The Give a Day Thread~Share Your Experience

[MissDaisyofTexas]

Hi--I just did my GAD service yesterday. I volunteered at a tournament for kids called Destination Imagination. Has anyone ever heard of this? It was mind-challenges for teams of kids from various schools. We were working for 9 hours total. In the morning the teams were 3rd-5th graders, the afternoon was K-2nd graders. It was hectic and a little disorganized, but I'm glad I did it!

 

[ic4usj]

DDs and I spent the day painting the waiting room at a local Family Services non-profit. I was there from 10:30am to 6:00 pm. I guess I forgot that painting can be hard work-I am so tired I can't believe it!

It was a great experience for all, though!

 

[elleherself]

We signed up for a food drive run by the Cross Road Food Bank. Last Tuesday my sister and I collected my goddaughter from school. At around 4 p.m. or so we hit the street with a little rolling fabric shopping cart. The criteria set by the food bank was 20 non-perishable food items per person, we set a group goal of 100. The very first house we went to, my dear next-door neighbor, gave us 40 items alone! My goddaughter is only six and dropped some serious hints about the Girl Scout cookies sitting on his counter, so she got one of those. She was begging for food the whole time, even though I fed her a snack before we left and also gave her peanut butter cups. She also couldn't remember our little spiel, which I thought was simple enough. "Hello, we're collecting food for the Cross Road Food Bank" and then one of us would fill in with non-perishable, cans and sealed items, blah blah blah. She would say "Hello... ummm... we're... ah..."

Despite her lack of sales pitch, it's amazing what curls and missing front teeth will do for you. Not only did we collect more than 100 items for the food bank, but my goddaughter managed to weasel not only Girl Scout cookies but a box of chocolates as well! The giver stipulated that these were for HER. So she thought collecting food was great fun, just like Trick or Treating.

I'm not sure she really understood what we were doing or why, but that's okay, she's six. We finished in about two hours and Friday we dropped it off, took maybe five minutes. The trip is a birthday trip for her and we were planning on doing it anyway, I'm glad we were able to start a foundation of giving for her. This was her first charity project.

 

[Ulliboo]

My DH, DS and myself worked Saturday at the local food bank. They had a special shift from 12-3 for the Disney program. We had about 20+ people. We "recycled" old bread and other baked goods into the dumpster for half of the shift. Everytime a cake went in, my son let out a loud groan and commented about how that looked perfectly fine to eat ! We then packed boxes in the warehouse with canned goods and other staples. We finished early as well. I'm glad we signed up for another shift, as it didn't feel like a lot to get free tickets !

 

[tiredsigh]

My 11 year old really wants to participate. It has been tough to find anything. A nursing home offered "volunteer opportunities" in a nearby town. They want kids on site for volunteering to be at least 16 but we were offered a special project. Apparently, a resident at the home really likes birds.

Sooooo, we get to build a birdfeeder to take to the resident My kids will love this project!! I'm pretty excited to be able to do a project that the kids will be able to put their time and energy into.

I'll have to share pictures when we are done. The plan is to do it this weekend. We are going to find out in advance if it is for a man or woman. I don't know if an older gentleman wants frilly decorations on his birdfeeder.

I'm just glad the lady running the home thinks of unique opportunities.

 

[robind]

Hi--I just did my GAD service yesterday. I volunteered at a tournament for kids called Destination Imagination. Has anyone ever heard of this? It was mind-challenges for teams of kids from various schools. We were working for 9 hours total. In the morning the teams were 3rd-5th graders, the afternoon was K-2nd graders. It was hectic and a little disorganized, but I'm glad I did it!

I just signed up for that - what did you have to do as a volunteer?

 

[Simiesue]

My husband, 10 yr old son and 5 yr. old daughter and I worked at a Food bank yesterday. It was an awesome experience. We collected food from home and family and I also shopped for the items they really needed. We ended up donating 35 pounds of items!! Although my DD is too young to receive the free voucher (min. age was 6) she still had a blast putting all of the items on the shelves. Then we all opened boxes and placed lots more food on the shelves. We were only there for about 1 hour. Afterwards, my kids couldnt stop talking about it.

 

[Cruella 66]

MissDaisyofTexas: My kids' participate in DI here and they LOVE it!!

Our family did Project Linus. We live in SE VA and there were virtually no opportunities for our 9 and 7 year old. I heard about a chapter in WVA accepting mail in blankets, got in touch and did it!

We just mailed our blankets yesterday.

 

[patman2011]

hey guys, we are doing the project linus blankets here in san antonio. my DDs and i finished 4 no sew blankets and i am attempting to finish off the 2 quilted variety, something not that easy for someone teaching herself, but i am getting there!!! has anyone had trouble with the website, i have had to re-register twice to have to programme. the project manager has replied to me, but it seems the website with disney is the one with prob. so any ideas?

 

[mouselovenfamily]

hey guys, we are doing the project linus blankets here in san antonio. my DDs and i finished 4 no sew blankets and i am attempting to finish off the 2 quilted variety, something not that easy for someone teaching herself, but i am getting there!!! has anyone had trouble with the website, i have had to re-register twice to have to programme. the project manager has replied to me, but it seems the website with disney is the one with prob. so any ideas?

We had a similar situation where they said for some reason we were in the system twice. We are verified but unable to print vouchers. We will still get our tickets/fastpasses however, just no voucher.

