Have you heard of the BGCA Give the Gift of a Great Future holiday campaign? BGCA has brought the Give the Gift of a Great Future campaign back for a second year in 2012 and this year is even better than last!
All year long, Club kids around the US performed more than a million hours of community service! To celebrate these incredible acts of service, BGCA invited Clubs across the nation to enter their service projects in the Kids Give Back Contest and a chance to win $2,500!
That’s right, $2,500! BGCA already picked out their top 12 favorites, and asked website visitors to help them choose the winner! Visitors were asked to visit GreatFutures.org/give to vote for the service projects that they found the most moving.
Projects included things like environmental clean-ups, quality time with senior citizens, participating in planting public gardens, even volunteering in Haiti! Pretty amazing, right? You can learn more about the Kids Give Back Contest here.
That’s not all that the BGCA has for the 2012 holiday season! You can also play the free Giving Game to easily donate a gift to a Club this season!
BGCA created a list of tips to help parents teach their children the value of giving back. I wanted to share some of my favorite tips – I think these will help any family teach their children the importance of giving back, not just during the holidays, but all year long!
Talk about giving. Tell your children which causes you support and why! Give your children a small amount and allow them to choose which charity they want to support to help them get involved at an early age. We have been donating to the Vietnam Veterans of America and the United Way ever since Angeline was a toddler, so she has grown up feeling a personal attachment to these causes.
Volunteer together. My daughter and I volunteer at the Humane Society, fostering kittens and donating blankets, towels, and toys for the animals there.
Do something fun, like cooking or an art project. It is easy to get kids excited about volunteer work when it’s fun to do! Enlist their help in baking cookies for a local shelter or employees of a charitable organization and they will want to help those causes!
Acknowledge and celebrate all kinds of giving acts. Whether it’s donating their pennies to the United Way, donating their old toys to Goodwill, or helping someone in need – any form of need – make sure to recognize them for the efforts!
You can find a full list of tips from BGCA here, as well as more information about BGCA in general on their website here.
I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Boys and Girls Clubs of America. I received a promotional item as a thank-you for participating.
This is a great group. Our family always donated to them and to the children’s home that my father spent several years in. You know your money is going to a great cause when you donate to them.
I love the idea of giving back at the holidays. we have so much that I like to share.
I love the Boys and Girls Club! My daughter already has a membership ready for her when she turns 6.