#Instafood Drive: Alphabet Style

Last week, Jeannett challenged all of the bloggers who link up for InstaFriday to participate in an #instafood drive. The challenge was easy...just collect and donate food items to a local food pantry or shelter. Maybe I'm a nerd, OK, I know I am, but I got all sorts of excited over this! First off, it fits in perfectly with what I want to do with this blog and I have to admit I've been slacking in that department lately. I want to teach my boys how to help others. Even if its one small act and it only helps one person...those things still matter. I want to use this blog for good and document all of the different ways I can teach my kiddos what it means to give. Second, collecting and donating food is a super easy way to teach Aidan how easy it is to help others and its fun too! All of our pictures this week are about our experience collecting food.

I started thinking of ways to make this a bit more of a challenge for Aidan. He is in 4K and has known his ABCs for quite some time but I thought it would be fun for him to try to come up with different foods that start with the letters of the alphabet. We had so much fun coming up with different foods. Not only did we get to talk about what we were doing, why we were doing it and why giving to others is important but he also got to learn about the different food groups and what items are perishable and nonperishable. I think he had just as much fun as I did. By the time we were finished, he wanted to buy MORE things..."can we donate apples Mom" or "maybe we can give fruit snacks"...

Picking out something that starts with "R"...

"WOW Mom...this peanut butter is heavy"

Trying to decide what kind of macaroni to get...

The end result...

All of the goodies...

A- applesauce
B-  black beans
C- corned beef and cereal
D- dried bananas
E- evaporated milk
F- fruit (canned peaches)
G- graham crackers
H- honey

I- infant formula
J- juice
K- ketchup
L- licorice
M- mustard and mac and cheese
N- noodles
O- olives
P- peanut butter

Q- quick oats

R- rice and raisins

S- spaghetti sauce

T- tomatoes and tuna

U- "un"salted vegetable (green beans)

V- Velveeta shells and cheese 

W- water chestnuts

X- "xtra" cheesy Goldfish

Y- yams

Z- zingers

We had a really great time doing this together. Aidan was able to come home and tell Tommy all about it. The most challenging part was trying to come up with different foods. "Z, X and U" presented the biggest challenge. We did end up "cheating" on some things...unsalted veggie for "U", probably doesn't really count towards the letter "U" so to make up for that I bought two items in other categories, like rice and raisins. We plan on dropping off our items at the local Hunger Task Force.

Do something nice for someone... I promise they won't forget it!