"The Giving Box" and Other Ways Your Can Donate With Your Kids

Love it? Share it!

If you read my last post, I shared why encouraging an atmosphere of giving and volunteering in our homes is important. Today we’ll be focusing on how to donate with your kids, to help get them into the spirit of giving.

We are about to head into the Christmas season, a season of gratitude and being more intentional about serving others.

Teaching our kids to have a heart for giving is so important all the time, but especially during this time of year when there tends to be an overabundance of toys and an “I want!” mentality. There is nothing necessarily wrong with being excited about receiving gifts, but we also want to teach our kids the experience and blessings of giving to others as well.

Every year around this time, I tend to do a big clean-up of the kids’ rooms and playroom, to sort through clothes and toys they don’t use anymore and make room for new items that might be coming in. With four kids, we tend to accumulate a lot of random toys over the holidays, which I know is a fortunate problem to have.

This big clean-up is something I often do on my own (anyone else try to get rid of toys without their kids seeing them?…Guilty!). However, as my kids are getting older, I don’t want to miss the opportunity to teach them about empathy while passing on gently used clothes and toys to others who might not have an abundance like we do.

Altruism is a Learned Behavior

Did you know that the behavior of putting others first is a developmental milestone? We can help them reach this milestone by incorporating charitable opportunities into our days, and having meaningful discussions with our kids about giving.

“The developmental milestone of putting others before oneself is significant and can be a predictor of greater generosity, positivity, perseverance and altruism later in life.”
Aaron Hanson, the Director of Development at Shriners for Children Medical Center

Teaching generosity to our kids has great benefits such as increased happiness and developing empathy for others. And when you work together as a family to give back, it can strengthen your family bond and create great new traditions.

Here are some easy ways you can teach your kids to put other first this season.

Create a Family “Giving Box” Ritual

One fun idea is to create a “giving box” that your family will use to collect clothes and toys that you’d like to donate.

My kids always love decorating and creating with boxes, so just getting the giving box set up will be an exciting start to this project! Choose a large box that your family can all contribute to, and let your kids go to town with decorating it.

donating toys and clothes with kids — Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

The next step is just as easy – fill the box! If you are doing a big closet clean-out, you might get it filled up pretty quickly, but ideally, you will have this box set out throughout the month, and when you come across something that is no longer played with, read, or worn, it goes in the box. Once the box is filled, you will donate the contents. Pretty simple!

A Couple of “Giving Box” Tips

Encourage your children to choose items of high-quality for the box. Remind them that it isn’t a box of items to throw away; these toys and clothes will be moving on to be loved and enjoyed by someone else.
You might work together to fill the box the first time so your kids get the idea/concept. If there are toys they haven’t played with in a while (i.e. those toys at the bottom of the bin or in the back of the closet), they might be good candidates for the Giving Box.
If your kids are having trouble “finding” items they want to donate, make a game out of it! Set a timer and give them a number to shoot for (“try to find 10 things in 5 minutes”). Or, give them a bit of control and ask them how many items they’d like to add to the box.

You can also easily adapt this idea to donating money instead of toys or clothes. Simply decorate a small bank, can, or jar, and set it out so that the family can contribute loose coins to it. Once the “box” is filled, you can decide as a family where to donate the money.

If your kids get an allowance, it’s a great teaching tool to have them budget and set money aside for giving, saving, and spending. If you are using our Money Tracker Printable, your kids already have a spot on there where they can track these things. They may decide that the family giving box is a great place to allocate their giving money!

The Giving Box by Fred Rogers (yes, Mr. Rogers!) is a great book to help you teach this concept to your kids, and also comes with a small tin bank you can use to start your own giving box for coins with your family.

Other Fun Ways to Donate With Your Kids

Perhaps this year you are not quite in a place where you are able to donate money or extra toys. There are definitely still ways you can encourage kindness and help your kids develop a giving spirit!

Host a Drive

One fun idea is to host a clothing or food drive! For example, The Joy of Sox is an organization that collects socks to raise awareness for the homeless. You can host a drive with your church, extended family, co-op, neighborhood or kids’ sports teams.

Turn it into a great homeschool learning experience by having your kids create flyers to share and explain what they are collecting and why, and where they will be donating. They could work on composing letters and emails to ask for donations.

Even if you don’t go through this specific organization, hosting a drive and collecting items through the holiday season can be a great way to give back in a big way.

Throw a Party

Another fun way to give back is to turn a birthday party or another holiday party into a charitable event.

Some organizations like Heifer International allow you to set up a birthday page and collect donations to charity instead of gifts. It would be a great learning experience to walk through setting up a page like this with your kids. Changing lives as you celebrate – what could be better?

Where Should Our Donations Go?

Once you have your Giving Box filled, where should you drop off the items?

Donation Town is a great website to check out and find a charity that will come to you and pick up your items!

Other options include:

Your local Goodwill donation center
Local homeless shelter (You can use the Homeless Shelter Directory to find a shelter near you.
The Salvation Army
A local chapter of the Ronald McDonald House (typically accepts brand new items)

Don’t Miss the 12 Days of Serving Others Series

I hope you enjoyed reading about how you can create a habit of donating old toys, clothes, or even money with your kids!

This post is part of the series “12 Days of Serving Others”. In this series, you’ll find great tips and ideas on how you can incorporate service and volunteering into your homeschool all year.

I’ll link the rest of the series posts here to make it easy to navigate!

I love hearing from you and hearing how you are incorporating service into your homeschool! Do you donate toys and clothes with your kids? Do you have any fun tips or suggestions to add? Drop a comment below!

This post is also part of the 12 Days of Homeschooling Fun Through the Holidays Series. Click here to check out the other amazing bloggers who are a part of this, and to enter the giveaway!

The “Giving Box” and Other Ways Kids Will Love to Donate

Altruism is a Learned Behavior