Bright Ideas - Program

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Birthday Boxes for Food Bank

Our local Food Bank asks for food donations for children's birthday party. This way if there is a family requesting a hamper that has a child's birthday coming up, they can offer additional food items.

Our Guides group decided to take this request one step further.

We had our Guides sit down and plan out a complete birthday party.

The girls had to choose the age group and sex of the birthday child and then determine how many guests would be invited.

The girls then selected a theme for the party.

Once the girls knew these factors, they then planned a menu, some games, loot bags and what decorations were needed. (kinda like planning a camp, ya think?)

We then tasked our young ladies with obtaining the necessary supplies.

The girls chose to each donate $5.00 and ran a fundraiser to come up with additional monies (we sold poinsettias).

They were also tasked with the idea of using recycled items or creating materials from scratch (such as craft ideas, games, party favours, invitations, decorations, etc.).

We then took a trip as a group to the local Loonie store and grocery store to purchase the additional items needed.

All of this was then neatly packaged up as a "Birthday Party in a Box" into empty cookie box cartons. We also included a box of (what else) Girl Guide cookies and a birthday card from the girl's (with only their first names on it).

We have 16 girls in our unit and came up with 3 birthday kits, although I'm sure given more time we would have been able to make many more.

These kits would also be great to donate to families where there are other factors that inhibit a parent's ability to provide a child's birthday party (such as illness, poverty, women's shelters, etc.).

Debbie Laduranteay, Maureen Floate, Patti Szanto

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