After Barack Obama declared MLK day a day of service, I invited my friend Margaret's kids to help me make birthday bags for the local women's shelter.
This way we would not only provide service to our community; we would help stimulate the ever important glowing rubber eyeball market, and help create jobs...in China.
Photos below. But first, to get ready, I surveyed a number of young children with the following question:
Monday is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Do you know who he was?
Anna H (7): He used to be the president.
Nick Z (4): He's the king.
Danny P (8): He made blacks and whites friends.
Christian B (5): He taught kids to be fair. White kids went to one school, and black kids went to another school, and that wasn't fair.
Maura J (7): He's the one who's next like Jesus.
Isabella C (8): He made it so blacks and whites could get along.
Jack C (7): He was the president who took down the signs that white kids and black kids had to go to different schools.
Jared (8): He was a guy that lead some people in some marches to get black and white people together.
Payton K (6): Martin Luther King is dead, but he made our country more free-er.
Spencer I (8): Martin Luther King was a good-guy. Mr. Nelson says he changed the world. He got shot by the bad-guy.
Gus J (5): He's president.
So if you wonder why your 5 to 7 year old doesn't think Barack Obama being president is a big deal, it might be because they assume Martin Luther King Jr. beat him to it.
Now it was time for the day of service. Here's the photographic proof:
Gus models the toys
Gus' birthday bag prominently features a glowing rubber eyeball and an articulated snake. The SpongeBob SquarePants hat from Tryg's bag nicely accents his look, for a fun on-the-go sporty feel.
Berit does the girl bag
After a lot of discussion, we decided that Berit was probably the expert on what girls like, since she's the only girl. You can tell this is the girl's bag, because it's the only one without a glowing rubber eyeball.
Bag O' Socks
In addition to the birthday bags, we did a bag of personal items. Although the Adobe Flex 2 book in the background would have made an excellent source for toilet paper, this was ultimately decided to be a bad idea.
Bag assembly
Unlike in Mary Poppins, toys don't just jump into bags on command. So we had to do it.
Bag assembly: the mother's perspective
Margaret supervises the assembly.
Mission Accomplished
We didn't have an aircraft carrier or a big sign, but we finally accomplished our mission.