A Time to Give - August 20

Welcome back to A Time to Give, my weekly feature where we share ways to give, ways to share, ways to be generous. If this is your first time stopping by, welcome! You can read the original A Time to Give post HERE. In a nutshell, I started this feature as a way for us to inspire each other to be even more generous. I tend to get wrapped up in finding great deals, and I don't want to lose sight of one of the reasons we live frugally... to be able to give more. Each week I'll share a giving idea of mine, and you share a giving idea of yours.

This week I want to highlight a way to give that could be almost free if you plan ahead. Last Christmas we assembled several shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. If you're not familiar with this project, they take shoeboxes full of goodies to needy kids around the world. You can learn more about it HERE. These kids need everything from soap to toys to pencils. (Did you know that many of the kids can't attend school if they don't have a pencil? And some of them don't attend because pencils are too expensive!!)



I started thinking about the shoeboxes when I started CVSing last summer. I started stashing things away as I got them free or almost free. I've continued to do that this year. I like to do boxes for teen boys and girls, because most people prefer to do boxes for younger kids. From what I've heard, boxes for teen boys are more scarce than the other groups.

You can get free boxes from Operation Christmas Child. We're planning to get Rubbermaid shoe boxes for ours. That way, the kids can keep the containers and reuse them.


The shoeboxes are collected by churches across the country during the week of November 16 - 23. So now is truly the time to start thinking about and planning for this event. For locations and hours of collection visit the Samaritan's Purse Drop-Off Locations page where you can find the nearest place to take your shoe box by entering your zip code. You can also call 1-800-353-5949.

If you'd like to know more about the Operation Christmas Child program, what goes into a box, and how you can impact kids' lives, you can watch the videos HERE and HERE.


Now it's your turn to share your ideas for sharing, giving, and being generous.

You can participate in a couple of ways. If you're a blogger, write a post about a way that you've been able to give. It can be something simple or something out-of-the-ordinary that you did. It can be something from this week or from last year. Don't think of it as bragging... It's a way to encourage others to take action and be more generous! A few guidelines for bloggers:

• Please add a link to Saving and Giving so that your readers can find everyone's ideas all in one place.


• Make sure the link that you add here takes people directly to your A Time to Give post, not the main page of your blog. To do that, publish your post, view your blog, right click on the title, and copy the shortcut. Then paste that shortcut in as your URL here.


• Bloggers who link to other posts or their main pages will have their links removed. This eliminates confusion for others who are looking for ideas on how to give.


• Please do not link to giveaways, contests, or ads.


• Feel free to use the image above in your post. It's not mandatory, but you're welcome to it!

If you're not a blogger, you can participate too! Simply click the comments link below this post, and leave your ideas there. I would love to hear from you!

If you have any questions about A Time to Give, please feel free to contact me at savingandgiving@gmail.com. I look forward to being inspired by your ideas on giving! And stop back each Thursday for a new edition of A Time to Give.