Creative Collections

Your school, church, business . . . or any other group . . . can have

fun while helping the poor and homeless in our community!!

Creative Collection Ideas

Sweet Treats

Collect candy and put in small plastic bags as party favors for the kids or homeless men for the holidays . . .  Valentines Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. A fun and creative tag can be attached to the bag with a greeting or verse.

PB&J Day

Collect peanut butter and jelly for the food pantry. (You can serve PB&J sandwiches for lunch that day!)

T.P. the Mission!

Collect toilet paper which is given away to our families and used for the operations of the mission.

Casual Day

Allow students or employees to dress casually for one day and bring new or gently worn jeans, T-shirts, tennis shoes and other casual clothes for the Community Closet.

Winter Warm Up

Collect new or gently worn coats, scarves, gloves, hats and boots for the Community Closet.

“Toilet-Tree” Collection

Display an artificial tree in a new toilet in the entrance of the school, church or business. Hang tags on the tree with lists of needed toiletry items (see attached list). Students/employees can take a list off the tree and return any of the items in a bag placed under the tree.

Personal CARE Week or

Health Week

This is great for school groups to do in conjunction with health classes. Care for a person with personal care items!  Take a week to collect personal care needs by focusing on one item each day:

·        Monday – soap (bar or liquids)

·        Tuesday – shampoo, combs & brushes

·        Wednesday – toothpaste and toothbrush

·        Thursday – deodorant

·        Friday – lotion, chap stick, skin or foot powder

Healthy Food Collection

This is great for schools to do when studying the food pyramid. Have students bring food items from each of the 6 food groups:

·        Cereal, rice, pasta, muffin mixes, crackers

·        Canned veggies

·        Canned fruit

·        Powdered milk, mac & cheese, Velveeta or cheese in a jar

·        Canned chicken and tuna, canned meals such as stew and chili, canned beans

·        Cookies, cake mixes, snacks such as Goldfish and Teddy Grahams, individually wrapped chips

Boxing Day

Boxing Day is a holiday in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and many other places around the world. It is based on the tradition of giving gifts to the less fortunate members of society and is right after Christmas. Your school can learn about boxing day and collect boxed food items for the food pantry (see attached list).

Class or Business

Division Competitions

School classes or business divisions can compete to collect the most of a particular item such as:

·        Cereal (build the tallest mountain of cereal boxes)

·        Canned goods (build the tallest tower of canned goods)

·        Peanut butter (the most pounds of peanut butter)

·        Bags of candy (the most calories . . . great for Easter, Christmas or Valentine’s Day giveaway)

A Y for the Homeless or

A Y for the Hungry

Great Valentine’s Day ideas:

·        Make Valentine cards and treat bags for our homeless shelter guests.

·        Collect toiletries for the homeless shelter.

·        Collect food for the food pantry.

Show you CARE week!

Focus on people in need for a week.  Showing our DVD would help communicate the basic needs of the poor and homeless:

·        Food – see needed food list

·        Clothing – new or gently worn

·        Shelter – toiletries to stock our homeless shelter

Christmas in July

Collect toys for the children at Sunshine. Any toys are great!

Fun in the Sun!

Collect items needed for our Kids Club Summer Camp (see attached list).

Paper Palooza!

Collect needed paper items (see attached list). Teachers can let students bring a paper product instead of writing a paper as homework for a particular class.

Scavenger Hunt

Competition

Divide into teams and distribute a creative list of scavenger hunt items with corresponding point values. Use any of the items on any of our lists and add some funny ones too. Give each person a paper bag and tell them to fill the bag (but everything MUST fit into the bag) with any of the items on the list, add up their points and write the number of points on the outside of the bag. When the bags are returned, each team adds the points on the bags. The team with the most points wins the scavenger hunt.

Put Your Best Foot Forward!

Collect new or gently worn shoes for men, women and children.

Sock it to me!

Collect socks for men, women and children.

Spring Cleaning!

Collect cleaning items and supplies (see attached list).

Undie Sunday

Have your church or Sunday School collect new underwear and undershirts for men, women and children.

“Make a Difference”

Monday

For any period of time that you want to do this, designate Mondays as a day to bring any needed item to donate to those in need.

Lend a helping hand!

Great for little children! Have each child trace their hand on paper or cardstock, decorate it, write their first name on it and cut it out. Give each child a bag (any size) and ask them to put any of our needed items in the bag.  Have them hang their hand print on the bag to deliver to the mission.

Books

Collect books for our February Book Fair. Children can make bookmarks to give out with the books.

Souper” Bowl

Around Super Bowl time, collect canned soup.

Oatmeal-A-Thon

Fantastic school project! Make individual zip-lock baggies of oatmeal mix (3/4 cup instant oatmeal, 2 plastic spoonfuls of brown sugar, 1 spoonful of cinnamon). By just adding hot water, these make a wonderful instant breakfast for our homeless shelter guests. The children can also collect some “spare change” in oatmeal boxes that can be donated to the mission.

Lists of Needs

 

Food:

·        Peanut butter & jelly

·        Cold and hot cereal

·        Canned meats & tuna

·        Boxed macaroni & cheese

·        Boxed pasta meals

·        Cake & muffin mixes

·        Cornbread mix

·        Canned fruit

·        Cookies & crackers

·        Rice & pasta

·        Powdered drink mix

·        Coffee

 

 

Toiletries and Personal Items:

·        Soap & body wash

·        Men’s aerosol deodorant

·        Toothpaste

·        Toothbrushes

·        Disposable razors

·        Chapstick

·        Body & foot powder

·        Shampoo (no conditioner)

·        Body lotion

·        Diapers and baby wipes

·        Q-tips & cotton balls

·        After shave

 

Community Closet Needs:

·        Sheets & towels

·        Blankets & bedspreads

·        Dishes

·        Silverware

·        Small kitchen appliances

·        Pots & pans

·        Shoes

·        Purses & belts

·        New underwear

·        In-season clothes for men, women & children

·        Toys & games

 

Summer Camp Needs:

·        Swim goggles

·        Beach towels

·        Individual bags of snacks

·        Individual bags of chips

·        Heavy duty paper plates

·        Powdered lemonade mix

·        Sam’s gift certificates

·        Colored cardstock

·        Glue sticks

·        Freezer pops

 

Paper/plastic Products:

·        Toilet paper

·        Paper towels

·        Kleenex

·        Paper napkins

·        Paper plates

·        Plastic bags

·        Styrofoam & plastic cups

·        Waxed paper, tinfoil & plastic wrap

 

Cleaning Products:

·        Laundry detergent

·        Bleach

·        Disinfectant wipes

·        Toilet bowl cleaner

·        Glass cleaner

·        All purpose cleaner

·        Comet

·        Pinesol

·        Sponges

·        Dust cloths