As a mother of now two older teenagers, I always struggled to find family activities that could make “giving back” part of our daily lives. I learned that it did not always take a grand gesture to make a difference. Sometimes it’s the simplest of acts that make the biggest difference – volunteering at a soup kitchen; buying a toy for a child in need; donating food to a local food bank. But these activities can sometimes be difficult to find, especially given the hectic pace of the holiday season.
As head of our Corporate Partnerships team, we have worked to identify a few simple activities working with organizations making a difference for children and families. These hopefully will make “giving back” simple yet part of your holiday season. Examples include:
- Save the Children “Gifts of Joy” Catalog: Save the Children is proud to be the leading expert on children. By selecting a gift through this catalog, you are making a donation to Save the Children and can help give every child the best chance for success, both domestically and globally. Each gift in this catalog is representative of resources, services or support provided by Save the Children to a program area in which we work, and may change due to environmental, programmatic and economic considerations. Your donations will be used to provide assistance where it is needed most within that program area or to address similar need. When you purchase an item from the Save the Children gift catalog, Johnson & Johnson will match your gift dollar for dollar (up to $200,000).
- Donate a Photo: Why not turn a simple every day action into helping others? You can do this through the Johnson & Johnson Donate A Photo app. Every time you share a photo, Johnson & Johnson will donate $1 dollar to a cause that your family selects. One of our featured causes is with our partner, the USO. For every photo you donate, Johnson & Johnson gives $1 to USO. That $1 helps provide 30 minutes of a video call or phone call for deployed service members, helping them to stay connected with their loved ones.
Johnson’s Baby is also helping to make an impact. When you pick to support Save the Children in Donate a Photo, Johnson’s Baby will add an additional dollar to the cause (turning a $1 donation into $2)! Those $2 help make it possible to provide a resuscitation device to help newborn babies take their first breath.
The holiday season is a time of reconnection and joy for many families. We hope that you might choose to share with others, and these simple activities might make it easy to build “giving back” into your holiday traditions. See more at: http://www.blogjnj.com/2014/12/holiday-giving/#sthash.saK5lsOg.dpuf