Days 51 -- Treats-4-Troops set up and final steps for collection

"By mutual confidence and mutual aid, great deeds are done and great discoveries made."
---Homer

Today and tomorrow are big days for Treats-4-Troops collection. Today was getting all the ducks in a row and tomorrow is the big collection at the local high schools. So hard to have any idea what amount of candy will be donated but hopefully lots.

My husband Rick just sent me an article about the person who had the idea to start collecting Unicef. He was a Presbyterian minister named Clyde Allison, and lived in Pennsylvania. The first Unifcef collection in 1950 yielded about $100,000? This year, the Unicef Halloween program is expected to yield about $4 million, with some collection taking place even over the Internet!

Allison's line of thinking was similar to ours for T-4-T, namely make it an occasion for kids to be inspired to think about helping other people, not just raking in a ton of candy for themselves. I had the feeling that we accomplished that goal the other day, when I was talking to my neighbor's daughter and she said she'd bring two bags of candy on her route: one to collect for herself and one for the troops! And surprisingly, my youngest daughter forked over about half her loot when she got home, saying "that's all for the troops."

So we'll see what happens as of tomorrow. WTOP is running a spot about the project all morning (once an hour) and a couple of other radio stations have info on their websites. Stay tuned - I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, hope you had a fun Halloween and got to enjoy at least a bit of candy -- I couldn't resist my favorites: Junior Mints an Almond Joys!