Knoxville mother writes book to teach kindness and compassion to young kids

[Apr. 15, 2021: Abby Kousouris]

Paula Osborn is a Knoxville mother, wife and now the author of the book “The Jar From Afar.” The book comes with a jar to collect items and change to give to people in need.

“On the front of the jar, it says this is a gift that comes from afar. Our hearts are with you when we filled up this jar. We hope that it brings you a great blessing this day, just as it blessed us to give it away. I never intended to title what we do, but it felt important so I wrote it all down in just a few hours I had written the whole story,” said Osborn.

The book follows her kids Max and Ava on their journey of learning to give back to others.

“I said to my big heart of 10-year-old son ‘What should we do with this big jar of change, we could really do something good with this,’ and without really any hesitation he said to me ‘mom there are lots kids in our community that I feel don’t have the same blessings we have.’ I really feel like we should give it to a family in our community in need of a blessing. I was like oh my proud parent moment, the answer was we absolutely we will,” said Osborn.

The kids added other goodies with the change, like jokes and candy. They’ve delivered gifts to families for the past nine years.

“There’s one, in particular, we keep returning to and there’s never a dry eye in our car,” said Osborn.

Now with her youngest child heading to college, she hopes other parents will share this lesson.

“Hopefully it will plant a little seed in the heart of children and they will have a lifetime of service and kindness and compassion for others,” said Osborn.

You can buy the book on Amazon next month.

Note: Materials provided above by Abby Kousouris. Content may be edited for style and length.

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