Summer Projects for You and Your Family
Summer provides some excellent opportunities for us to witness to our Canadian neighbours about important issues that our nation is wrestling with. But this doesn’t just happen by itself. It takes some planning. The time, energy, and money that we invest in this can reap a bountiful harvest, even if much of the impact may not be measurable or visible to us. At the very least, taking on one of these projects can serve as excellent teaching tools for our children and friends.
1) Have your family save up for a bus bench ad in your city: For as little as $75 a month you can make a visible statement about Canada’s lack of abortion laws. This is a relatively easy endeavour. Contact WeNeedaLAW.ca for the graphic, send it to the company that looks after bus benches (or bus shelters) in your city, and then have your family raise funds to pay for this. Some ideas include a garage sale, collecting bottles, or a lemonade stand. Make a money jar just for this. Your children will be able to see where the money goes – literally. Take a picture of them by the bus bench. Our children won’t forget the experience – especially if we build on it through letters to the editor, regular prayer, and contact with our government officials.
2) Have your MP, MPP, or MLA over for dessert: Get a few families together who can commit to coming to your family for dessert one evening and then invite your public office holder to join you. Explain to him or her that it is an informal meeting with a few local families who want to ask questions about their work and some current issues. Summer is the time of year when these officials love to connect with their communities. Then, before the desser social, use the opportunity to brainstorm with your family some questions and issues that you can raise (the ARPA site has many examples – from corporal punishment, to parent’s role in education, to fiscal management). Make the actual evening as relaxing as possible for everyone involved. You and your children will see that these leaders are just ordinary people who have a very tough job. If possible, stay in touch after the evening via a thank you note, Christma card, etc.
3) Set up an abortion memorial: There are still some memorials in storage around Canada. They are already built and waiting for someone to bring it to their community. Summer is a great time for these memorials as traffic increases. There is no need to have the memorial look like previous ones. One of the simplest and most effective displays is to put one cross on each fence post, making a line that continues for about a kilometre. Then, stagger small one-word signs that spell the sentence: Each cross represents 1,000 abortions ever year in Canada – www.thetruthis.ca (or WeNeedaLAW.ca). This is the kind of project where it helps to get a number of families together to help set up and take it down. Contact [email protected] to find a memorial that you can use.
4) Design a billboard: Our billboard design contest goes to the end of August. The great thing about this contest is that the finalists can be used by ARPA groups (and others) to make a visible statement across Canada on huge billboards. And the incentive of a tablet computer is not bad either! Young and old alike are encouraged to enter.
5) Print and hand out infographics (thought-provoking tracts) at a community fair or celebration: WeNeedaLAW.ca has produced some very popular infographics. You can check them out here. They also have made the print-ready files available. You can take these to a local printer and get hundreds printed. The more you can do, the cheaper they are (maybe print thousands and get others to distribute them too). Then give a stack to each child and have your children hand them out at a community fair, Canada Day celebration, or any where else the public gathers. Once again, this provides great teaching moments about the issue (so that we can answer questions that arise) and makes our families much more comfortable standing up for the truth in the public square.
