Get Creative with Gifts for Life

get-creative-gfl

Turn an ordinary day into a gift-giving event.

Want to fund-raise to support our Gifts for Life program? Hold a special event and have fun in the process! Here are some examples.

 

  • Organize a read-a-thon, dance-a-thon or walk-a-thon. Collect pledges from family friends for each mile or hour of your activity.
  • Organize a weekend car wash and use the proceeds to purchase Gifts for Life.
  • Arrange a silent auction. Ask members of your congregation to donate items that can be put up for bidding. Select a day, time and location for the auction and make sure to let church and community members know. Display each item along with a sheet of paper where people can write their bids and names.
  • Have your adult or children’s Sunday school class host and make an inexpensive dinner with an admission charge. Decide together what Gifts for Life selections to purchase with the proceeds.
  • Encourage your children to write letters to family members, friends, classmates and club or team members to raise money to purchase a special gift. Have them mention that the gift will make a difference for children in need.
  • Sponsor a church or neighborhood garage sale. Gather gently used books, crafts, clothes and household goods to sell, and use the money you raise to purchase gifts from the Gifts for Life catalog.
  • Hold a wine-tasting event and use the proceeds to purchase clean water or other basic needs for a family or community. Please click here to learn how St. Paul’s Episcopal, Franklin, TN, hosted a “Wedding at Cana” event. “Wine Into Water,” held by the Women of the World Committee at St. John’s Episcopal, Kirkland, WA, is featured in the Friends of Episcopal Relief & Development series.

Additional creative gift ideas

Courtesy of Barb Hagen (Episcopal Diocese of Montana and Province VI Coordinator for the Network)

  • Instead of going out to dinner with friends, hold a potluck and put the money saved into a basket. Then go through the Gifts for Life catalog as a group and choose items based on the amount collected.
  • Hold a Game Night and ask people to make a donation in order to participate. The group can then decide together what gifts to purchase with the collected funds.
  • “Get the Warden’s Goat”: Raise enough money to buy a goat in honor of your church’s warden. In the same way, you can “get the priest’s goat,” the treasurer’s, the auditor’s or whoever you choose.
  • Instead of holding a regular family, office or group gift exchange, pool the funds that would have been spent and choose Gifts for Life as a group, or give gifts to everyone based on their various interests. For example:

–  For your child’s teacher: Nurture & Nourish the Earliest Learners or Educate Children Orphaned by AIDS
–  For new parents or grandparents: Care for Moms & Newborns
–  For your sweetie: a gift of Bees and Honey
–  For an avid gardener: Seeds, Tools & Training, Fruit Trees or a Community Garden
–  For a farmer: a cow, pig or Flock of Chickens
–  For someone in the medical profession: Vitamins and Medicine, Health Clinics or Training of Community Health Workers
–  In honor of a baptism: a gift of Clean Water
–  For campers: Mosquito Nets!
–  For your neighbor who loves to grill: an Energy Efficient Cook Stove
–  For a banker, accountant or church treasurer: Micro-credit Loans for Women