Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I’ve received product samples and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

One of the things I want to make sure my two kids understand is that there are lots of children who are not as fortunate as they are — especially this time of year when the words “I want” become part of their daily lexicon.

That’s why we adopted a family through my daughter’s school and why I always ask them to help me go through their toys to pick the ones they no longer use to give to our next-door neighbor who works with local families in need.

This year, however, giving to those less fortunate than us, has gotten even easier thanks to Walmart’s campaign known as Fill the Truck. Working in conjunction with the Salvation Army, Walmart has put out cardboard boxes in the shape of trucks like the one you see in the photo above and all you have to do is purchase a toy or a coat for a child in need and drop it off in there. The Salvation Army will then be in charge of distributing the donated items to local kids in need. Some Walmart stores will also have a special event the next two weekends where volunteers will work together to fill the actual trucks with the donated toys.

I think that the best part about this program is that it really can’t get any easier to donate. Think about it, all you have to do is buy one or two toys while you’re shopping at Walmart and then just drop them off in one of the cardboard boxes by the entrance.

It’s been over a week since my daughter and I returned from our trip to El Salvador to visit family and to meet Brenda, the girl we sponsor through Save the Children. Not a day goes by that we don’t talk about her, plan what we’re sending her next, and pray for her and her family. The connection to her has been that deep for both Camila and I.

I loved sharing the pictures and the story of why we decided to sponsor Brenda, how we “chose” Brenda and how we were able to meet her in her school in a remote pueblo in El Salvador. Your comments were so uplifting since almost every single one of you mentioned you were now inspired to consider sponsoring a child yourself. I totally get that there are so many misconceptions about sponsorship that hold many of us back from considering putting our donations funds into this. I was in that mindset for the longest time and I’m so thrilled that I took the plunge and that led me to discover the real work that’s being done by organizations like Save the Children to make sure underprivileged kids have access to the basics they need to survive and thrive.

I promised to share more about what I learned about sponsoring a child. Click here to check out my Babble Voices post on the 7 things I learned about sponsoring a child. 

Would love your comments here or there.

¡Gracias!

We felt so accomplished to be able to use our online voices as a tool to bring both global health awareness and real aid to a cause that compels us all no matter where in the world it’s happening or how far it may feel. We understand how interconnected we all are and a mother suffering miles away, living in conditions we have no real perspective of and facing problems we rarely even give a second thought to is actually something that needs to concern us all. The well-being of all our children is the well-being of humanity’s future.

But with that sense of accomplishment also came a need to know more. We wanted to know who these mothers and children we were helping were. We wanted to see faces, learn names and hear their stories of the real impact these type of programs have on them. We wanted to go beyond the horrifying statistics and celebrate the stories of hope.

Shot@Life and the United Nations Foundation heard our requests and we are now celebrating “28 Days of Impact” throughout the month of February. As a follow up to Blogust, 28 bloggers are bringing to life the stories behind the work being done by Shot@Life and their partners.

Meet Rodha Mahamud

Rodha lives in Bossaso, Somalia. Children born in Somalia have a higher chance of dying before their 5th birthday than anywhere else in the world. I doubt Rodha is aware of that statistic as a fact, but she doesn’t need to — she’s actually living proof of it. Rodha lost two of her nine children to measles after having her family displaced several times before they settled in a nearby displacement camp in Bossaso. That’s where she lost her two children and that’s also when she learned that there are vaccines that can prevent death from so many diseases, like measles.

Soon after she found out about  the Child Health Day, put together by the Ministries of Health, UNICEF and the World Health Organization. Volunteer social mobilizers from the communities go door to door to bring women with children under five to a Child Health Day clinic to receive a whole package of free healthcare, including immunizations. Now that Rodha was informed of the options accessible to her family thanks to these efforts, she decided to protect the children she has left and took her 9-month-old baby in for immunizations and a complete health package and assessment.

The impact can also be seen in this video by UNICEF correspondent Susannah Price reporting on a Child Health Day in Somalia. At 2:30 you will meet Rodha and her 9-month-old child.

The impact of vaccines on the lives of children around the world is incredible. Now, you can help sustain the impact by sending an email to your member of congress. Welcome your members to the 113th Congress and ask them to make sure that global health and vaccines are a priority in the new Congress. Take action and make an impact!

This story comes from UNICEF Somalia and is part of Shot@Life’s ’28 Days of Impact’ Campaign. A follow up to Blogust to raise awareness for global vaccines and the work being done by Shot@Life and their partners to help give children around the world a shot at a healthy life. Each day in February, you can read another impactful story on global childhood vaccines. Tomorrow, don’t miss Amy Graff’s post on BabyCenter! Go to www.shotatlife.org/impact to learn more.

{Photo Credit: UNICEF- Somalia. Correspondent Susannah Price reports.}

Five years ago today, my husband and I brought Camila into this world. She was healthy as can be, active and awake from day one, and loved and taken care of with an obsession characteristic of first-time parents.

