As we gathered nearly twenty children to read How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer, one could see and hear the high energy level of our group. We read about how “filling other’s buckets” by acting kind and helpful can result in our “own buckets” being filled. These “invisible buckets” serve as a metaphor for how we (and others) feel inside.
This important lesson permeated our morning together as our children prepared forty sack lunches for the Kids Working to Succeed (KWTS) program at All People’s Church in Milwaukee. Our youngest helpers dropped fruit, candy bars, chips and napkins in each bag while our four to five year olds bagged carrots and our oldest volunteers (six years and up) put together sandwiches. Volunteers of all ages found a purpose and we completed our mission within a half-hour. Quite an accomplishment!
Lynne Schley (Christ Church KWTS lunch coordinator), Jean and I took our children to deliver the lunches to the work site of KWTS. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by other volunteers who were working with nearly forty teenage children to build and tend their beautiful urban garden on the corner of North 2nd and West Clarke Streets. One volunteer took the time to show our children an enormous earthworm and explained the importance of worm life for composting and soil richness.
After exploring the garden, we brought the lunches into the beautiful church and left them for the hard workers of All People’s Church. Our experience today left me (yet again) convinced that starting TOAM has and will continue to impact the lives of many throughout the greater Milwaukee community.
And it left me wondering…who else in our community has “invisible buckets” that need to be filled by us?
-Lynn Raines, Co-Founder