{"id":44511,"date":"2013-11-10T00:09:20","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T08:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=44511"},"modified":"2013-11-10T00:09:20","modified_gmt":"2013-11-10T08:09:20","slug":"pay-it-forward-merit-badge-intermediate-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/44511","title":{"rendered":"Pay It Forward Merit Badge, Intermediate Level"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tThe adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our<\/span> Sisterhood Merit Badge program<\/a>, now with 5,518 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20147,653 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my<\/span> former life<\/a> \u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For this week\u2019s Farm Kitchen\/Pay it Forward Merit Badge, Level Two<\/a>, I was excited to keep on keeping on with my own personal vendetta against hunger! Maybe I can\u2019t change the world, but I can sure change a day in someone\u2019s life, so that was my plan. Baby steps, girls, baby steps.<\/p>\n

I got my bossy pants on (pinstriped, wide legged, look aMAYzing with heels) and set out. My plan for helping my corner of the planet and for earning my Intermediate Level Badge was simple: Collect as many canned goods as my little arms, boxes, reusable shopping totes, and car could carry, and donate to the same dear food bank I donated my handful of change to the other day (when I was earning Level One). Now the goal was to collect at least 50 items, but I just knew I could blow that number out of the water. I mean, let\u2019s get real here, ladies, I could probably find almost that much in my own pantry (well, there was a sale on pineapple a couple months back \u2026 sometimes I get concerned that I won\u2019t have the ingredients to make an emergency homemade, midnight Hawaiian flatbread pizza, you know? No? You don\u2019t have homemade, midnight Hawaiian flatbread pizza emergencies? Huh. Curiouser and curiouser).<\/p>\n

\"MBA_Jane-3110\"<\/p>\n

So, I parted ways with 12 cans of diced pineapple (reserving a couple for said emergencies) and went on a little manhunt.\u00a0 A canhunt, actually.<\/p>\n

HAHA! Get it? CANhunt? I know, I know! Wipe the tears of mirth away, my friends, and keep reading.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I tried to let a few pals know I was coming (so as not to become a Canned Foods Mafia or something) and I was pleasantly surprised to see them getting into the swing of things, too. We were really in the spirit.<\/p>\n

The farmgirl spirit.<\/p>\n

In fact, they wanted to come with me in my collection rounds, but my seats were full of a case of water chestnuts, a flat of French sliced green beans, lots of soup, some unopened jars of spices, tons of bags of pasta, a box of Turkey jerky, a dozen home-canned jars of peaches, and the bumper crop of my neighbor\u2019s zucchini.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019d say 50 items was going to be a piece of cake.<\/p>\n

Everyone I met was happy to give something, even if it was just a tin of tuna or a carton of powdered milk. At Midge\u2019s house, she was in the shower, and since the kids\u00a0know me, they let me in and were only too happy to donate all the vegetables they could find! Sweet kids. Very generous, I thought.<\/p>\n

I rounded out my afternoon of nonperishable food hoarding and drove the booty to the food bank. Together with the volunteers, we unloaded my car (which was sagging under all that weight!) and made the cook very, very happy.<\/p>\n

Turns out HE has homemade, midnight, Hawaiian flatbread pizza emergencies all the time.<\/p>\n

I knew I wasn\u2019t the only one.<\/p>\n

 \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 5,518 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20147,653 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ Wondering … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}