Donate for Purim!

Last night/today is Purim, a holiday that follows the traditional Jewish holiday formula "they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat!" On Purim we dress up in costumes, hear the story of Esther and Mordechai, eat hamentaschen (these little triangle, fruit-filled cookies), drink a lot, and more. We are supposed to give gifts of food - at least two different kinds of food - and charitable gifts/donations to the poor. Last night we gave gifts of beer and hamentaschen to our friends, heard the story and wore funny hats. This morning we pretty much did it again.

(The picture to the right is my cat wearing her costume, Frankenstein. I admit I cheated... this photo is from Halloween, however I have misplaced my camera and so Purim photo updates will come later when I get my camera back)

This year's donation for Purim is art supplies to the children's hospital. Every week I go and volunteer in the art program at the local children's hospital. Sometimes we do elaborate projects like watercolor/wax resists, and other weeks we simply color with markers on construction paper. However, the hospital has no funding for this program's art supplies; they rely completely on donations. Often, my coordinator tells me to make sure the kids use up the whole page of watercolor paper, or only squirt out a little paint and wait until it's gone before putting out more, etc.

Today, JewishGuy and I went to Target and the art supply store and went nuts. We bought:

• Boxes of: crayons (different kinds, sizes, palettes), markers (including 2 sets of "stamper" markers), colored pencils
• Little Kid and Big Kid appropriate scissors
• Tons of glue sticks
• Regular glue in bottles
• Many packets of construction paper
• Packets of "foam sheets"
• Foam stickers, both flowery ones and letters
• Paints, both acrylic and watercolor
  
• Watercolor paper
  

It was really fun picking things out. I was especially excited about the watercolor paper, because I found some really fat pads of quality watercolor paper for not a lot of money.

HillelLady is also joining in on it :)

I'm excited to donate objects rather than money, it feels a lot more personal. Also, I am excited because I know exactly who it will go to and I will probably get to see the kids use the stuff we bring!