Giving Back This Holiday Season? Champions for Kids Disney Stocking Stuffer Project #CBias #DisneyCFK

You can plan on me.

Please have snow

and mistletoe

and presents by the tree.

Christmas Eve will find me

where the lovelight gleams.

I’ll be home for Christmas

…

if only in my dreams.

Are you going to be home for Christmas?  Are you going to be celebrating with family and friends?  We will be and for that, I am very grateful.  If you’re a regular KLY reader, you know that my husband and I adopted our beautiful daughter six years ago and it changed our lives forever.  Christmas was always a special time for me and now I can also see the joy and wonder through the eyes of a child.

But what if you have fallen on hard times and you don’t have a home this Christmas?  What if you are going to see sadness and disappointment in your child’s eyes instead of wonder and joy on Christmas morning?  In this down economy, there are many families that won’t be able to afford to be in their own home or have presents under the tree.  And those families are not in a country far away or in another state, they are right in our own communities.  What can you do about it?

There are so many ways to give back – to share the blessings that we may enjoy, with those less fortunate than ourselves.  To teach our children that when you have the means to live in your own home, to buy gifts for your family, you shouldn’t isolate yourself in pride.  You should reach out and share.  Disney, the people who are professionals at bringing joy to children, and Champions for Kids have partnered to show us ways to give back this holiday season.  They have started a Disney Stocking Stuffer Celebration Service Project.  It’s fun and easy to do, and I can say that what you “get” from this project may be more than what you “give”.  When my daughter and I participated last week?  I did “get” more I “gave” by seeing her understand what it means to share with children less fortunate.

We went to Walmart to shop for stockings to give to a little girl and a little boy at our local temporary housing facility.  If you would like to find one in your area, it’s easy, just google “homeless shelter in xx county” and it will bring up agencies that assist people looking for housing.  If there is another charity you would like to support, google is your friend, just search for the type of charity.  You’ll find links and phone numbers.  Call and ask them what they need, who their clients are, how you can help.

Rosie had so much fun even though I made it very clear that we were shopping for OTHER people and no toys for her this trip!

Shopping at Walmart for the gifts to put in our stockings that would fulfill the Champions for Kids December service project of Disney Stocking Stuffers was easy and fun.  If you’d like to see a slide show of our shopping trip, I did a Google + album – check it out here.  I set a budget of $100, but you can choose your own level of giving.  Any gift from $10 to $1,000, is welcome and helps.  The joy of a child opening their Christmas stocking isn’t measured by the dollars, but by the fact of having a stocking and having gifts.  Stocking stuffers are traditionally fun, little items so please don’t feel like you have to spend a lot to participate in this program.  We didn’t do Christmas angels, something we usually do each year, and did this instead.

We found great toys for great prices.  Walmart had a whole section of stocking stuffer type items in a range of Disney character choices.  We went with a princess theme for the girl and Cars for the boy.  I went to many sections of the store including Party Supplies, to find fun little things to add to the one big toy we included in each one.  For $50 each, we were able to include a major toy (doll and remote control car), a craft set, stickers, stockings, and gift bag.

When I dropped off the stockings and gift bags at the charity we chose, it felt so good to be able to help!  I can only imagine the faces of the little girl and boy who open these presents on Christmas morning!!  Goose bumps.

To learn more about Champions for Kids, go to www.ChampionsforKids.org.  You can also follow them on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Champions4Kids and on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/ChampionsforKids.

Disclosure of Material Connection:  All opinions are my own unless otherwise stated.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias