Give back and clear the birthday clutter with Share Your Wish
/Hi everyone!
This week’s guest blogger is Lori Fettner, an author and Westchester mom who’s turned her child’s birthday party gift pile into an opportunity to give back (and explains how you can do it, too!) Take it away, Lori!
Give and get with Share Your Wish
I love this time of year when people are especially focused on giving back and being thankful. Now there’s an incredibly easy way to give your kids the power to help others, no matter what their age. And you and your friends benefit as well.
Share Your Wish is a charity fund drive that works around your child’s birthday party. Your child selects up to three charities and your guests can choose to donate to the charities instead of buying a traditional gift.
Wait, no gifts on your birthday? Isn’t that sort of sad? That’s how I felt when I first began getting Share Your Wish invitations. I don’t buy my daughter a lot throughout the year, and I’ve always felt birthdays are the one time of year to be spoiled. But don’t worry, the birthday kid still can get plenty. Share Your Wish lets you decide what percentage of donations go to the charity and how much goes to your child. At the Share Your Wish parties I’ve been to, most kids have elected a 50/50 split, so that’s what we chose for my daughter’s most recent birthday.
I’ve found people generally give more through Share Your Wish than they would spend on a gift alone. The money is going to a good cause, and honestly, I give more because of the time and worry it saves me from having to find a present.
Here’s how I see traditional parties:
It starts with an invitation for my daughter to attend a party. Even if I know the child, I usually don’t know what they want. I either ask the parents for ideas or I buy something I think the child will like. I always include a gift receipt just in case.
I wrap the gift, include a card, and (hopefully!) remember to bring it to the party. Almost every child will take a gift out of the box, even if it’s something they really don’t want. They’ll play with it for a short while, then it goes into the pile of junk with all their other abandoned toys. Our typical party has 25 kids, so that’s 25 more items to open, spend a bit of time on, and abandon.
One time I tried to combat this birthday clutter by including an Amazon wish list with my daughter’s birthday invitation, but I felt that wasn’t the best etiquette, and most people didn’t shop from the list anyway. The whole thing felt wasteful, but I didn’t want to shortchange her the thrill of getting gifts on her birthday.
Enter Share Your Wish, the birthday party lifesaver (literally, depending on the charity you choose). When I get an invitation via Share Your Wish, it takes just minutes for me to RSVP for the party and make my donation, all in one step. I’llI still get a card for the birthday kid (or my daughter makes one), and I sometimes include a sheet of stickers or something small for them to enjoy.
On the receiving end, my daughter had so much fun at her party, she didn’t mind not having a huge stack of presents to open, and then we got to use her portion of the 50/50 split to shop for exactly what she wanted. Using the 50/50 option, my daughter received enough money to buy one large present and about five or six smaller ones.
Yet another benefit was teaching her the value of a dollar. Using the birthday money as a budget she found presents to buy and even ended up with a bit left over to save. If you don’t want gifts, you can use the money to buy experiences for your child: memberships, classes, movies, trips, etc. The money is yours to do whatever you want!
But it’s so much more than all this. My daughter was excited to choose a charity for Share Your Wish to collect money for. After a lot of thought, she chose a local food pantry. She really wanted to make a difference, and her rationalization was that people need food to live. I told her how much money we raised, but I felt she needed something tangible to fully understand.
I arranged a visit with the pantry that just happened to be on my daughter’s birthday. She stared at the shelves of food, but was too shy to say anything. The organizer realized this and pointed to an empty spot on a shelf. She said, “that’s where the peanut butter goes, and now we can buy some.” My daughter’s face lit up, and when she got home later, she told her grandparents the money we gave was going to buy peanut butter for people who didn’t have enough money to buy food.
When I asked my daughter what was her favorite part of her birthday week: her party, the magician we booked, dinner out, the cake (she almost always says the cake), she said none of those. Her favorite part was the time we spent at the food pantry. And she’s already planning for next year. First she said she wanted to give money for people who need clothes, but then I mentioned some other charities, and now she may want to help sick kids get medicine. I told her she doesn’t have to do Share Your Wish again, but she doesn’t want it any other way.
It was a win for everyone, from our friends not having to buy gifts, to us not having to store them, to our daughter feeling so good about what she did, and most importantly, to the people who will benefit from the great work of the food pantry. For a list of participating charities and more information on how to sign up, go to shareyourwish.com.
If you would like to try Share Your Wish, here is a referral code to get you started with $20: SYW15.
Thanks, Lori! Here’s a bit more about her: Lori Fettner is an author and Westchester mom. She has also recently become a parent connector for another great charitable organization, PJ Library, and is planning fun events in the rivertowns for families with young children interested in Jewish culture and values. Find out more about her books at LoriFettner.com (including her comprehensive book database), and join her PJ Library Facebook group, Rivertowns Jewish Families, for more about those gatherings.
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See you next time!
Andrea
