Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883

Eyes that see the good in things: Dec. 02, 2019

In honor of its 100th season, the NFL is inviting​ everyone join Huddle for 100, an effort to inspire a million people to volunteer 100 minutes of their time and help shape what our communities will look like for the next 100 years. In addition, each month, the NFL club with the most volunteer minutes will receive a community focused grant from the NFL Foundation, with one $100,000 grant awarded as a grand prize for a community project at the end of the year. Get involved and make your 100 minutes count by sharing your volunteer experience.

Huddle for 100 includes four types of “huddles”:

National Huddles: The NFL will host a series of national huddles during major milestones such as the NFL Draft and the Super Bowl, each with a theme focusing on giving back to that community in an impactful way.

Club Huddles: The NFL will drive a season-long competition by awarding monthly community-focused prizes to top-ranking clubs based on volunteer minutes.

DoSomething Huddles: The NFL is also teaming up with DoSomething.org, the largest nonprofit exclusively for young people and social change in the U.S., to provide fans with volunteer opportunities supporting a wide variety of causes. “Volunteering time and energy to improve the lives of those around you is an incredible effort from the broader NFL community,” said Carrie Bloxson, CMO and Head of Impact at DoSomething.org. “We’re excited to introduce NFL fans to causes that they’re passionate about and give them ways to take action.”

Personal Huddles: Fans can also volunteer for a cause of their choice and share their individual volunteer efforts on social media using #NFLHuddleFor100. Fans can participate in Huddle for 100 by visiting http://www.nfl.com/huddlefor100 to sign up for volunteer opportunities with DoSomething.org or sharing their personal huddles and volunteer efforts on social media. To get involved follow four easy steps to make your 100 minutes count for the team of your choice.

Step One– Find a cause, give your time.

Give your 100 minutes through the DoSomething.org/Huddlefor100 site or to an organization that you’re passionate about.

Step Two– Capture your experience

Make sure you take photos while you volunteer and encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Step Three— Make your minutes count

Share a photo of your minutes and make it count with the team of your choice. All NFL teams have a page on their website where you can register your minutes with them. Register your time and enter for your chance to win prizes, including a VIP trip to the Super Bowl.

Step Four— Repeat

Help your team to win the grant from the NFL Foundation for their home community by volunteering more minutes or by recruiting your friends and family to also give 100 minutes. Dosomething.org offers ways for young people and groups to get involved. They can easily be adapted so that it benefits our local community.

1. Make a card of letter of appreciation for military service members, veterans and their families.

Beyond everything they do, military service members make the additional sacrifice of spending long periods of time away from family and friends. That means service members can feel disconnected from the people and the comforts of home.

2. Unleash the power of play and make an activity book for a child in the hospital. More than 3 million kids are hospitalized every year, sometimes for weeks or even months. When you’re in the hospital, sometimes you feel fine. Other times, you feel scared, anxious, or sad.

Childhood play stimulates the brain and produces neurotransmitters that make kids happy (yep, it’s science!) By helping them play games, you can take their mind off anxiety or worry that’s common while in the hospital.

3. Pick up litter to create cleaner places to play. Over 50 billion pieces of litter land on roads and in waterways each year! It costs our communities a lot of money to clean up, creates hazards on nearby roads, and washes into waterways. DoSomething and the NFL are activating young people like you to create cleaner and greener places to play across America. Pick up 10 pieces of litter from a local park, beach, court, or community space.

4. Collect healthy food to help tackle hunger. Over 12 million young people in the U.S. live in food-insecure households. Plus, over 30 million students rely on their schools for free or reduced-price lunches, which they don’t receive during the summer months.

Every young person deserves the chance to perform at their highest level on the playing field, but lack of nutrition hurts their energy, physical development, and overall well-being.

An article on their website shows why brightening a child’s day in the hospital is so important. As a little girl, Ebony had a sickle cell disease. There was a point in where the hospital became her second home; she knew every nurse’s name, how to request food that wasn’t listed on the hospital menu and how to silence her IV machine when it rang. She got used to spending days and weeks in the hospital.

They woke her early for blood work every morning. She became accustomed to the constant flow of doctors and nurses in her room. She missed the special events in school, so she knew how lonely and frustrating it can be for a child in the hospital. She says, “But, whenever someone would do something nice and unexpected for me, those negative feelings would melt away.”

It’s the little things, like when your class sends you a get-well card or a friend brings you a puzzle because they know how much you love them, that make hospital stays a thousand times better. These are the memories kids will hold with them forever.

She remembers a crocheted turquoise and brown blanket made by an older woman in a church group. All the women in that group gathered weekly to make blankets for the pediatric unit.

She received that blanket before getting her first blood transfusion. It was at exactly what she needed when she was feeling scared and anxious. She still remembers all the times it was by her side while being hospitalized and will forever be grateful for the woman who made it.

We all have the power to provide a child with some joy. Young people are making fun activity books so children who are hospitalized can play games like tic-tac-toe, trivia, and mad libs. This helps them take their mind off the anxiety that comes with being in the hospital and gives them the hope and courage to keep fighting.

When you’ve created a playbook or two and inspired your friends and family to make some, it’s time to make your impact. You can donate the activity books to your local hospital or your nearest children’s hospital.

Don’t forget to take a picture of yourself with your playbook before you drop it off at a hospital or send to Dosomething.org.

Throughout the Huddle for 100 initiative, the NFL will give participating fans the chance to win a variety of prizes, including game tickets, team gear or a donation to a charity they select when they track their participation on the Huddle for 100 website.

Visit http://www.nfl.com/huddlefor100 or follow #NFLHuddleFor100 to get involved and learn more about Huddle for 100. Visit http://www.nfl.com/100 for more information about the NFL100 campaign.

I’ve committed to my 100 minutes. Will you?