Help Local Kids With Some #SIMPLEGiving at Walmart

“Champions for Kids makes it simple to give kids
in your community the resources they need to thrive.”

For the past several weeks I have seen many parents rushing around preparing to send their kids back to school. They fill the stores with shopping carts full of back-to-school supplies, things from backpacks to notebooks including all the little extras on the mile long school supplies list. Included in those little extras are healthy back-to-school snacks to send to school with their children. While all of these parents know their children will have what they need to head back to school, my thoughts go to the children who are a little less fortunate. The ones that might not be able to pick up the healthy back-to-school snacks they need. For some children, the meals and snacks they receive at school might be the most they get to eat some days. It’s easy to say this happens somewhere else, this only happens in big cities, but that isn’t true. This is a huge problem in my home state of Arkansas, in our quiet little towns and small communities. And this not only happens in my community but in your’s as well, in communities both big and small everywhere. Working in schools I’ve seen for myself how unfortunate some children are. The ones that get to school early just for breakfast, who try to hang around after the final bell just for the late afternoon snack, these children look forward to school not only for learning but also because they know they will get to eat. No child should go hungry and I’m so glad that there are ways we can help. Helping schools provide healthy snacks to these children is so important and I’m not only thrilled to be able to help but also to teach our daughter to help others. No child should go hungry and thanks to Champions for Kids SIMPLE Giving, we can all help provide healthy snacks for children at our local schools.

What exactly is SIMPLE Giving?

SIMPLE Giving is a Champions for Kids program that makes it simple for you to donate items to help kids in your community! You can simply purchase snacks at your local Walmart and drop them in the purple donation bins after checkout. All of the donations go to children in the school district where the Walmart store is located. That means you are not only helping out kids, you are helping out the kids right there in your community. Shopping for these snacks meant even more to us because they were going to children right here at the local schools.

Champions for Kids has teamed up with Walmart to help make it super easy to donate to the local schools in your area. The purple pallets are easy to locate near the front of the store and are filled with wonderful, healthy snacks: Dole Fruit Bowls and Squish’ems, Kellogg’s Fruit Snacks, Emerald Nuts 100cal snack packs, Dasani Drops and Powerade Zero Drops.

When we went shopping, we actually let Abby “shop” for the snacks. We told her what we were doing and she was excited to help! The pallet was super easy to find and had a great selection of all the different products.  The Dole Fruit Bowls and Squish’ems are great healthy snacks for kids, the Powerade Zero is perfect for the on-the-go athlete, the 100 calorie packs of Emerald Nuts are great for on the go snacking and the Dasani Drops add delicious flavor and sweetness to water or any beverage making plain water more interesting to kids! Abby was particularly fond of the Dole Fruit Bowls and Squish’ems but we made sure she selected several of each brand available.

 

Here is how you can help:

If you live in Arkansas or Southern Missouri, head to your local Walmart between August 26th – September 8th and look for the purple Champions for Kids #SIMPLEGiving pallet and bin. Purchase some of the back-to-school healthy snacks to help kids in your local schools and drop the snacks off in the donation bins. Help make sure that no child goes without this school year. You can also help by telling your friends and family, let them know how they can help the kids at their local schools and make sure they know about the purple SIMPLE Giving pallet and bin.

One thing I did learn from our shopping trip was that sometimes, just taking a few minutes to talk to someone and help them understand can make a huge difference. I could tell several people would walk by the pallet/bin and look at it curious but then just keep going, ready to get their shopping done. Abby caught several people’s eyes as she put our items in the donate bin (one by one of course), from the lady greeting people as they walked in the store to the people enjoying a meal at McDonald’s and even to those who walked by with their carts full of groceries. She was so excited about dropping the snacks in the donation bin that her giggles probably could be heard all over the store. But seriously, it’s one thing to see an adult drop a bag in a donate bin and keep going but it’s totally different to see a little three year old donating to a wonderful cause. I had a few people ask me just what Champions for Kids and SIMPEGiving was and I was more than happy to explain it a little more. Abby even helped, she explained simply “I’m helping the kids at school have snack!”. Little ones are never too young to learn about helping/donating.

SIMPLE Giving is a wonderful opportunity to help our community and is a super easy way to help teach our daughter the importance of giving back and helping others. Next time you’re at Walmart between now and September 8th, look for the purple pallet and pick up a few back-to-school snacks to drop in the donation bin to help the kids at your local schools. Get involved, make a difference in a child’s life!