I’m taking a break from my usual blog post to write about a BIG mission project I’m leading to help my community. I’m excited to tell you about it and hopefully you can help me!

Last year I started a new mission with my church to help bring Christmas cheer to needy families in my community. It’s called Gifts of Grace – Toys for East Plano.

I work with my MOPS group to collect toys for low income families. We partner with a church who serves mostly an underprivileged, multicultural congregation. They find families in need during a big free community Thanksgiving dinner they host. Then a few weeks before Christmas, these families line up outside the church’s gym (rain, sleet or snow) and we pass out toys to the parents. The toys are already wrapped and put into a garbage bag to hide them from the kids. These are probably the only gifts the children will receive, so the parents like to say they are from them.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into last year when I started this! We collected over 440 gifts, probably wrapped a fourth of them, sorted them into age groups, delivered them to East Plano and then helped hand out the gifts to families. Needless to say it was a chaotic month, but worth every bit of effort to know that these children were going to receive at least one toy that Christmas.

My children also learned a valuable lesson and I hope to help mold them into generous givers. This is one project the whole family can be involved with. The kids actually get to see and hand the toys to the people they are helping. Seeing the children help and the smiles on the parents faces makes this project so rewarding.

This year we hope to double the amount of toys! I would LOVE if you could send us a wrapped toy or at least spread the word on your own blog, Twitter and Facebook pages.

If you are in the DFW area and would like to volunteer to help wrap, sort and pass out gifts, I would so love the help!! Thanks to all of you who helped last year. Words cannot express how thankful I am for you!!

You can help by:

• Purchasing a NEW toy.

• Mail your wrapped or gift bagged toy with the tag below attached by Nov. 29th to:

Grace Community Church
Att: Toys for East Plano
4501 Hedgcoxe Road
Plano, Texas 75024

• Volunteer if you are local. You can click here for more details about volunteer opportunities.

• Help me promote this by adding the following button to your side bar, blogging, tweeting or facebooking about it.

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Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!

Here are photos of things I talked about last week.

First, I have to show a photo of the VBS (vacation bible school) performance. Mine is the only boy on the front row! He practiced his dance moves all week, but when it came down to perform for church this Sunday, he chickened out. Oh, well. I was just so excited to see him do this! Did I say he was on the front row? I still can’t believe it. He is getting a little more brave each day. (Although 10 minutes before this photo, a teacher had to pry him off my leg to get him to sit with his group. Ugh!) 

If you didn’t see my previous post, the final amount the VBS kids raised for providing clean water to our friends in Nigeria was close to $7,000!! Isn’t that amazing? Our church will use this money to build a well and buy more purification systems. 

So while our kids were saving people in Africa… I’m happy to say that I did go to an upscale shop for some design inspiration. (Seems sort of silly after writing about sick children in Africa!) But it was fun:-) Especially for someone who never goes shopping without someone whining or clinging to my leg!

Bright jewel toned colors are still hot, along with greens, animal print and purple. As usual, I was drawn to the animal prints. Check out these shoes ladies! 

If you see wall art or a web site I design with purple snake skin in the background, you’ll know where I got the inspiration. Yes… shoes!

Be sure to join Amy on Facebook for more fun!
Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!