Up until last week, I'd never heard of a Giving / Gift Tree. But after having a discussion with an American friend I knew exactly what this was when I saw it in Churchill Square (our local shopping centre in Brighton, UK) on Tuesday.
This Gift Tree was for Rockinghorse Children's Charity (Making life better for sick children in Sussex). As the official fundraising arm of the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital they raise money for life-saving and cutting-edge medical equipment, while ensuring that children are treated in an environment better suited to their needs, basically allowing kids to be kids even in a medical environment.
With this Christmas campaign a child is given a tag, they select something they would like to receive and a store that is likely to stock it. People can buy direct from the stores in the centre and hand it into the customer service desk with the tag.
As soon as we saw Board Games on three of these tags, we knew we could do a little better than that. We of course have many games, and some might say too many so we had a hunt through our own collection for some great games that were either brand new or barely used. I think we've put together an enviable stash for each one and with special thanks to Paul at Bet Sit Games that also very kindly donated three copies of ZomBN1.
Here's the final package for each of the children here are the packages we managed to put together and drop off this morning bagged in some of the canvas bags we've picked up at various conventions over the year.
Hopefully next year we'll spot this with more than a few days notice, and keep an eye out for one of these in your local shopping centre / mall if there's still time.