Giving Back without Breaking the Bank: Coats for Kids and Families

As we head towards Christmas, one of my goals this Holiday Season is to make an effort to be more charitable. We are very fortunate and I want to start teaching my kids the importance of helping others and appreciating what we have.

Being charitable and making a difference in someone’s life doesn’t mean having to make large monetary donations. There are many great charities out there who make it easy to get involved and contribute with what you have. In the next few weeks I will share some of these great charities with you as well as some fun and frugal ways I have come up with for the kids and I to help give back to our own community and around the globe.

Coats for Kids and Families

With the approaching Holiday season comes the colder weather, and that has me currently focused on outfitting my kids in new boots and snow gear. I have been lucky buying at the end of season of finding good deals, but it pains me to see our growing collection of outgrown and barely used snow gear in the coat closets. Confession: I haven’t been that good at taking the kids out to play once it gets cold and snowy out!

Since we no longer need these items, I decided it was time to gather up all the two-small coats, snow pants, boots and hats and donate them to the Coats for Kids and Families program run through the United Way. This great program runs from October 1 to December 15 and donating couldn’t be much easier thanks to donation bins at all Page the Cleaner locations throughout Edmonton. Our location was just a quick 2 minute drive up the road.

While I could have likely sold a lot of the items through local Facebook Buy and Sell groups to make a little extra money for the holidays, this felt like the better option. My closets are cleaner and hopefully our donations will help keep some little ones warm this winter. Plus, maybe this is the kickstart I need to start saying goodbye to some of the other baby stuff I have cluttering up the basement!