Sunday, October 30, 2011

Delivering a Surprise Halloween Candy Gift Basket #DontBeTheDarkHouse #CBias

Halloween is a fantastic time of year.   With all of the events we attend at this time of year we end up with a lot of candy and I mean A LOT.  By the time we get to Halloween for trick or treating I'm already trying to figure out what to do with the extra candy!  Well, okay, the candy that I haven't eaten by that point yet...

I was so excited when I found out I got to participate in a charitable gift basket creation for Mars Candy.  My mission was to create a gift basket to deliver to someone (or group) deserving.  I immediately thought of our local Hospital - Rancho Springs Medical Center.  I spent a tremendous amount of time volunteering when I was younger.  Helping with meal delivery to people in need, to beach clean-ups and many more things.  Passing on those experiences to my kids is so important to me.  It's so easy to go on about your life and not stop to do something special for someone who works hard every day but doesn't always get the thank you they deserve.  The idea of delivering the chocolate filled basket to the volunteers a the hospital was one I was so excited about!  

There was a time in my life when I spent most of my days in the hospital.  When my Mom was fighting her battle with cancer I was deeply touched by the kindness of strangers.  The nurses, doctors and other volunteers who would make a huge impact during the roughest time in my life are people I will never forget and am forever thankful for.  Helping people in their most trying times is just what they do.  I spent so much time in the hospital with her that I would forget to eat and the left over meals and snacks that were left in the caregiver lounge were truly what sustained me those days because I didn't want to leave my Mom's side - not even to go out to get food.  I used to keep a box of snickers in the drawer to eat when I would realize it had been hours and hours since I last ate.

Leaving the basket of chocolate candy at a hospital for someone else to enjoy in their moments of struggle and as a thank you for those volunteers was something that just felt right. 

We headed down to our local Wal Mart to stock up on candy and supplies to create the gift basket.  (To follow along on our journey with pictures click here). I immediately knew I wanted to use the traditional plastic pumpkins decorated with candy.  I love Wal Mart!  The local one we go to is a Super Wal Mart so you always know you can get everything on your list, from food to supplies - they have it covered.   At this time of year there is candy everywhere, bins full in the aisles - it can be so overwhelming.  I always gravitate to the same candies I loved as a child.  M&M's, Snickers, Milky Way and 3 Musketeers are the ones I would always trade for and covet the ones I received.  So we loaded up on those, grabbed a plastic pumpkin and the special small easel to create a sign so people would know to take one.
I created M&M flowers (by stapling them together in a start shape and taping to a glow stick.  We used candies as the eyes, nose and mouth and decorated a bunch of candies around the top of the pumpkin for decoration.  

We loaded it up in the back seat of my car and headed over to the Hospital for delivery.  Brett carried it in for me (his enthusiasm to participate made me so proud!).  We delivered it to the volunteer desk at the hospital and they were speechless.  There's nothing like that feeling when you know you have made someones day!  She looked at me and said you have no idea how many people will enjoy this!  I know this is one gift basket that will be enjoyed by a large number of people over the next couple of days as they grab a piece of chocolate and that just feels amazing.  :)
Note: This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias  #DontBeTheDarkHouse -  I was HONORED to be a part of this shop and have been inspired to duplicate similar types of random acts more often to members of the community in the future.  The comments above are completely my own.

1 comments:

Rebecca E. Parsons/Cre8Tiva October 31, 2011 at 2:09 PM  

what a fun basket, i bet they loved it!!!

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