Guest Post: An Easy Way to Give

Kerri from Save at Home Mommy has come up with a fabulous (and easy!) way to give, and she has offered to share it with you today. I love her idea, because it’s perfect for frugal shoppers, and it’s a way to teach children to be generous.

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We have struggled lately with the encounters we have had with homeless and needy people.  They seem to be happening more and more and we want to do all we can to help.  While we would love to be able to take them all into the grocery store and buy them a week’s worth of groceries, that would be very expensive and not very practical with two little ones.  We thought about buying gift cards to local grocery stores or restaurants but that too could get very expensive. 

Enter my genius idea:)  I am being sarcastic about the genius idea of course but I was laying in bed one night trying to go to sleep when I had to wake my husband up to tell him my idea.  It was all I could do to stay in bed and not start right then.  Here is what we decided.  We took some of our plastic grocery bags and then went through our pantry.  We took out anything that was non perishable and or ready to eat  and I pulled out my bag that I keep in the pantry for things to donate.  We sat down on the floor and separated it all out as fairly as we could and then tied up the bags.  It was so fun to do it will our little girl who fully understood what we were doing.  She was walking around the house trying to find everything she could to give away.  We actually had to explain to her that we did have to keep a few things:)  It felt good to share such a valuable lesson with her.

Now, when we get to a corner or stop light and someone is there asking for food, we can pull out a bag and give it to them!  I will be much more on the lookout for great deals on things we can include in these bags so we can keep making them.  We put them in the car already and I know Marley, my five year old will be watching for someone we can give one to. 

This was a super easy and frugal way to be able to meet the needs of others in our community.  Most of the things we put in the bags were totally free or super cheap but they will have much more value to the person that receives them.  There are so many options of things to included but here is what we included in ours this time:

• box of cereal or crackers
• cans of soup or ravioli with pop top lids
• granola bars
• bags of candy
• pouches of instant oatmeal
• single packs of pop tarts
• packets of on the go drink mix
• toothbrush
• travel deodorants
• bar soap or small bodywash
• we had one t-shirt that we had gotten that we did not need so we threw that in one
• we also included small pamphlets to tell them about our Lord and Savior and hopefully meet their spiritual needs as well. 

How neat would it be if we all did this!  The people in our communities would be shocked to actually get food and toiletries and maybe we could have a small hand in changing our communities.  I hope many of you will look into your pantries and see what you might be able to live without that someone else can’t!