Guest Author - Terrie Lynn Bittner

Are you looking for a way to give more meaning to Easter? Try this basket that gives something more important than chocolate and jelly beans!

On Easter, after the jelly beans and stuffed bunnies have been enjoyed, bring out a new Easter basket to share with your children. You will need to prepare this basket in advance. Fill it with anything that symbolizes Easter to you—plastic Easter eggs, artificial flowers, small stuffed rabbits or anything that keeps.

Attach to each one a type of service or the name of a person who could benefit from service. Tell your children that every Sunday someone in your family, beginning with the youngest child, will draw one item from the basket. On Monday, during Family Home Evening, the family will plan how and when to carry out the service, as well as who to do it for or what needs to be done for a person whose name was chosen. You may want to choose a day or evening to devote to your chosen project. Between the time the item is chosen and the time you plan, the family should give prayer and thought to the topic, so they can contribute ideas to the project. This project can also be done at Christmas with a stocking.

Examples for service might include:
- Cleaning someone’s yard
- Delivering a meal or treat to someone
- Inviting someone to join you for a picnic
- Bringing a vase of your home-grown flowers to those who need to be cheered
- Caring for the children of a single parent so she can have a break.
- Picking up trash at the church building
- Recording your family singing church songs and delivering it to someone who would appreciate a gift
- Writing to missionaries and service men and women
- Preparing a small gift for your family’s home teachers or church teachers.
- Going caroling at the homes of older people. (Why wait for Christmas?)
- Making small toys to be handed out at a food bank or homeless shelter
-planning a lesson to be taught at Activity Day, Cub Scouts, or Mutual on something your family knows a lot about.