Give a day, Get a day

If anyone out there is planning a trip to a Disney theme park, and you haven’t heard about this promotion, then you’re missing out.  You give a day of service, and get a day at the park for free.  What’s more, most of the service isn’t actually a full day.  It’s a few hours at an event, or it’s done on your own time, making supplies or running fundraisers. 

Also, a little bird tells me that if you get your free pass and go inside the park, you can then upgrade it to a multi-day or park-hopper ticket, and they will deduct the cost of a one-day ticket.  So even if you’re planning to go for longer, it’s worth getting the one-day pass.

The best part is, you are doing service.  You’re doing something for someone else, and Disney is kindly rewarding you for it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re doing just fine out the deal;  think of all the people who will upgrade their passes.  Or all the people who wouldn’t have gone at all, but will now be there for at least a day, buying overpriced food and giving in to their kids’ starry-eyed requests for Mickey ears. 

Or, theoretically, they could get soaking wet on the Grizzly River Rapids, and be too lazy to go back to the hotel, necessitating an entire outfit purchased in Frontierland, down to the underwear, for their daughter.  You know, if someone were really that lazy.  Which I would never be.

Anyway, the point is, everybody wins in this scenario.  Charities get goods, services, and volunteers.  The volunteers get to feel good about rendering service, plus a chance to vomit on Space Mountain.  And Disney gets more money while looking philanthropic. 

So why is this on Sassy’s blog?  What does this have to do with homemaking?  Well, it just so happens that many of the qualifying projects involve handmade things.  I’m going to let you in on a secret:  I can’t sew.  No, that’s not strictly true.  I can sew.  I can even follow a pattern if forced to.  No, the problem is, I can’t sew well.   In fact, if I ever do any sewing tutorials on this blog, I will probably hire a stunt seamstress.  But I can sew straight seams, to bind a hand-tied quilt.  I can hem or put edging on a receiving blanket.  I can hand-knot the edges of a fleece blanket.  And so can you.

Or, if you’re even more sewing-impaired than I am, there are plenty of other opportunities, whether you’re crafty, or social, or anxious to get your hands dirty.  So hop to it!  Do some service, get your passes, and take your family on vacation.  If you’re at Disneyland in June, we might even run into each other.  I’ll be the one with a camera in one hand and a frozen, chocolate-dipped banana in the other.