30 Things The Brandon Foundation Is Thankful for

November is the month of Thanksgiving. The holiday was originally celebrated to give thanks for the harvest and preceding year. At The Brandon Foundation, we have so much to be thankful for, and we wanted to share a few of those things with you! Here are 30 things we’re thankful for, one thing for each day in the month of November.

• Jesus, our Lord and Savior through whom all things are possible
• That we are an organization guided by God through our purpose
• Miss Caty, our Founder and Executive Director
• Our Scholars
• Aaliyah, Auntral, Darrell, DeAundre, Deijah, DJ, Edyn, Elijah, Ethann, Isaiah, Josh, Malakhi, Medina, Noel, Saphia and Shawnn Michael
•  Our Mentors
• Mr. Abdul, Mr. Albert, Miss Aly, Miss Brittany, Mr. Chuck, Miss Dawn, Mr. Drew, Miss Jasmine, Miss Kelly, Mr. Nik, Miss Sara
• Our Board of Directors
• Miss Cadie, Mr. Chris, Miss Melissa, Miss Rebecca and Miss Tara
• Miss Khiala, our Assistant Director
• The parents of our scholars who support us all every step of the way
• Our Fundraising Committee
• Miss Brie and Miss Jen
• Our Volunteer Marketing Expert
• Miss Abby
• Our Corporate Sponsors
• Big City Cars, Calico Precision Molding, Holm Reporting & Video, Northside Plumbing and Sweeney Law Firm
• Our Donors & Supporters
• Our families
• Our Guest Speakers
• Opportunities to volunteer and give back to our community
• Prayer Circle
• Friendships, old and new
• Snack Time
• The opportunity and ability to learn
• The schools that our scholars attend and their teachers
• Activities like art, sports, and mindful movement
• The Fort Wayne Community
• The many local churches that families of The Brandon Foundation attend
• St. Henry’s Community Center
• Group Outings, like the Pacers' game we got to see last Friday
• Kava the therapy dog and his master Miss Angela
• The Three Rivers Parade
• Local Universities, especially IPFW and St. Francis
• Indiana Youth Institute who helped in our strategic planning as well as with training for mentors and board members
• Giving Tuesday and all those helped us raise $1,600, exceeding our goal!

What are you thankful for this holiday season?

Thank you for reading!

Abby Bormann & The Brandon Foundation

The mission, should you choose to accept it: Kindness

Last week as our scholars reflected on the results of our recent presidential election, the discussion turned inward. The President of the United States, together with the other branches of the federal government, holds an enormous amount of power with potential to change the world on a grand scale. But if you’re not POTUS, how can an individual, even a very young one, change the world? The answer The Brandon Foundation discussed was one random act of kindness at a time. From this, came the scholars’ mission to be carried out over the next two weeks. Use $10 to make an impact on their world and spread kindness!

Here are some of the ideas our scholars came up with:

Darrell: Put $10 in a blessing bag that will be handed out to Fort Wayne’s homeless as part of The 

Brandon Foundation’s annual Blessing Bags Project, which will be our December service event.

Malakhi, Ethan & Shawn Michael: Give $2 each to 5 people.

Josh: Buy 5 Bibles to give to 5 people.

Saphia: Buy 24 cupcakes to pass out to people.

Isaiah, Auntral, Medina & DJ: Give $10 to 1 person in need.

Elijah: Give $10 to someone when he next goes out to eat.

DeAundre: Purchase 3 cases of water and write affirmations on each battle. Then pass out the bottles of water to 72 people.

We hope you’ll join Mission: Kindness this week and throughout the holidays!

Don't forget that next Tuesday, November 29th is Giving Tuesday! If you'd like to make a donation to The Brandon Foundation, you can click the "Donate Now" link at the top of our blog page. Our goal for this year's campaign is $1,500.

Also, we are delighted to be one of the many charitable organizations that shoppers can support through AmazonSmile. In case you haven't heard, "AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you." If you go to smile.amazon.com, you can select a charity to support. Then each time you shop, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to the organization. Just make sure that you always shop on smile.amazon.com!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Abby Bormann & The Brandon Foundation