I swear I heard Christmas songs in a store the other day and then I turned the corner with the over-sized grocery cart and came face to face with a giant, glowing & rocking Snowman on display. Christmas decorations and it wasn’t even the end of September!

This week Christmas wish lists are making their way across mass media channels and bloggers are starting to post their Holiday Gift Guides and to be honest, I was wishing I could get brands to send me some stuff and I’d do the same.

Consumerism at its finest….

Then I saw a tweet and all that has changed for me.

“The #FoodLove Christmas event has a hashtag! #50teens4Christmas is collecting donations to give 50 homeless teens a Christmas to remember!” ~ FoodLoveKW

It’s all I could think about during the night, it infiltrated my dreams! I woke up before the kids did this morning to start working on my ideas… and if you know me and mornings… this means A LOT!

• How can I get involved? 
• How can I get my family involved? 
• How can I get those brands / businesses and people that love me involved? {hint hint hint} 🙂

The fabulous people behind this movement {Food Love KW & The $5 Dollar Project} are trying to put the fundraiser event together for December 18 at the ROOF in Kitchener-Waterloo. There will be music & food & lots of people with big hearts!! They {and now me} are looking for items like gift cards, warm clothes, phone cards, etc. to put into 50 gift bags for these 50 homeless teens. They {and now me} want to make it a Christmas for them to remember!

I talked to my kids this morning. They want to help! Even better… my life has been chaos since Dad died and between then and the last conference I have to go to for work… three of my children will have had birthdays but no parties. What’s so awesome about them missing their birthday parties?? It’s given us the unique opportunity to do something that goes beyond THEM.

They want to have ONE big party and invite all their friends and have all their friends bring gift cards NOT FOR THEM but for #50teens4Christmas. Don’t I have incredible children?!!

Let the planning begin! I want to put together a pre-fundraising fundraiser / birthday party at a venue {for free would be nice} in the Waterloo region before December 1st. I’m thankful I have a great start-up team… my 6, 9 and 13 year old sons and 11 year old daughter! Then we will be helping the #FoodLove people raise the rest of what’s needed for the #50teens4Christmas event!