Teaching Children to Give—Involving Them in Charitable Programs
my world • raising giving children
The single most impactful thing you can do to teach your children to fall in love with giving is to involve them in giving activities, discussing throughout them why you are giving (what the cause is for) and how it makes you and the recipients feel.
Sometimes, identifying volunteer programs that allow young children to participate in can be difficult. Today, I came across Feed It Forward (perfect name, right?). It is a charitable initiative that allows you to send $10 restaurant gift certificates to 30 people each day during the holiday season. And here’s the clencher: It’s free and only requires a few bits of data and the click of your mouse. What’s more is that you can involve your kids by coming up with a list of friends together and sitting and completing the information side by side.
You have 18 days left to take advantage of this giving opportunity. That’s 540 people you can send gift certificates to. Get ready. Get set. Go!
The Details
The Feed It Forward initiative is built upon a single giving Web site, www.Restaurant.com/FeedItForward, stocked with a total of three million, $10 Restaurant.com gift certificates totaling $30 million. The site will be live through midnight PST on Dec. 25 and allows individuals to go online to give gift certificates on a first come, first serve basis. Gift givers choose whom to give to and gift recipients then decide where to dine among more than 6,500 participating Restaurant.com restaurants nationwide.
To send free $10 gift certificates, gift givers simply enter their name and email address, as well as information for the people they wish to give to—as many as 30 people each day for the length of the initiative. They can go to www.Restaurant.com/FeedItForward every day and share gift certificates with people anywhere in the country, giving out a total value that far exceeds even the most impressive holiday gift giving budget during the healthiest of economic times.
Once a participant selects their chosen recipients, they can share a brief note about why they are giving. Restaurant.com will feature some of these messages of appreciation on the Feed It Forward home page and, if chosen by the individual, will send the giver’s personal message along with the gift certificate. As people join in the celebration of giving and give away gift certificates, a U.S. map displayed on the site will depict the areas of the country where the giving is happening along with keeping track of the amount given in real time.
Feed It Forward 2009 features include:
- Generous “daily give” allowance—Givers can give to up to 30 people per day, with the potential of giving up to $9,000 worth of Restaurant.com gift certificates through the duration of the program.
- Feed It Forward Facebook application—The application allows givers to easily access their friend network and select those they wish to give to. Recipients are sent messages alerting them of their free gift and givers’ status updates will reflect the amount of gift certificates they have given and who has received them.
- Personal message delivery—Beyond sharing their giving story publicly on the giving site, participants can choose to write a separate, private note that will be sent along with the electronic gift certificate, making the surprise of a gift certificate that much more meaningful.
About Restaurant.com
Restaurant.com is the trusted and valued source connecting restaurants and diners nationwide. The company offers savings at more than 13,000 restaurants nationwide with more than 20,000 gift certificate options. Restaurant.com brings people together to relax, converse and enjoy well-prepared and -served meals at affordable prices. To date, Restaurant.com customers have saved more than $100 million through the gift certificate program. Restaurant.com has operated since 1999 and is based in Arlington Heights, Ill.
Thank you for this information. I totally agree with the responsibility to help our children understand that they CAN make a difference with simple gestures and acts of giving. My 5 and 3 year old daughters are currently doing a soccer cleats drive to donate 100 pairs of used children’s cleats to a football (soccer) club in Kingston, Jamaica. They understand that they can simply get new cleats as they outgrow theirs, but in many places, children play barefoot, and not by choice. I’d be happy share the link if you know of anyone who may have cleats to donate. I wont do it here w/out permission.
Great info again – thanks!
This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing this opportunity to give with us.
My 3rd grade daughter was recently featured in the local newspaper three times for a dental hygiene drive she initiated in her elementary school. She chose service as her talent for the school talent show, and organized an entire drive, with papers going home to parents at the school, a contest with smoothies for the winner (from a student’s parent owned business), as well as deciding to work with the United Way in determining who to give the collected supplies to. After she created her tri-fold, and worked with local Access Parnterships Free dental outreach program for a school presentation on oral hygiene, she had collected over 300+ items. The United Way came and gave each of the children a certificate for service and the winning class had smoothies.
A local dental outreach clinic, called to invite my eight year old daughter to the formal open house of their grand opening night, as she donated the only supplies thus far to help over 144 individuals being seen over the past 3 months, who had never received dental care. The administration recognized her contribution and had their picture taken with her for the paper. She was then invited to help organize more drives for another clinic opening up in a different city. I was so proud of her choice to help give of herself for the benefit of others.
She said,”When kids aren’t healthy, they don’t smile. When they don’t smile, they don’t feel good about themselves. If we help kids be healthier who don’t have help, they will smile more and be happy!”
I couldn’t say it better myself! Thanks to all those wonderful examples of service out there, modeling the behavior for our future generations. Our kids are paying attention.