Thanks to parents...

The school years is winding down here in Florida. Baseball ended last week. Scouts ended this week. My daughter's school activities have just ended. For her, at least, synchronized swimming is mostly over. She helps out a Brownie troop and that has just ended, too.

And as I look at all these activities, I'm frankly amazed at the amount of adult time that goes into these activities. The number of people who need to do work to make these activities run amazes me. From the outside, it doesn't look all that hard. From the inside, the work is astounding.

For the Cub Scouts alone, there are den leaders for each den. For each pack, there's a committee chair, a camping chair, and advancement chair, a popcorn chair, a charter organization representative, a cub master, and one or more assistant cub masters. Then you have people who coordinate and execute the camping activities, pine wood derby, blue and gold dinner... You get the idea.

Until I got involved in these things, I never really knew how many people were required for these things to work. It amazes me. And it humbles me to think that these parents--all of whom have jobs and families and lives outside these activities--would do such a thing for my kid.

When kids have activities, it benefits everyone. So if you do stuff with your kids or others', thanks to you. Your time can make a difference that can't be measured with money.