Roadtripping to the land of the less fortunate

Today I managed to tick off my last 'to do' of the school year. 

It involved my second road trip in a week out to Auburn (a suburb of Sydney).

The round trip took an hour and a bit and was accompanied by my current favourite Christmas CD by the rather yummy Michael Buble.

Along for the ride today was our Oldest KAT and Middle KAT.  They were there as my 'roadies' and they did a stellar job with minimal complaints.

What was this roadtrip in aid of?  Let me explain...

A couple of months ago I acted on an idea that had been festering away for a while...it involved recycling all the no longer required stationery that our kids accumulate at the end of each school year...you know, the stuff that's perfectly good and COULD be reused the following year...but my how they all love to take the stationery list and go crazy getting NEW bits and bobs!!

What happens to all that perfectly good stationery?  It goes towards my household clutter...filling drawers, spilling out of containers and generally contributing very little in a household that is well catered for already in the colored pens, crayons and marker department.

So instead, I decided to organize a stationery drive and collect all the unwanted 'stationery stuff'' at our small school and take it out to our 'sister' school which is in the starkly underprivileged and heavily migrant community of Auburn.

Two car trips later, the school now has colored pens, markers, crayons, erasers, rulers, paper and a few other bits and pieces that were donated and this can all be passed onto families that cannot afford to furnish their young-uns with newly purchased 'stuff'. 

I am guilty of spending an inordinate amount of time in the "it's all about me" zone.....doing this has made me feel useful and that I have contributed to another community in a useful and helpful way.  I was also pleased that it gave us an opportunity to remind the KATs and their school mates of the needs of those less fortunate than themselves!

So, whilst this might not be what we think of when 'roadtrip' is mentioned, it's a roadtrip I was happy to take :)