Our Post Cereal Bowls of Hope 4th of July Party! #CBias #PostCFK

Remember my earlier blog post about planning a Post Cereal Bowls of Hope party. Here’s out it turned out!

Welcome to our Post Bowls of Hope Party!

I hope you had a fun 4th of July!  Here at the Kelly’s Lucky You house, we celebrated with family and friends.  We did something unusual this holiday and asked our guests to bring boxes of cereal.  Yup, boxes of cereal.  When we invite our friends, they usually say, “What can I bring?” expecting us to say a salad, or dessert.  This time, we wanted to do something for children in need.  The organization Champions for Kids, suggested that people donate to food pantries this summer.  In the summer, many children who usually get meals through school programs, go hungry.  It’s a great time to help restock the shelves of food pantries.  Our family occasionally donates to the food pantry but it helps to have a reminder!

If you want to see photos of our whole shopping trip to Walmart to pick up our Post cereal, check out my Google Plus Album!

Hula hoop testing!

Picking up Post Cereal for our donation to the food pantry!

I put a sign describing the Post Cereal, Bowls of Hope campaign and a thank you – at the door, with a bin for people to drop their cereal in, when they arrived to the party.

I included the facts Champions for Kids had provided on their website about fighting child hunger, because when I first read them, I was surprised.

Did You Know?

• When school lets out for the summer, millions of low-income children lose
access to the school breakfasts, lunches and after-school snacks they receive
during the regular school year.
• Only 1 out of 6 children who receive free or reduced-price meals during the
school year continue to receive meals during the summer months.
• Low-income families with children face even more challenges during the
summer when they stretch their food budget to provide additional meals for
their children.
• The most recent national study of food insecurity found that 5.6 million
American families accessed emergency food from a food pantry at least once

in 2009.

What I am most excited about the organization, Champions for Kids, is that they leverage their ability to help children but giving all of us the tools we need to do something good.  Instead of asking for money that they will spend on programs, they instead tell us easy ways to directly help.  This benefits in so many ways because it not only helps the recipient, it changes the givers.  It creates a mindset of philanthropy.  This something I want to cultivate in my daughter – the desire to “give back” and care about others.  Champions for Kids, helps us find easy and most importantly, effective ways to do that!

It was so fun to plan the party!

If you’re thinking of having a Labor Day, end-of summer bash,

I hope this will inspire you to make it a Post Cereal Bowls of Hope Party!

“Buy 2, Give 1” is a Post slogan – two children will benefit, one who receives the nutrition they need and a second, the giver, who learns to have a generous spirit.

I like fresh salsa for a snack. Even though our food was inside with a/c, you don’t have to worry about salsa as much as you would a snack with mayo in it.  Rosie made the “Spicy” flag!

Making food serve double duty as a decoration is always fun and easy!

Another easy, pretty (and inexpensive!) decoration is to cut a flower from one of your plants and float it in a glass.   In a row along the center of your table, in among the buffet food, or as I used them, to hold down the tablecloth outside in the breeze.

This salad had mayo in it, so we used two bowls – the bottom one had ice in it.  The salad tasted better cold too!

Love fresh corn on the cob – just says “Summer”!

This tasted as good as it looks!

Our basket – all ready to go to the food pantry!

Our local food pantry!

To read more posts from other bloggers who had their own gathering to collect donations, follow the hashtag #PostCFK on twitter!

To learn more about Post and Champions for Kids, go to:

• Post’s Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Post-Cereals/204852876206048
• Post’s Twitter Handle: https://twitter.com/#!/PostCereals
• Champion’s For Kids’ Twitter Handle:https://twitter.com/#!/champions4kids
• Champion’s For Kids’ Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/ChampionsForKids

Disclosure of Material Connection: I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study forCollective Bias™ and Champions for Kids #CBias #SocialFabric #PostCFK.  All opinions are my own.