Bloggers Giving Back {Well Boxed}

Some days I feel like we made a huge mistake moving to San Diego.  Some days it seems that there might be a better place in the world for us to be right now.  Then, days like last Saturday happen and I realize this might just be exactly where we're supposed to be right now.

Saturday I attended another Bloggers Giving Back event with a bunch of incredible women who also happen to be bloggers.  The organizers, who have no military affiliation what so ever, chose to support our troops for their 2nd giving back event.  Each attendee chose a deployed Soldier (or Airman, Marine, Sailor) from AnySoldier.com and bought items to make a care package for that person.

We were supplied with boxes, decorations, food, wine and great company!

  It was eye opening to participate and see how non-military spouses view care packages that are such a large part of a military spouse's life.  Some of these women were super creative and had some great ideas.  During my husband's 2 deployments I sent him more boxes than I can count but I never in a million years thought to decorate them or create a theme for them (this was 07 & 09, before Pinterest).

There was so much good stuff packed into these boxes, I know the guys & gals are going to love receiving them!

I look forward to seeing these ladies each month, I just wish they weren't quite so far away.  Thankfully we're all bloggers and active on social media so even though we only see each other once a month, I feel like I am getting to know them all so well.  I can't wait to learn what we'll be doing next month (and I hope I can squeeze it into my insanely busy schedule in April).

Bloggers Giving Back

A few weeks ago, Elizabeth turned me on to a new community service organization being started by a couple of local bloggers.  Bloggers Giving Back(website coming soon) is the brain child of Melyssa who blogs over at The Nectar Collective.  It's not a secret that mission work and helping others is a passion of mine so combine that with blogging and I'm all over it!  Melyssa and a few other SoCal bloggers got together and created the first event, the OC Blogger Brunch.  The event was held at Great over Good, a fabulous little art studio in Santa Ana with a very powerful message.  On Saturday morning, 25 (ish) local bloggers got together to have brunch, get to know one another, and collect donations for a couple of charities, Working Wardrobes and The Princess Project.

Melyssa and the other ladies who orchestrated this event thought of everything and did a great job decorating the studio space.

Brunch was catered and absolutely delicious!

 

One of my favorite parts of the morning was getting to meet Julie of Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life who just happened to be in town visiting family and was able to join us for the day.

They even had a fun photo booth set up.  Who doesn't love a photo booth.

We collected a ton of clothing to donate but I failed to get a photo of the pile, so I borrowed one from Justina.

If you're local and would like to join us, we'll be getting together again next month to make care packages for deployed soldiers, something a few of us are all too familiar with.  I'm so excited to be a part of this group and can't wait to see what fun community service projects the leaders come up with.