It’s that time of year again. The holiday season is a time filled with giving thanks to our family, friends and those around us. It’s important to show gratitude to those who have made worthwhile contributions to our lives and also those in our community. A favorite way to show gratitude and appreciation is gift-giving.
Here are five ways you can give back to your community this holiday season as giving back to those in need is just as important as giving to close family members.
How to Help: To find a local campaign, simply go to the national website and click “donate a toy” You will then be asked to select your state, and local events will be provided.
Why this Charity? Founded in 1991, the mission of the Marine Toys for Tots Program is to collect new toys and distribute them to less fortunate children, so they can feel the joy of Christmas like many other kids around the world. The U.S. Marine Corps hopes to provide signs of hope to economically disadvantaged children and with your help that mission can be accomplished.
2. Red Andrews Christmas Dinner
How to Help: New unwrapped toy and coat donations are accepted at the following locations:
- Cort Furniture 4300 NW 39th St Unit A, Oklahoma City, OK 73112
- Jackie Cooper BMW 14145 N Broadway Ext, Edmond, OK 73013
- The Goldman Law Office 222 NW 13th St, Oklahoma City, OK 73103
- Frontier State Bank 5100 S I-35 Service Rd, Oklahoma City, OK 73129
- Lido Restaurant 2518 N Military Ave #101, Oklahoma City, OK 73106
Monetary donations can be sent in and volunteers are needed. You can also donate money or volunteer to help feed and provide various items like clothes and toys.
Why this Charity? Ernest Andrews (Red Andrews) started the tradition of a Christmas dinner after seeing the living conditions of some of his old employees. After seeing the impact of the dinner he built the dinner into a tradition. They have since grown to serve 8,000 people and hope to keep the numbers rising.
How to Help: A tab on the website called Ways to Help lists ways to help like donating money, donating items and donating time aka volunteering.
Why this Charity? Established in 1981, Barbra Fagin set out to help families who thought they would not receive any gifts. In their first year, 363 families were served and later that number grew to 6,000 families served. Christmas Connection wants to give the special memories of Christmas to families in the OKC Metro area who might not have the resources to do it alone. Your gift will bring hope to a child in need.
How to Help: To help someone in need this Christmas Santa’s Cause has set up multiple ways to volunteer, donate, or do both. A big volunteer job is wrapping and delivering gifts and within the group that delivers the gifts someone has to dress up as Santa with a provided suit. Santa’s Cause accepts cash donations and toy donations.
Why this Charity? This non-profit organization provides anonymous responses to letters children have written to Santa. All the letters received come from teachers, counselors, etc but letters from the general public are not accepted. The main goal of Santa’s Cause is to deliver gifts to every child who writes a pre-approved third-party referring letter to Santa. The organization is a last resort organization that wishes to spread the Christmas joy message.
5. The Regional Food Bank Of Oklahoma
How to Help: Oklahoma’s regional food bank takes financial donations, food donations, volunteers, and asks for advocates to raise awareness of food insecurity. All of these methods of donating are listed on their website under “Ways to give”
Why this Charity? The regional food bank was founded in 1980 and distributes food to thousands of community members in 53 counties of Oklahoma. They also make it their mission to educate people about public hunger as Oklahoma is one of the hungriest states in the nation.
