Austin Family and Children Photographer | Magan's Lens » Austin Family and Children Photographer, Magan Blasig

Sometime this past fall, my friends and I realized that we all had a desire to volunteer and help an organization out.  My friend Anna is an aspiring author. She wanted to surround herself with children again, as she was previously a teacher. Krista, too, had recently left her job and wanted to dedicate her time to a worthy cause. Adjusting to working from home was quite the feat for me, so having time with my friends and doing something together felt like the perfect solution.

Anna found the Texas Baptist Children’s Home; she and I took a tour and learned about the children living in the cottages. I left that day feeling so grateful for my parents and childhood. These kids, ranging across a broad spectrum in age, have so many different stories and backgrounds. They live with cottage parents who are on very strict budgets. The cottage parents cook every single meal, unless volunteers drop off a meal for them.

Bingo. This was the perfect way for us to volunteer.

When we started cooking, we were told that we could do it once in a while, once a week, once a month, or however much we wanted. As we aren’t expert chefs, we started with the promise to get together every other week. That quickly subsided into cooking every Tuesday. We took a brief break at Christmas as two of the three of us were leaving Texas to visit family elsewhere.

Last week, we picked up where we left off and began scheduling our meals again. This week, we made a delicious baked ziti, a salad, parfaits, and garlic bread.  A cottage of nine was able to enjoy the food prepared by us. A house mom was able to take the night off from slaving away in the kitchen.  The cottage was able to sit around the table and swap stories about their day.

We are now a group of four girls gathering together to cook for the TBCH, and it’s awesome.  Sarah is new to our group, and I love the life she brings to our group.  Not only is it rewarding to get to make food for the cottages, but occasionally, we make a little extra for ourselves. Once our husbands are free from work, we invite them to join us for dinner at whichever house we cooked at that day.

What I’m learning is that volunteering and helping out brings attention to the greater picture.  It helps me forget about what’s going on in the world of Magan’s Lens, allows me to not think about marketing, or selfishly spending every waking moment on myself.  I am learning that everyone has a story to tell. My goal and my desire is to be able to tell that story with stills. The wonderful stills created via photography.