What to buy with $250?

[Herbicidal]

I've kind of been saving up some $$$'s as there is really nothing I want or need for the Yaris right now. Then I started thinking about instead of something for "me", how about buying something for someone else? After all Christmas is fast approaching and it's a great time to think about helping others that may be less fortunate. I have an 8 year old son and my daughter is 11 ½. They are not wanting for anything, well maybe my son, he always wants more Legos!

One of our local news stations in Sacramento (KCRA, Channel 3) has been promoting an event they do every year called CHiP's for Kids. The California Highway Patrol is the major sponsor. Today, Friday December 5th, Channel 3 and the CHP set up a drive up toy drop off at Cal-Expo in Sacramento. They started taking unwrapped toys @ 4:30am. The toys are then distributed by both Channel 3 and the CHP to hospitalized and disadvantaged children through such organizations as: UC Davis Children's Hospital, Mercy Hospital, Shriner's Hospital, the Salvation Army, WEAVE, Head Start, Boys & Girls Club, Operation Rudolph and other community service organizations. So you can see with the size of that list, they need all the help they can get.

So last night I decided I would use all of my $250 to buy toys for this event. My first stop was JoAnn's in Roseville. They tend to sell a lot of Arts and Crafts. I wandered the aisles in their toy area and found some good deals and spent about one third of my money there. When I reached the register I explained what I was doing and the cashier authorized another 20% off of my entire purchase. How cool was that? Right next door is a Toys R Us. I again wandered the aisles trying to get the most bang for my buck. They too were having sales and buy 2 get the 3rd one free type promotions. I spent the rest of my money there.

So today, I got up dark and early (3:30am), showered, dressed, ate breakfast and drove the 23 miles to the drop-off location. As I was within 1 mile of the off ramp, all the freeway traffic came to a complete stop. Several CHP cars went flying by and we just sat there for about 15 minutes. Finally traffic started moving again (I heard on the radio a little bit later that a person wouldn't pull over for the police but was finally apprehended on the side of the freeway and they had a weapon) and I was able to reach the donation spot. Apparently I was the first one there (4:45am) and I was able to drop off about 7 large bags of toys. The CHP officers helped unload the bags and I was briefly interviewed by Channel 3. That was kind of embarrassing.

It was a great feeling dropping off all those toys knowing that they would go to kids that otherwise may not have a very merry Christmas. I know what I brought was just a drop in the bucket, but everything counts.

So if you have the chance, please buy an extra toy or food item and donate it to your favorite charity. You'll be glad you did. Happy Holiday's everyone!