Every year she’s hit her milestones right on target and continues to mature into an intelligent, creative and loving girl. Every year on August 18th we celebrate her life with a party of some sorts — cake, a piñata, friends, games and plenty of gifts. What we never do is really and deeply recognize just how incredibly blessed we are to have these annual celebrations with her.

Until  now.

Thanks to Shot@Life and the United Nations Foundation, I’ve learned that, unlike my daughter, most children in developing countries never make it to celebrate their 5th birthday because they lack basic medical care and the routine vaccines that we have ready access to and may even, in radical cases, take for granted.

The exact and overwhelming figure would be that 1 in 5 children around the world lack access to life saving vaccines. In fact, immunization saves the lives of 2.5 million children every year.

To put the above statistics into perspective, it means that the number of kids that die every year from preventable diseases in developing countries is nearly equivalent to half the children entering kindergarten in the U.S.

Now that really brings it home for me because, not only is my daughter turning 5 today, but she’s also entering kindergarten on Monday. She’s one of the lucky ones around the world that has access to vaccines and has gotten to celebrate all her 5-years-of-life milestones.

Today I ask you to make your comments count and help me celebrate my daughter’s birthday. Help me create with this post a living testament that Camila’s 5th birthday will be one to be remembered, because the real gifts she receives will be your comments and the joy to know each one left here through the end of August will be matched with a $20 donation* — what it costs to give one child four life saving vaccines and help them on their way to celebrating their fifth birthday and first day of kindergarten.

Your comments in the last three and a half years have meant the world to me. You’ve been part of my girl’s evolution as a bilingual princesa. You’ve held my virtual hand when it’s gotten tough. We’ve laughed together at the nuances of our shared challenges. You’ve celebrated our triumphs. Now, I ask you to celebrate my daughter’s life with a comment and a shout out to your friends to join the party. A simple “Feliz Cumpleaños” left in the comments below will not only light up Camila’s face now and for the years to come when I show her this, but it will also become a $20 donation that will give one more kid a real Shot@Life.

You know we all like a good fiesta, let’s make this a huge and memorable one!

And if you want to make it even bigger, once you’ve commented here, head over to Jenny Eckton of Formerly Phread who passed the Blogust baton to me with her inspiring post “Help the Child, Help the Mother.” Then, follow the relay tomorrow over at Ilina Ewen’s blog, Dirt & Noise.  Every comment here, there and on all 31 posts until August 31st will count towards our goal. You will make it count.

¡Gracias!

*This post is inspired by Shot@Life, ​an initiative of the United Nations Foundation that educates, connects and empowers the championing of vaccines as one of the most cost-effective ways to save the lives of children in developing countries.

During Shot@Life’s Blogust: Blog Relay for Good, 31 bloggers, one each day in August, are writing about people from our communities who have inspired us. Every comment on this post and the 30 other posts will be matched with a $20 donation (up to a maximum of $200,000). That’s 10,000 comments. And 10,000 children. $20 is what it costs to give one child four life-saving vaccines to help protect them against measles, pneumonia, diarrhea and polio. A child dies every 20 seconds from a vaccine preventable disease. We can help stop this.

You can learn more about Shot@Life by joining their email list, following them on twitter or liking them on Facebook.

Want an easy way to share and help us reach our goal faster? Just click to tweet this:

Each comment @SpanglishBaby #Blogust post counts as $20 donation to give 1 child 4 life-saving vaccines @ShotAtLife http://bit.ly/Sz13jT

Last Friday I dropped off my girl at her Montessori for the beginning of her last day as a preschooler. The day was extra special because we were celebrating her 5th birthday in the classroom with a Celebration of Life they do for all the kids. Her birthday is not for another two weeks, but she really wanted to celebrate with the friends she really won’t get to see anymore.

In my list of things I needed to get for her celebration were organic strawberries and watermelon, — her two favorite fruits, which she devours with pleasure –so I headed straight to the store to buy them. As you can see in the picture above, my Princess was so proud that she could serve “mi fruta favorita”  to her friends.

After all was said and done, I come back home to an email from days ago from the Fruit for All Project. I knew we were going to write about it, but I hadn’t sat down to watch this video below.

Once I did, it hit home that so many people don’t have access to something like fruit which we take for granted. I thought of how happy these two fruits made my girl and her friends, and how many children are lacking that joy — and nutrition — because 1 out of 5 children in the U.S. are food insecure, meaning they live at risk of hunger.

Now I’m even more thrilled to partner up with Nestlé Juicy Juice to help in their mission to donate up to 35 million pieces of fruit to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity with more than 200 member food banks.

There are many ways for you to get involved, and also to use it as an opportunity to teach your kids about giving, hunger, nutrition and more.

Between now and August 31, a piece of fruit will be provided to hungry kids and their families each time Juicy Juice is purchased. Your kids and you can also get involved by logging on to Juicy Juice’s Facebook page or FruitForAllProject.com  and www.proyectofrutaparatodos.com in Spanish to complete challenges like games, quizzes and puzzles to earn even more fruit donations for those in need.

