In light of March Madness, I created a tournament bracket that has goals I’ve set for myself as well as rewards I get when I complete those goals. Some of the goals are exercise and weight goals. Others are life goals that I want to accomplish, such as volunteering.

For the past six months, my mom has been volunteering for an organization called Feeding America. Feeding America is a hunger-relief charity that provides food for low-income people, particularly children. The branch that we volunteered at distributes food for elementary schools in East County San Diego.

How it works:

The volunteers come in on Thursday morning or afternoon. We function on an assembly line, placing food into brown paper bags. When I volunteered, the food packages contained canned spaghetti, uncooked rice, uncooked beans, crackers, cookies, and a small carton of milk. On Friday, these packages are delivered to the schools, and volunteers distribute them to children who qualify for the program. The food is supposed to last throughout the weekend. According to Feeding America’s website, they feed over 14 million children a year and ONE DOLLAR can buy NINE pounds of food.

I had a great time volunteering with my mom even though I was dead tired. I rarely function before ten in the morning, but knowing that my time was going towards something productive, something bigger than myself, made it worth it. My mom is the one on the left.

It sounds ridiculous that I get to reward myself with a batch of brownies for volunteering and reaching out to help my community, but I needed some incentive to wake up early. I’m going to go back and volunteer again this coming Thursday. If you’re interested, you can find your nearby Feeding America food bank here.

For doing something good, I rewarded myself with something DELICIOUS: peanut butter brownies. And no, I did not eat the entire batch. I had one piece.

The brownies are healthy, rich, super low in fat yet super sweet! And there’s no high fructose corn syrup. I used No Pudge Brownie Mix which requires 2/3 cup fat-free vanilla yogurt.

After making the batter, I added five tablespoons of Better ‘n Peanut Butter and swirled the peanut butter with a knife. The peanut butter is a hit or miss. You either love it, or you don’t. I love it. You can get both the brownie mix and peanut butter at Trader Joe’s.

I baked the brownie for 30 minutes. You can bake for longer if you want it less gooey.

Let cool for 5 minutes before cutting into nine pieces. Sprinkle a dash of sea salt on top and serve!

Each piece of brownie has 183 calories and 0.6 grams of fat.

If you make the brownies, let me know how they turn out!

Tagged as: feeding america, peanut butter brownies, reward #3, volunteer

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