Adopt A Class

This is how I have basically spent the last week of my life. What you see below is the finished product. I was involved in every step but the good parts. Lauren's company adopted an area pre-kindergarten class for Christmas, collected some money and then purchased presents for 31 kids. My role was that of the informal budget consultant. Lauren was in charge of the creative part of the project so I tagged along to chip in the occasional "this is half off" "31 x 5 = $150" "look these markers are $3.49 for 8 and those ones are $2.99 for 10". So we spent last Thursday night at Jo-Ann Fabrics buying enough fleece to make 32 fleece handbags. Lauren was the one with the sewing skills, so after Thursday night I was there primarily to draw straight lines, make cuts and pin fabric. Pretty much every night between Thursday and last night we were marking, cutting or sewing fabric for these bags. The rationale being that when you have 31 kids wrapping paper is going to cost you about $40, which is $40 less you can spend on presents. So by stuffing the presents in these fleece bags (which cost about the same in raw materials) the kids would have something useful to keep afterwards.





Each bag contains: a hat & mitten set, Crayola crayons and markers, construction paper drawing book, a Dr. Seuss book, 2 canisters of Play-Doh and a wooden Christmas ornament with the student's name inside.

So every night in the past 7 days have been spent doing some part of this project. If it wasn't going from Meijer to Costco in search of better pricing it was going to the fabric store to pick up some odds and ends or simply spending 15 hours on the weekend marking, cutting and sewing fabric. Last night however was especially brutal because Lauren and I tried to get Christmas cookies (for a separate project) baked at the same time we were finishing threading the drawstrings on these gift bags.

Long story short, we finally went to sleep about 4am with the bags finally finished and about 150 cookies baked and decorated.

It was worth it though. I may revisit this post in the near future, but I am dead tired right now and I go on vacation to 72 degree Charleston South Carolina in 2 days. My mind and body are limping to the finish line.

2 comments:

Rach said...

Wow, what a project(s). The gift and gift bags turned out awesome. I hate spending money on wrapping paper, especially when it immediately gets thrown away. What's better is that these kids are getting a great gift. I wish my class got adopted when I was in school. I always got pencils, eraser, or a candy cane from my teacher. The cookies are absolutely outstanding. I am embarassed to admit that I have already eaten almost all of them and they have only been in my posession for less than 2 hours. I saved only one of each kind for Peter. I hope you enjoy Charleston, you both deserve it!!

salston said...

wonderful ! can you tell me directions for making the fleece bags. Our church does a project for shutins and this might be something can use..thank you..
My sister was from Savannah for years..I visited there many times on the isle of Hope...
thanks.