Charity ideas in lieu of 'no gift' for DD 1st Bday

[dkmom]

My DH and I have decided that for our DD's 1st Bday we are going to request 'no gifts' and for people who want to bring something that it go to charity. We did something similar at our wedding and it worked well.

Originally I was thinking we would do a monetary donation. But I searched through the forum and saw some people mentioning book drives or donating items to a hospital, school which seemed really creative.

For those of you who have experience doing this or have attended parties where this was done, can you provide more detailed info. For non-monetary donations what was being collected.

I am in search of charities in general pertaining to infants/kids if we decide to do the monetary approach. Or local charities if we do the non-monetary approach. We live in the San Jose Area.

Thanks!
Darshana

[Lucia]

Great idea. My son went to a birthday party once where the kids brought dog toys and supplies for a local animal shelter. I am thinking about doing something similar for his upcoming birthday. In your post, you mentioned a child related charity. I would contact local organizations (children's hospitals, shelters, schools,etc) and ask them for specific items. I imagine books, arts/craft supplies, would be welcomed and also easy for your guests to bring. I am sure you could locate local charities through an on-line search or by contacting your local United Way office.

[rlu]

Eastfield Ming Quong (EMQ) works with kids. We donated DS's infant carrier to them.

http://www.emq.org/

[Jen841]

Call me selfish, but pick a place you want to visit with your child. I am all about exposing my child to everything, but from 2-? (still to be determined) you are at the questioning stage and avoiding embarrassment for me or someone else is important (can you tell J scarred me- I won't supply details, but his innocent comments made me and the person want to crawl in a hole.)

My parent's hometown has a childcare center that runs on MINIMAL contributions from parents, and grants etc. It is really run down, but has a lot of love from the workers (Special people!!!). Can you find an agency that has a center close to you and may be you could take something to it and spend a little time playing there?

[overcome]

quickly....

http://www.reachoutandread.org

make a donation to you local library..they may be able to put a bookplate in the books they buy with something like "in honor of xxxx 1st birthday"

[Globetrotter]

We did this.

Oakland Children's:
http://www.childrenshospitaloakland.org/join/join_other-donations.asp

I'm sure Stanford has a similar list.

If people give monetary donations to the hospital in lieu of birthday presents or in-kind donations (as many people did) there is a neat matching program, especially for this! This is for children's hospitals all over the U.S.:
http://www.peterpanchildrensfund.org/birthdayClub.php

Other ideas:
Homeless shelters
Schools in lower income neighborhoods (basic craft and school supplies)

There are lots of small organizations that run on shoestring budgets. I used to know more about this, but I can't think right now of any names. The United Way used to carry an extensive directory of such organizations, but no idea if they still do that.

Definitely call in advance to see what they need and if and when they will accept donations! Once I took a bunch of like new women's clothing to the local
homeless shelter and they said they had enough clothes. Interestingly, there were a few women lingering around the reception desk who were very eager to take them off my hands, so we did it "unofficially".

Kris

[C99]

If you do a monetary one, I highly recommend the March of Dimes. They sponsor a lot of research into and prevention of prematurity, birth defects, etc.

[C99]

If you do a monetary one, I highly recommend the March of Dimes. They sponsor a lot of research into and prevention of prematurity, birth defects, etc.

for a non-monetary, what about collecting food for a local food pantry or homeless shelter?

[shilo]

here are my local bookmarks for you...

i donate any duplicate gifts we get to lucille packard children's hospital (stanford) when we are there for DS's appointments rather than trying to deal with returns at stores. they take new books and toys.
http://www.lpch.org/forPatientsVisitors/PatientServices/FamilyResourceCenter/familyResourceCenterDonations.html

i have also donated used stuff in excellent used condition to the children's health council, which i got the number for off of LPCH's website.
http://www.lpch.org/forPatientsVisitors/PatientServices/ChildLife/alternateSites.html

my guess would be that valley and good sam both take donations too, if you called/googled if you don't want to drive up to stanford.

hth, lori
Sam 5/19/05 How lucky I am that you chose me.

[dkmom]

Thank you all so much for these valuable links!
Lots of choices to pick from.

-Darshana

[COElizabeth]

A boy in my DS's preschool class just had a birthday party and collected contributions for the preschool to buy new books or other teaching materials. I thought that was nice because it is teaching the child something about giving, but he will also benefit when the teacher reads one of the new books.

Elizabeth, Mom to James, 9/02
and Charlotte, 11/04

[HannaAddict]

We did a "diaper drive" for my son's first birthday and it was a resounding success. We just put a small note (printed in a nice font)in with the invite saying "In lieu of gifts, please consider bringing a package of disposable diapers (any brand, any size), for the _____County Family Services Baby Boutique." It was super easy for people to do and we had great feedback and response from our guests. The baby boutique was in shock when we pulled up with our Trooper loaded to the roof with diapers. They said they are always in desperate need of diapers and often run out by mid-month. I guess a significant percentage of their cash donations go toward purchasing diapers.

If I was a guest, I think I would rather purchase a book or diapers or something versus a cash donation for a birthday party. Unless, of course, the monetary donation was to a charity near and dear to the birthday family, i.e. a donation to the March of Dimes and their child in NICU or something like that.

It is a nice gesture no matter what form it eventually takes!

Kimberly

[kijip]

Yep, yep, yep. I manage a similar charity and we run out of diapers like mad. It is nuts houw expensive those things are and if you have a very small income, a $20 package of diapers is just out of reach. The diapers we recieve from showers and b-day parties are a big help.