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BIRTHDAY BUDDIES
Kids with More Helping Kids with Less – Birthday Surprises in a Shoebox
IMAGINE if your parents didn’t have enough money to give you a party on your birthday… or buy you any presents. For many very poor children in our country, birthdays are just another day… celebrated without cake, or goody bags, or balloons or gifts.
You can help one of these kids (or a lot of kids) by sending “Birthday Boxes”. These are shoeboxes filled with everything needed for a small birthday party. Each box goes to a different child. You can send one Birthday Box to one child, or your scout group, church or synagogue group can send a lot of Birthday Boxes all together to a bunch of children.
- To start, decide where you want to send your box (to kids living in one of the needy communities where Family-to-Family sends food, or to kids in a homeless shelter or to kids in a battered women’s shelter), and contact us at Famtofamily@aol.com. We’ll put you in touch with a shelter or F-to-F community and give you the name and address of the person who will hand out the boxes you send.
- Pick an age, and choose either boy or girl to send your box to. (For example, you might choose a 9-year-old girl, or a 4-year-old boy.)
- Find a large sneaker-sized shoe box in your house, and buy the things needed for a party. Include:
- a box of cake mix
- a can of frosting
- birthday candles
- a wall decoration (like streamers, or a happy birthday banner)
- a gently used book from your house that the child you are sending to would probably like
- a small $5-$10 dollar gift for that child.
- If you like, you can also include a goody bag filled with small surprises.
You can raise the money to buy the birthday items at a bake sale, or yard sale, or maybe by doing extra chores around the house. Then:
- Wrap the book and the small gift in birthday paper.
- Wrap the top and bottom of the shoe box separately (so that even wrapped, the box can be opened), and fill the wrapped box with the things you have gathered.
- If you would like to give the child you’re giving your box to a chance to write back to you, include a postcard with a stamp on it, addressed to you, c/o Family to Family, PO Box 255, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, 10706. Then email us at famtofamily@aol.com and tell us your name and address, so we can forward the postcard to you if we get it.
- You can also make a birthday card and put that inside the box as well. Then tie the box closed with ribbon, and label it with the age and “boy” or “girl”. (For example, you might write “6 year old boy” or “10 year old girl”.)
The last thing you do is put your Birthday Box in a mailing box, label it with the address we gave you, and send it off!
And, Birthday Buddies may qualify as a community service requirement for your scout troop, school, church or temple. But the best part will be knowing that you’ve made a difference in another kid’s life.
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