While Mum and Dad were visiting a few weeks ago, we were talking about how difficult it is to help your child understand how lucky they are - particularly when we excess as much as we do at Christmas time. We decided after a couple of beers that it would be a great idea to host a 'Toys For Tots' drive at the house to drive the point home! We sent the invitations out that night (so that we couldn't change our minds once we'd sobered up) and everything just came together in time for the big day! We ended up with over 100 people delivering new gifts for TFT and huge donations of used gifts for Goodwill too! Here's Jen who ran the Holiday crafts entertainment...
Matt did a fine job of face painting!
Bob Loring from TFT showed us a video of how the toys get to the kids who need them. What an inspirational guy!
Maggianos did all of the catering for free (!) and everyone had a great time. At the end we delivered the new gifts to the local TFT fire station and the used ones to Goodwill. The kids were responsible for actually placing their old toys in the boxes in the garage (to make room for the new ones that Santa would bring) and really seemed to 'get it!' We were totally exhausted but it was such a worthwhile experience!
