Giving Back to Others Is Important @Elmers #BagItForward #cfk #shop

As a father I try and teach my children whatever I can to make sure that they understand the importance of not only receiving, but also giving to others. Since they have were young I have tried to help Diva J and Diva PJ learn what it feels like to give to others and also think for themselves about what they can do to make the community a better place. I was so excited to be working with the Champions for Kids campaign and the Elmer’s Bag it Forward program to give school supplies to my community.

I was asked to go and shop at my local Walmart to give supplies to our local schools and to others in the community. This is so important in our community because funding has continually had to be cut for the local schools and I know that many of the teachers have been having to supplement the budgets that they have been given to make sure that supplies are adequate for their classrooms, and in my perspective this is not right. For what teachers make and the amount of work that they put into the education of our kids, I wish that all were willing to spend a little extra for the benefit of all of our kids.

This is where I have to commend Elmer’s for their Bag it Forward program, as this is a great program and something that just lifts my spirits, whenever I read the stories of others that are participating. On top of this, working with Champions for Kids is a perfect fit, as they have been giving back to communities in so many ways for such a long time as well.

For my shop, when I went to the store I was thinking of the fact that all of our kids need supplies to be creative. With that in mind all of the supplies that I was searching for related to this. Thus, I ended up finding a ton of crayons, colored pencils, scissors, erasers and glue that could be used by kids throughout the year to create new and innovative things within the school and at home.

I was doing what I could to be a savvy shopper. One reason I love shopping at Walmart this time of year is that they usually have some of the best back to sale prices that I have found around me and with this experience it was the same. I even ran into a couple that were purchasing school supplies to donate for another cause, but they had three carts full of supplies and in talking to them they stated the same for their reasons to why they were shopping where they were.

I was able to find some more generic crayons and colored pencils to save even more money and thus I was able to purchase even more supplies than I had first thought that I could.

After shopping for all of the supplies I wanted to drop off my supplies right away (at least some of them to our local food bank, but alas they were closed at the time (as they have only selective hours), and the rest of the supplies I was going to donate to teachers at our elementary schools.

I am so excited to be able to share supplies like these and hope to be able to continue working with Champions for Kids and Elmer’s in the future to support our schools and families that really need the help!