be a fan on Facebook | friend us on MySpace | watch us      
 
Home

Project Holiday Smiles

Submitted by jm kiwi on Fri, 2008-03-21 01:39.

See It: The Community being helped

Project Holiday Smiles is a program my sophomore class of 2008 founded. Our goal is to give unfortunate children in our community the opportunity to have a Christmas. Money is accumulated through donations and social events, such as basketball games hosted by our school. Then, our guidence department contacts and invites needy families in the local area to participate in our cause. The money we earned is used to purchase gifts by our student body. Chaperoned by teachers, the students are given a list of 2-3 families with their children. A budget is issued to each child, depending on the funds we raised, and then we take the toys and clothes back to our school to be wrapped. A few days before Chirstmas, we invite these families to come and join us for a party. This is when we have Santa come and deliver one special gift to each child. After Santa leaves, then the elves (students) deliver the rest of the gifts to the children. My school has done this program for three successful years. It is a program I encourage for any community. We have had mothers and even fathers cry in happiness in our cause. Project Holiday Smiles is a wonderful community service that fills one with the Christmas spirit and the sense of doing something right.

Believe it: Describe your project/org

Build it: Steps taken to create the project/org and the kind of impact made

Vital Stats

Started On:September 11Ended On:December 23
People Involved:50- 80People Impacted:50-100
Money Raised:4,000  

Do Something! Get Involved

Related Cause: Community Centers

Category: Community Building

Tags: children christmas local area

Project Updates:

Project Holiday Smiles has been effective for 3 years already. My sophomore class set the precedent for younger high school classes to follow. It is our greatest hope that Project Holiday Smiles will remain in Pemberton Township as a service of good heart.

»

Angel Express: Bringing Christmas Cheer To All

Submitted by Maggie.S on Tue, 2008-01-01 00:46.

See It: The Community being helped

The Angel Tree is an idea to help bring the members of our community together at Christmas. I worked with my girl scout troop of four to use resources from the community in order to make 58 baskets for area homebound and over 90 year-old parishioners in our church. We also delivered baskets to 29 nuns in the parish. We filled these Christmas baskets with toiletries, gifts, homemade cards, and treats. These baskets were delivered in person by our troop and teens from the Confirmation program in the church in order to have them all delivered around Christmas. We spent time with each person, so after all of the planning, communicating with all the deliverers, and actual delivery of these baskets, we ended involving those from the community and bringing Christmas cheer to all. In order to complete this project in a timely fashion, we used communication and dedication to coordinate the community. We used the fifth grade class at St. Mary’s parish to compile the baskets together. In order to purchase the materials needed to bake, we used money from our troop raised last year through a Christmas cookie sale. After baking, we added these treats to the baskets. We contacted Matt Bruce, head of the Confirmation program for St. Joes in Wauwatosa and St. Mary’s Elm Grove, and determined the number of small groups that we would have available to deliver baskets. We split up the groups accordingly, using the list from the church of 58 parishioners receiving these baskets. Finally, we delivered them. There were a few volunteers from the parish, but over 50 of the baskets were delivered by myself and my troop. Together, we bridged the generation gap, through the fifth graders, the confirmation teens, and the recipients of the Christmas baskets.

Believe it: Describe your project/org

Build it: Steps taken to create the project/org and the kind of impact made

Vital Stats

Started On:January 8, 2007Ended On:December 15, 2007
People Involved:4People Impacted:87
Money Raised:$30 for supplies, the rest were donations  

Do Something! Get Involved

Related Cause: Helping Senior Citizens

Category: Community Building

Tags: community service christmas angel tree parish involvement

Project Updates:

The finished project effected over 87 senior citizens in the community, ranging from disabled and homebound, to those in nursing homes and the nunnery. Further updates to come!

»

The Giving Tree

Submitted by hayhayt08 on Thu, 2007-11-29 05:30.

See It: The Community being helped

Christmas of 2006, it came to my awareness that not every family has a wonderful, present-filled Christmas. Some children go with out, some parents tell their kids Santa is sick this Christmas and won't be coming to their house. I have always had an amazing heart warming Christmas holiday and to know that there are millions of families out there, even in my neighborhood not experiencing the wonderful holidays broke my heart. I wanted to somehow bring Christmas to them so I formed a charity event called "The Giving Tree" through my church. We arranged to have a big breakfast with Santa one Saturday morning in December with a children's play of the nativity.
To prepare for the event I searched for families in need and made different tags with necessities and toys written on them for each family. I advertised with posters, announcements, and flyers that everyone who wanted to help would need to take as many "wish" tags (items needed for the families) off our tree, write on our log sheet which they took and buy the present, then bring it to the big Church breakfast. The Next week i noticed that all of the ornaments were taken I realized what a big success this was becoming I immediately made more; that meant, more for the families! My family took initiative to buy all remaining presents. When the day came, I couldn’t believe what a success it was. I was overwhelmed with joy that we had SO many presents. We loaded them in our cars and took them to my house. Through the next week I sorted the presents in their families, wrote gift tags and put them in bags. The day came that me and the young men and women of our church delivered our gifts. It was unfortunate that I couldn't be in 7 places at once and see every family, but I was able to bring presents to 2 of our families in need. One of which was a grandmother raising her granddaughter who earlier that year had a house fire, making it absolutely impossible to give her granddaughter everything she needed. To hear how grateful she was for what we had done touched my heart tremendously. We sang a couple of Christmas carols and were on our way back home, I knew this was something I wanted to do every year. This year i am starting a fundraiser called "20/20 for the New Year". Helping blind people in third world countries get caterac surgery to cure their eyesight. Seventy-five percent of people who are blind can be cured, ninety percent of those people live in third world countries. Through this organization called SEVA it will only cost fifty dollars for the surgery. I can't imagine changing somebody's life in such an incredible way.

Believe it: Describe your project/org

Build it: Steps taken to create the project/org and the kind of impact made

Vital Stats

Started On:November 10, 2006Ended On:December 20, 2006
People Involved:about 250 peoplePeople Impacted:45
Money Raised:about $6,000 in gifts  

Do Something! Get Involved

Related Cause: Teen Homelessness

Category: Community Building

Tags: church smiles tree christmas Intercity families Gift Donations ornaments (wishes)

Project Updates:

Updates coming soon!

»

Bottles for Kids

Submitted by superman_080 on Thu, 2007-10-25 00:50.

See It: The Community being helped

Bottles for kids is basically collecting and recycling water bottles and using the funds to sponsor either a child or a family for thanksgiving or christmas.

Believe it: Describe your project/org

Build it: Steps taken to create the project/org and the kind of impact made

Vital Stats

Started On:10/22/07Ended On:10/18/07
People Involved:People Impacted:
Money Raised:  

Do Something! Get Involved

Related Cause: Hunger

Category: Global Impact

Tags: kids hunger recycling world hunger sponsor bottles christmas

Project Updates:

Updates coming soon!

»