Speak Up for Hope – with crayons!

I’m always looking for ways my kids can feel like they are a part of our family’s giving. I recently saw on Facebook that Speak Up for Hope is collecting crayons and coloring books for the visitation areas in prisons. Speak Up for Hope is a ministry started by Carol and Gene Kent with the vision to “help inmates and their families adjust to their new normal,” and a mission to “provide hope to inmates and their families through encouragement and resources.”

Through the imprisonment of their only son (that story and their journey of faith through that process is chronicled in Carol’s books When I Lay my Isaac Down, A New Kind of Normal, and Between a Rock and a Grace Place), they discovered that often the visiting rooms in prisons were not family friendly, with no activities for children or games that families could play together. Those weekly visits are important for families as they work through their new normal and do their best to maintain a family relationship. Speak Up for Hope collects items and sends them to prisons to help those family visits be the best they can be.

With school supplies on sale, would you consider picking up extra packs of crayons and coloring books and sending them to Speak Up for Hope? Visit their website for more information on the ministry and other ways to give. The address to send items to is:

Speak Up for Hope
PO Box 6262
Lakeland, FL 33807

I’m also doing a giveaway in connection with this post! I am giving away Carol’s most recent book Between a Rock and a Grace Place. I just finished reading it, and it was filled with not just Carol and Gene’s stories of how God has met them in the tight spots of their life, but she also shares letters her son has written from prison, as well as other people’s amazing stories of how God has met them with grace during some of their most difficult seasons of life.

Here are all the ways you can enter to win this great book:
1. Leave a comment on this post

2. Send supplies to Speak Up for Hope, leave a comment on this post letting me know and that will count for TWO entries!

3. Facebook a link to this post encouraging others to send supplies as well and leave a comment here on this post letting me know.

4. Tweet this post and leave a comment here on this post letting me know.

5. Go “like” Speak Up for Hope on Facebook and leave a comment here letting me know.

If you do all of those things you can be entered in the drawing a total of 6 times!

You have until Aug 30 to enter and to let me know you’ve sent supplies! (If you happen to live local, you can give your supplies to me and I will send them all in a box together at the end of the month!)

Entries will close Aug 30, so you have three weeks to collect supplies and send them and leave comments. Let’s add some extra meaning to your school shopping this year. Thanks for helping out this incredible ministry!