The Gifting Tree

Need an idea for a “gift basket type” of fundraiser item, without having the hassle of coming up with a gift basket theme, going to 10 different stores to get the materials, and making it look super pretty (well, maybe I am the only one who has problems with that)? 

Or maybe you have a staff party coming up in a couple of months and want a fun door prize to end the night with? 

Look no further than the video below!  I think you will like the little alternative I will show you.  Fun, inexpensive, and yes, cute.

Prefer to read the Transcript? Keep reading below!

“Hi everyone. Charity Preston here. Welcome back! It’s good to see you again. I haven’t done a video in a while, so I thought today would be a good day.

I had a question on the fan page wall from someone who was asking about a carnival and they had to come up with a gift basket for their school. Each classroom had to come up with something and I thought, “Hey, I have a really cool idea for that someone had shared with me actually years ago!”

So if you have to produce something as a class for a fundraiser or for a carnival fall festival or a Christmas event, this would be a good thing to do!

Okay. So all what you’re going to need is you’re going to need some type of little artificial tree, whether it’s this for if you had something going on in the spring, or a little pine tree that you would find around Christmas time. You’re also going to need a hole puncher. Now we’ll need string as well. Okay.

And as a side note, I saw this on Pinterest, and I know you guys will appreciate this. Take your yarn, put it in a baggie, put a little tiny hole in there and -check this out – you just pull the yarn and that string never gets tangled up on the inside of it. Genius! Who thinks of this kind of stuff? I’m just passing it along. Fantastic idea.

If you don’t have yarn, you can use basic pipe cleaners, which are 99 cents at the dollar store. I actually used some sparkly ones for mine today.

And then the next thing you will need are some type of gift cards. Now you can go about this, a couple of different ways.

You can either have every family donate a $5 gift card for one location, maybe a grocery store.

Or leave it up to the family to go out and get a $5 gift card to any place. So you could have a bunch of different ones. You could have a movie theater, one, a gas station, one, the grocery store, target Walmart, different restaurants, phone cards, iTunes gift cards, wherever that you prefer.

Or one last option in leui of a monetary gift card is they could donate some time. Maybe instead they make a cute little gift card that says we will come over to wash your car or bake a plate of cookies. I don’t know. However, you want to do it.

If you want to donate something as a classroom, you need to have either a bunch of little prizes or one big prize. So really $5 for a family, depending on where your district is, some families may not be able afford that. So instead go with something that they can trade in value their time.

So then you’re going to take your gift cards, your big monster hole punch, and punch a hole in one of the corners of it, (not where the strip is where obviously people need to run that through the register), but someplace else on the card where it’s not going to matter.

Attach the cards to your tree with your pipe cleaners or yarn.

Here’s my little cute little example here. And you would have a whole bunch of gift cards all over the place.

I’m sure the super crafty people could put a little bird in here or really make it cute with a little tree topper. I’m not that crafty, but I thought that was a fantastic idea that someone super crafty would be able to make it look amazing and festive for whatever the event.

So now you can actually call it a gifting tree, or if you want to go with the theme of a giving tree, you could put the book “The Giving Tree” next to it. That would be something awesome to discuss with your class as well.

So as a group classroom project, I think that the gifting tree is a really fun idea. It doesn’t really cost you a lot of money out of pocket other than the supplies. Andthe tree and the pipe cleaners are pretty inexpensive. Then have the families donate $5 gift cards.

So it’s not a big expense on their part, but it really comes together. If you 20 students in your classroom, that’s a hundred dollars on your tree that someone will win, and maybe they’re for all different places which makes it even more fun to visit local places maybe they have never thought to visit before.

Or if it’s all from one place, like a grocery store, a hundred dollars at the grocery store could really help out any family.

This would be a fantastic idea too, for a staff party! If everyone on the staff donates a $5 or $10 gift card, and you raffle it off, you could really have a nice prize there as well.

I hope you have enjoyed my little gifting tree. Feel free to gift me one whenever you want. Ha! I’ll talk to you again soon. Bye.“

Need a quick template for a parent request form for the gift cards?

You can grab the editable template below. I included my version from above, but all the text can be edited in either Powerpoint or Google Slides.

How would you be able to use this idea in your classroom (or even not in the classroom)?  I would love to hear your thoughts below.