled eggs. I wanted them. I thought about just eating them and scrappping the last meal of our box, it was so plain and we've been doing this all week... Duh! That's the point self! When people get to the end of their groceries they don't just give up get something better, that's what's left, and they eat it. This is what they are living off of, and they've been eating it for much longer than a week. So suck it up, self. This was probably the hardest moment for me out of both weeks, but also the most real and revealing.

So tomorrow we get to take all of the money we saved from the two Food Pak weeks and go shopping!!! The amount we did not spend going out to eat and living from our box is equal to about 10 boxes!!! 10 families!!! 10 oppurtunites to share God's love!!! We are so excited!!!

[Awesome side story! Not only did we save a ton of money, but God greatly blessed us in a very specific way. Last week, we were at a benefit dinner for Frankie's aunt Chita who has ALS. This event was complete with bake sale (including our cupcakes! post delayed, but coming soon!), silent auction, raffle, dinner and dance! It was a great night and they raised a good deal of money, but what was interesting were the silent auction items we won... we bought only $15 worth of tickets (15 tickets) to bid on some of the over 70 items that had been donated by kind companies and friends and family from all over town. Tons of items, we bid on all kinds of stuff. Guess what we won... a $25 gift certificate to Joey's Surf 'n' Turf, a $25 gift certificate to Rocky's Diner, and a $50 gift card to Pappasito's! $100 worth of FOOD!!! God is just too cool! (We also won back our very own Buc-ee's basket- a blessing all it's own, since it wasn't generating enough interest to make it worth our donation.)]