Color A Smile
Lent isn’t just about giving things up, it’s also about adding things – things that help you become the best of who God created you to be. This might include reflection and prayer, but this week we’d like you to consider incorporating acts of kindness.
Spreading joy to others through acts of kindness can take many forms; in fact, there’s an EXTENSIVE list of sixty ideas here. Now, sixty is an overwhelming number of choices, so we’d like to focus in on just one: Color A Smile. The goal of this aptly named nonprofit is to spread smiles by sending coloring sheets to senior citizens, troops overseas, and, in their words, “anyone in need of a smile.” You can even subscribe someone to receive drawings if you’d like! It doesn’t cost anything to receive drawings, but they do accept donations.
Their website has hundreds of coloring pages. Some are color-in, some are free draw (for the independent spirits among us). Some are simple, some are more detailed. All you have to do is print, color, sign, and mail!
They love receiving art from folks of all ages, so you can participate alongside the kids in your family, or even if you don’t have kids in your family. And if the adult coloring craze of the last few years taught us anything, it’s that coloring can be super meditative and calming, so you’ll receive a much-needed dose of tranquility while spreading joy to others. On that note, Color A Smile will even accept pages from adult coloring books in lieu of their own printables, so long as they are CHEERFUL and COLORFUL.
There will be coloring pages in the lobby of the church between now and Easter; we invite you to take as many as you’d like and get to work! Please don’t use any glitter on your drawing (an understandable request from the folks at Color A Smile), and be sure to sign it with your name and age (yes, even if you’re a grown-up!), but don’t date it – they sometimes hold on to drawings for a bit before they mail them, and this makes it easier.
If you’d like to mail your drawings yourself, the address is on each coloring sheet. Color A Smile encourages you to send them in the cheapest way possible. But if you bring them back to the church before Easter, we’ll mail them for you! Just look for the Color A Smile basket in the lobby.
As you sit down to color, don’t worry so much about how it comes out; these will be hung on the fridge, not in the Louvre, and the whole point is to bring a smile to someone’s face. So grab your crayons and get to it! If you create any art you’d like everyone to see, feel free to share it with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