 

[december]

I posted this on the "kids" thread, but thought I would repost here since some of you are having the same problems:

We did a book drive for the USO, and mailed our books this week. I got an email from the organizer that she had verified us the next day. I just had to email her a copy of the documentation from the post office and the custom forms, along with pics of us working on the project. I didn't have to wait for the books to make it to Qatar!

There was nothing within an hour of me at all, and the ones an hour away were for 15 and up. My kids are 12 and 10 (plus a 9 month old) and my nephew is 7. I learned about Storytime from the Front Lines on another site. You can find it by searching Norman, IL. There are several others that pop up in that search that can be mailed in, and children can participate (Project Linus, Haiti Care Kits).

You collect 6-8 children's books per person, from an approved list. The books can be new or "gently" used. I teach, and asked my students and coworkers for donations, plus purchased new books. We ended up with 69 books. It cost $40 to mail them all to Qatar. The USO will bring in service men and women and record them reading a book, then send the book and dvd to their kids. I get chill bumps just thinking about it!

There are 5 of us going (plus the baby), so 5 days of fps, plus the thought of 69 kids getting to hear a bedtime story from mom and dad whenever they pop in a dvd!

 

[mom of princessx2]

We did our volunteer work today and it was a great experience. We signed up to help with set to an event in Louisville (we live across the river)for the Family and Childrens Place. They have a silent auction and food vendors tonight and we had to set up the silent auction tables. We did have to pay $6 parking but they feed us lunch and gave us a t-shirt and set up only took from 10:30-1:00. It was a lot of fun and will be an event my DH and I plan on attending next year.

 

[cory1965]

We signed up for the Blinky blanket program. A big snowstorm hit our area and we all decided to do our GAD volunteer day at home today.

The whole group met at our home and we were producing those blankets like crazy! Each person had to make 3-4 blankets each. Each person made blankets appropriate for their age group. So the younger ones made blankets for babies and kids, the teens and fathers made blankets for the teenagers and the moms did the cutting. It was such a rewarding experience for all of us! One of the best snow days ever!

 

[get_us_to_WDW]

My family and extended family all volunteered. Some of us made "Jared Boxes" (boxes stuffed with books, toys, etc.) for a local hospital, some of us made Binky Blankets for homeless children, and some of us are collecting new socks and underwear for an organization that provides one week's worth of clothing to children in need. All of these activities will help kids right here in our own area. The boxes and blankets were finished ahead of schedule and the socks and underwear collection is still in progress. It has been a great experience for everyone. It is just such a great feeling to get involved! We do other volunteering but would never have been aware of these opportunities without the GAD program. It is so good for children to be exposed to volunteering!

 

[mullii5]

Our family helped clean up a local park this afternoon!! It was pretty chilly but once we started working, we started to warm up. We had a great time!!

 

[Leajess99]

My kids and I did 2 different volunteer opportunities. For one we made a theme basket to donate for an auction done by Pediatric Therapies and my girls picked out and helped buy the games and puzzles we used in it. It was 99% Disney related and actually turned out cute. The other project was to make craft kits to donate to the Children's hospital. We ended up donating about 50 of those and it was fun putting them together. I do plan on doing more of those throughout the year.

We turned everything in on Monday and today got notice that our vouchers can be printed.

 

[Mom2PrincessK]

We completed ours today. We donated food and stocked the pantry for our local Ronald McDonald House. We then helped with light housekeeping (sweeping, mopping, vacuuming) and baked muffins for the residents.

We enjoyed it - this was a special project for us to get to participate in, as my daughter born at the Women's & Children's hospital that this House aids and she had to stay in NICU for 5 weeks. Although we did not need to use the house then as we lived close enough to travel, I can certainly sympathize with the families that have babies or children there and they live outside the area.

 

[jayally]

I have searched online for a volunteer opportunity but nothing ever seemed to work out right. I had applied to help out at a walk a thon but never got a confirmation so after searching for several days I decided for our Disney Give a day our resources and time would be best used to make hygiene kits for the homeless.

http://www.rescuemission.org/

I would have preferred to find an organization in our local community but there was not much that we could all do together, especially since my Son lives with his Dad and is only here every other weekend. I talked to the kids about homelessness and how lucky they are to have everything they need and able to go on lavish vacations (DisneyWorld is considered lavish in my family, especially since I want to stay on site!) and have all the latest gadgets and cool clothes.

I spent a little more than a one day ticket would be buying the supplies at the dollar tree and .99 store and it made me feel good to do this. I found some cute small comb and brush sets in the dollar bin at Target so I bought those too. I knew I needed to get everything packed up because I would just keep buying and buying and soon we would end up being homeless!

Ally and I are driving to Orange County Rescue mission in Tustin, CA on Tuesday after school to deliver our 15 hygiene kits. We were only required to make one per person but I thought that was too cheap and easy so I upped it to 5 kits per person. We might make a stop in Disneyland for a few hours on the way home!

 

[Ka' eo]

These are nice stories. I know this is a marketing thing for Disney, but this is a really truly nice thing. What a fantastic incentive to teach kids about giving back.

We made welcoming baby baskets for needy moms and cards for the military. My daughter, age 9, really got into it and she and I did most of the work. She loved shopping/scavenging for items for the baskets. We were able to do our project from home.

We handed them in last Saturday and got our voucher email this morning.

 

[disneynutsss]

me and my son did our "service" on 1/31 and now i have the vouchers printed and ready for my vacation next friday. WHOOO HOO!! cannot wait.

it felt really good shopping for the things that are needed and going to drop them off. it was really nice to see that there were lots of people there donating as well.