Ellie helps Mommy save the world

I was a little late in saving the world this year but I had a good reason. This year I decided to have Ellie play a part in my donations. I wanted to be a good role model for Ellie in the area of giving back to the community, but how is that possible if she doesn't even know about it happening?

So here's what I did... I wrote down the charities I had in mind:
- school for kids who are blind
- home for people visiting their kids in hospital
- people who can't afford their own clothes and toys
- children who are abused by their family
- orphans who do not have mommies or daddies
- hospital that helps find a cure for exzema
- blind people who need a dog to help them do normal activities
- children with cancer
- children who live in poverty with no home, clothes, food
- mommies who need help finding jobs to take care of their family
- saving children who are slaves

Next I askedher if she thought I was missing anything. She added a couple to the list:
- rescue wild animals who are hurt
- humane society to give pets a good home
- children's hospital

Then I took 50 raisins to represent the money I had available to donate. I told her to split up the raisins between all these wonderful charities. It took her about 3.5 seconds to split up the raisins evenly among the piles.

I told her that would be a great way to split up the money but I asked her which she thought was better: helping a lot of causes a little or helping fewer causes a lot. Without any hesitation, she gave some consideration to prioritizing the charities and quickly knocked about half of them off the list of options.

After her next round, I asked her if she made her decision and she said "No, wait" and proceeded to narrow it down even more.

Afterwards, I asked her if I could reshuffle the raisins just a bit so that I could add some charities that were particularly important to me. And so, here are the results!

It was fun to watch how Ellie thought through this process. I loved that she had a few charities to add to my list, and I was surprised to see how quickly she eliminated some of the ones she added. When I asked her why she removed some charities, she always had a good answer. The people finding a cure to eczema are doing a great job and she is fully confident they can do it without more help. People have better chances of finding solutions than children. Blind people are brave even without dogs. Animals may need a good home but so do children. Children with cancer are the ones who need the most help.

I love that Ellie is getting involved and was excited to help me decide the best way to help save the world.