When I first heard of the Bag It Forward mission – a mission that encourages you to pay it forward by donating a #BagItForward School Supply kit to a student, an educator, or organization that supports children in need, – I was super excited to get involved. What I didn’t expect is how enthusiastic my children would be about the mission and how much they would learn during our process of shopping and gifting the items.
As residents of Kentucky Appalachia, it’s sadly not difficult to find a child in need of support. I know from working in the school system that many students come to school with only the clothes they are wearing, and often those are inadequate, too. Teachers try to compensate by having some supplies (they generally purchase out-of-pocket) on hand, but how disparaging it must be for the child to come to school without the tools they need to succeed, while other classmates sport shiny new supplies on the first day.
My initial mission was to help one child in need, but as we are shopping for two, my boys and I decided it would be even better to Bag It Forward twice. To start, I contacted a local community outreach center and ask them to identify two children in need that my boys could shop for. I specified that we didn’t want names, just ages and grades, and that we wanted to remain anonymous.
The reason I asked for anonymity on both sides (as I think many rural moms would do,) is because our community is small. I didn’t want the recipient to feel awkward in any way if they were in class with my boys or my boys to unintentionally “let the cat out of the bag” and create an any awkward situations. I explained my rationale to the boys and they agreed. My littlest summed it up best, “It’s like we are secret school supply Santas.”
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| Don’t you just love new school supplies? Imagine how excited a child feels! |
We received the information and mission on! My son’s 6th grade teacher suggested Walmart for shopping as they currently had some terrific pricing on composition books and I was very game to go as I knew they’d have plenty of quality school supplies and great pricing which would allow us to give more.
Greeting us at the entry to school supply area was an Elmer’s 1st Day App in-store display with school supply lists for our local schools and instructions on how to download the FREE Elmer’s 1st Day App.
The Elmer’s 1st Day App offer you a fun way to take photos, add captions, create albums, and share school year experiences with family and friends, which is very cool. But the part I really love about this app is by using the 1st Day app, you’re helping students in need. Yep! For every picture uploaded to the 1stday.com, Elmer’s will donate one product to the Kids In Need Foundation, an organization that distributes free school supplies to students whose families can’t afford them.
So not only were we Bagging It Forward, we could preserve our memories of back-to-school shopping with the 1st Day App and donate even more!
And as if that won’t inspire you enough, X-ACTO Designer Series and Walmart are offering a chance to win a trip for four to Disney World! The entry form can be found on the 1st Day App site. How cool would that be to win?
In addition to learning about the new app, discovering great products and putting together a fabulous Back It Forward donation, I truly enjoy watching my children catch the spirit of giving and really get into comparison shopping for supplies.
For example, when we visited the glue section to choose Elmer’s products for each back-to-school bundle, they looked at the product selection, pricing, amount in each package, style and really deliberated what would be best for projects, what their teachers and mom would be happiest with them using, and what they really liked. Ultimately, we decided on the Elmer’s 6 pack of washable glue sticks with the gel glue sticks (pictured above) because they were well priced and the boys really wanted to try the gel sticks.
I love, love, love that they learned such valuable life lessons on our Bag It Forward journey!
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| Dropping off donation at our local community outreach center. |
Will you Bag It Forward this year? I hope you will consider participating in this amazing initiative to help our children in need get a fresh and fabulous start this school year!
For more information on the Bag It Forward initiative, visit http://bagitforward.org/ and for ideas, visit the Pinterest page at http://pinterest.com/cbsocially/bag-it-forward/
If you’d like to see our complete Bag It Forward Shopping Journey, check out my Google+ album HERE
I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and and Elmer’s. #BagItForward #CBias #SocialFabric
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I love it! Such a great thing! Your helpers are cute, too!
I totally agree with your decisions to remain anonymous. I try to do that as much as possible to keep from embarrassing people. Kudos to you and your little helpers!
That is so exciting to see the faces of people accepting donations. And it is so great that your boys participated in this project
How great your boys helped delivery to the community outreach center! I love that helped you shop and deliver it is such a great lesson of sharing and giving!
What a fantastic time to give back and a great way to reinforce the importance of giving with your own children! Thank you so much for helping to spread the word about this giving #BagItForward mission!
What a great post! My children and I are working on this same project right now and I love your youngest’s comment about being school supply secret Santas! So sweet. Wonderful job, Mama!