Sunday, December 21, 2008

Season for Giving

Today I had the opportunity to volunteer for the Salvation Army. First off I would like to thank everyone who participated. I will definitely have a team name made up for us next year.

You've probably seen the Salvation Army in collaboration with the Marines collecting items for Toys for Tots and the Angel Tree. Our task today was to help the families who qualified "shop" for these items. The toys were set up in this huge warehouse. It used to be a store called HQ, a store similar to Lowes and Home Depot.
My job was to be a "shopper". Basically, I would have a cart, usually with some extra toys already in it, then I would be assigned a person, who would be picking out gifts for their children. The aisles were divided by gender and age groups. As we would go down the aisle, volunteers and Marines would be putting in freebie gifts into the cart. By the time we got to the end of the aisle, the car would usually be stuffed full. Then if they had an Angel Tree gift available we would pick it up before we checked out. After checking out, they even received canned goods and other food. Then I would assist another person with picking out gifts all over again.

Most of the others in my group were shoppers but, some had to also assist families to their cars and call out the numbers for people waiting in line to pick out toys (and there were a lot).

Even though the Holidays may be a hard time for the individuals that came today, seeing them leave with carts full of toys made me hope that the Toys for Tots and Angel Tree program brightened their Christmas season at least a little. I wish I could have taken a picture of how many toys there were. Every toy you could imagine was in there including nice bikes. They were quality toys too, not just toys you can purchase at the Dollar Tree.

A million thanks to my group! Thank you for coming out and giving up your Saturday afternoon.

Thank you Josh #1, Marie, Jenessa, Megan, Josh #2, Tin, Suzie, Christle, Danielle, (not pictured) Andrew, Andrew's sister and friend, Rosalee, JR, Norma, Tarsha, Jovie, Darlene, Morgan, and Marivic.

4 comments:

Janelle said...

What a great post, Marjorie! I think it's awesome you donated your time to help those in need. You have such a big heart! :)

Regarding the message you sent me on Facebook... I've seen a few random NYX items at a couple Rite-Aids, but never a full collection of NYX. I think there's NYX at the fragrance outlet in Williamsburg, but I've never seen it myself. I really wish the ULTA here had their concealer sticks! Wahh. Let me know if you have any luck finding it around here.

MakeupByRenRen said...

awww that's awesome!

A. Rose said...

i completely forgot about this! sooorry! it's definitely something i would've loved doing though.

Girl with Curl said...

Janelle: Thanks! Volunteering is fun to me that it doesn't really seem like work.

There's this one beauty store off of Holland near the Super Kmart. It has a few NYX products but not a full stock like Williamsburg does. I hate paying shipping too but, I broke down last night and actually ordered stuff from Cherry Culture and paid my 5 dollar shipping.

RenRen: Thank you!

A. Rose: It's okay. I wish you guys could have been there. It was a lot of fun.