My Youngest Child's Fundraising Activities 💞 A Charity Essay

My youngest child was involved in Boy Scouts from before they started school until they entered junior high.

The troop (a unit of the group) they belonged to holds a year-end fundraising drive for charity.
Under the cold December sky, the still-small children, along with adult leaders, would stand in crowded areas like in front of train stations or shopping streets, wearing sashes and carrying large donation boxes around their necks, and call out,

Please help us with our fundraising!

They would call out to passersby in loud voices.

When someone made a donation, they would say,

Thank you very much!

They would thank them with all their might.
Sometimes, people would say to them,

You're working hard even though it's cold!

and offer words of encouragement.

When my youngest child first participated in this fundraising activity, they were still in kindergarten.
My youngest child had an outgoing personality from a young age and was well-loved by the other troop members and the older children.
The child seemed to simply enjoy being able to participate in activities with the people in the troop.

In fact, some of the people donating were parents of children in the troop, and they would even go to other locations where fundraising was taking place to make donations.
The children must have been happy to have people donate to their own boxes and to be spoken to.

During that time, other troop members and parents would prepare things like pork miso soup or rice cakes, waiting for the children to return.
For the children who returned after working hard and calling out for donations in the cold, warm food was the greatest treat of all.
Perhaps knowing this, the children, watched over by their seniors and the adults, would encourage each other even in the cold, looking forward to the treat that awaited them after they finished their fundraising.

As they got older, while some children became embarrassed to raise their voices in public, my youngest child had a loud voice and was praised for it, so they always participated in this fundraising activity with great enthusiasm.

It was when my youngest child, who had spent their year-ends like that, was in the middle grades of elementary school, that we were out shopping together. When we went to pay, they noticed a donation box nearby and tapped it with their finger to get my attention.

It was a shop we always went to, but since we would usually pack our items and leave immediately after shopping, I don't think I had even been aware of the box.

I noticed the donation box, handed them some small change, and my youngest child put it into the box.

They looked so satisfied.

I thought at the time,

Maybe they just happened to want to try donating themselves because of their experience having others donate to them?

However, after that happened a few times, I tried saying,

Why don't you try using your own allowance?

and they actually took small change out of their own wallet and made a donation.

From then on, whenever we went shopping together, they started donating from their own allowance, even if it was a very small amount.
Considering that their allowance was quite small at the time (in elementary school, snacks were separate, and I gave them 100 yen per grade level), I did feel like I could have just given them the money, but I was impressed that

donating from their own small allowance

had become a natural habit for them.
I felt that this was the most important thing they had learned through their Boy Scout activities since they were young.

I believe that the way one perceives things and the lessons learned at a young age have a major influence on one's later life.
In that sense, I wonder if children who learn the spirit of charity at a young age will be able to foster warm human relationships even when they enter a world of strangers as adults.
Thinking about it, perhaps the spirit of charity is not just for the sake of others, but also for oneself.

I am truly filled with gratitude for being able to have my child learn how to be a person—perhaps it is a bit of an exaggeration—within the sometimes strict yet warm human relationships surrounded by Boy Scout leaders, captains, and troop leaders.

I realize once again that it was something I could never have done on my own.

And I think,

Even if I am a small existence, I want to be that way.

That is what I think.

I am participating in this project💓

To the founder, Junpei Kobayashi,
to the project director, PJ,
thank you so much for letting me participate✨✨

I received the baton from Hikaru Nakagawa🌸💞

Hikaru Nakagawa🌸,
thank you so much for introducing me in your article and for letting me pass on the baton💞

The one who will pass on the next baton is PJ💞

As you all know, PJ is the project director for this initiative, and has been active with multi-talented skills in songwriting, novel writing, and event planning and management.

PJ, thank you so much for accepting the baton💞
I look forward to it😊🙏💕