Wait. We have more! Juicy Juice has given me 400 meals to donate to a local food bank near me AND another 400 meals for one of YOU to donate to your local Feeding America food bank!

The Giveaway

Just follow the instructions with the Rafflecopter below and we’ll select one winner to donate 400 meals to their local Feeding America food bank. ¡Suerte!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: No compensation was received for sharing this information. Nestlé has provided us with 400 meals to donate to our local Feeding America food bank. All opinions, as always, are our own.

Through these women I’ve learned that my voice is powerful, that I need to advocate, be involved, and give back to that which I believe in.

A group of 10 of these social media moms, many whom I am fortunate to call my amigas, recently became ONE Moms and traveled to Kenya to meet their African counterparts and experience extreme poverty as told through the lens of a mother in Africa. If you followed their blogs, Facebook and Twitter pages and the #ONEMoms stream those days you would have been touched by stories of them sitting in a dirt floor home with a family while they were being tested for HIV/AIDS and have to be present while the mother got the news she tested positive. Right there in front of her kids. Reality like this has to be lived…and these 10 ONE Moms did.

As a ONE Moms blog partner {no compensation, just voluntarily spreading the word}, I just received this video in my inbox and was motivated to share it right away because I want you all to know who these amazing moms are. Meet them here:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzvXCFTo7yo&feature=player_embedded

ONE Moms is a movement of moms everywhere using their extraordinary power to spread awareness for the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease. These moms are leading a movement to promote education, engagement and activism on behalf of the world’s poorest.

The message is ONE doesn’t want your money, they just want your voice. Why? Because your voice and your awareness is much, much more powerful than your money. Just look at what SpanglishBaby is becoming thanks to our collective voices, not anyone’s money.

Be inspired. I am.

If you’re here reading this you’re most likely a mom or a dad and you know that the most important thing to you is the health and wellbeing of your children. As a parent, your empathy expands to a larger scale when you identify with the struggles other moms who are less fortunate than you face just to care for the basic health and needs of their babies, especially those living in developing countries.

That is why we are so excited to let you know that I will be representing SpanglishBaby as one of the six Community Leaders for The Million Moms Challenge, a joint effort between ABC News and the UN Foundation working in conjunction with Baby Center and other world-class partners around the globe.

The Million Moms Challenge is a historic, first-of-its-kind campaign – a call to action to engage a million Americans with millions of moms in the developing world around the issues of pregnancy, childbirth and children’s health. The goal is to create a global community, building on the common dream that every mother shares for her child: a healthy pregnancy and safe birth.

The Challenge is so big that it was announced tonight, Sunday September 18, on ABC News and will officially launch tomorrow morning with an announcement on ABC’s Good Morning America, live from Times Square in NYC, where people will gather to raise their hands in support of the Million Moms Challenge.

The Million Moms Community will live on the official Million Moms Challenge site under the Community tab; that’s where you can join us, other community leaders, partners, visitors and moms from all over to talk and share around those crucial issues that are a priority for all mothers and for which we all need a group to connect with for support and guidance.

I’ve already started a couple of conversations around birth day traditions and raising bilingual kids as early as possible which are sure to get you motivated to join us.   Other recent conversations revolve around breastfeeding, birth plans, natural births, dealing with death in the family, losing control and more.

We really hope you join us reach the goal of the Million Moms Challenge and participate with your voice and expert mom insights.

To be part of this historic movement, just visit the Million Moms Community and sign up.

Let your friends know about this community so this ripple can rapidly become a wave and we make a clear difference. If you tweet, you can send this message:

I’m one in a million for healthy moms and babies around the world. Join the #MillionMomsChallenge with me! @amillionmoms; #amillionmoms

If you’re on Facebook, click here to Like the Million Moms Challenge on Facebook.

Disclosure:  We are being compensated for our time spent as Community Leaders of the Million Moms Challenge. We couldn’t be more honored to have been chosen.

You read that right, Latino kids suffer much more from dirty air and it’s effects, such as asthma.  In fact, 60% of Latino children are more likely to suffer from asthma and other respiratory conditions as compared to non-Latino whites.  It doesn’t end there:  Latinos are three times as likely to die of asthma.

The most horrible aspect of all of this is that our community is being overly affected largely because of the areas we live in, the jobs we have and the levels of poisons we are  exposed to because of it.  It’s called Social Injustice.

I wished I could say I don’t want to alarm you, but the truth is I do.  Not in a negative, scare-your-pants-off way, but in a I-need-to-do-something-about-this way.  We all need and can do something and it can be as easy as informing yourself.

To make it even easier for you to inform yourself, the Moms Clean Air Force has put together a team of experts to talk about “The Asthma Epidemic Among Latino Kids and What Moms Can Do About It.”

This blog radio discussion will look at the connection between coal pollution and asthma, the connection between asthma and race, differences in health care given to suffering children, and what parents can do.

To be part of this interactive conversation on BlogTalk Radio, we encourage you to click here to register. You may also RSVP on Facebook here and easily share with your friends.  The louder the better.