Do you participate in charitable gift giving for the Christmas/ Hanakuh season?Angel trees, Toys for Tots, local programs? Private donations? Why or why not?
I participate in a program that asks people to buy Christmas gifts of specific needed items for developmentaly delayed aduults in a group living situation. It do it because it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
Poll to follow.
Yes. Every year, our college has a “giving tree” where you buy a gift. Agencies screen the recipients and let you know what it is they want.
The first year I did it, I picked a card for a 12-year-old boy who wanted a chess set. I figured anyone who wanted a chess set these days deserved one.
My participation is working on the baskets and gift bags and taking the applications and soliciting the donations for the church where I volunteer. It’s pretty awesome, to tell the truth. I would never have thought I’d enjoy working for a church charity.
Kinda sorta. I donate to Heifer International every 4 months. It’s not holiday related, really.
We usually donate books during the Christmas season because we buy a lot of books as presents. Most of the bookstores participate and that makes it easy. I usually pick out a couple of books I enjoyed as a child and my son picks out ones he likes. Today, as it turns out, we were at B&N and we both picked to donate copies of Alice in Wonderland.
generally I donate toys to kids (still waiting for a thank you card from China). Wish I could afford to adopt a family but the gods of financial mischief are using me for target practice.
I tend to focus my charity on under served populations. I actually cut back a little during the holiday season, because everyone comes out of the woodwork to donate. My donations go further the rest of the year, when they really need it.
There are non people-specific charities I like too. They get donations regardless of the time of year.
-D/a
…double post…
We take two wishlists every year from our country Children’s Services “holiday wish” program.
I buy my family “gifts” from Heifer International or Seva Foundation. We’re all long post the point where any of us need any more things, so being able to do something good in their names makes them happier than any tangible item I could buy.
County. Not country.
I donate to Child’s Play, which is an organization that helps provide toys, video games, and materials to children’s hospitals world wide. Their big drive is in November- December, but now that I think about it, I believe the gifts go into the hospital’s general toy stock, not so much like Christmas gifts under a tree.
When I can, I also support Heifer and The Nature Conservancy, and empty my coin purse out for the Salvation Army Santas.
I’m bringing three bags of food to the food drive they’re having at work next week, and at xmas time they usually have a Salvation Army tree where you can choose specific gifts to buy for kids. I usually do a boy and a girl.
You friggin’ bet! Always. 
(Hey, I was one of those kids once. I didn’t know it til I was much older, but yeah. Christmas is about TOYS.)
I answered “no”, but actually in past years I participated in my old employer’s Xmas teddy bear donation drive.
I am starting this year. Now that I have a wee one of my own, my heart’s grown three sizes. I’m donating a Thanksgiving and a Christmas dinner to the food bank, and matching the money we spend on Mimi at Toys For Tots. Contemplating donating a child’s winter coat every year, too, if I could find the organization that does that.
I spend $50-75 at ToysRUs or Target buying stuff that a boy would like (since I only have daughters), and drop it off at Toys for Tots at work. Every 2 years or so, my wife goes through the toy closet for toys that the girls never opened and have now outgrown (yes, I know how ludicrous that is) and donates them as well.
ETA: Usually at least one of the kids does a food bank thing at school as well.
Not explicitly. The holidays are essentially non-events to me so (and honestly, I don’t particularly care any more if a kid doesn’t get a toy on Christmas day or if a family is hungry on Thanksgiving compared to any other days) they don’t impact the motivations I have for charitable contributions.
However, certain types of giving tend to be made vastly easier at this time of year so that can impact the timing of certain donations. I’m not giving food to the food bank barrel at the BART station because it is Christmas, I am giving it because that is when the barrel is there. If they put it there in March, I’d do it then too but generally my laziness keeps me from seeking out opportunities to give food donations.
Cash donations, however, aren’t really impacted by the season other than maybe spare change in a Salvation Army bucket.
I always give to Toys For Tots. We were poor growing up and the only time we got new toys was Christmas and for me it will always remain a magical time of year. It makes me sad to think there may be kids who get nothing.
Depending on where I am working, I let the people know that I will match dollar-for-dollar up to 300 dollars, each gift that they donate. (In truth, I would give 300 dollars worth of toys anyway, but this gets the group involved.) It has always been a huge turnout.
I don’t personally, but that’s because my husband does it, while I take care of the family gifting. We participate in Child’s Play every year.