Teaching kids the gift of giving

For Deniliquin’s Intereach Family Day Care educator Angela Coffey, Christmas has always been a special time of the year  and since a young age she has been involved in different programs to help make Christmas a special time for others. The message ‘Christmas is  time for giving’ is one that Angela has incorporated into her education and care service for the children that attend Angela’s Family Day Care.

For the second year Angela and the children have participated in Rural Aid’s ‘Christmas Cards for a Farmer’ where the children decorated and wrote Christmas cards for farmers, thanking them for all the hard work they do and lots of wishes for a rainy 2020. The children were lucky to receive a letter back from one farmer last year and have written back to them this year. 

This year they have also put together eleven Christmas pamper boxes for the Ladies of the Land organisation. The boxes will be distributed to ladies living in drought areas and are full of items that are usually the first to be dropped off the shopping list when times get tough and money gets short. The children brainstormed possible ideas of pamper items the ladies, or, as they say, “The Farmer Mums”, might like to receive such as chocolates, face cream, books, biscuits and slippers. We then collected these items up and packed them into shoe boxes. The service has had families, grandparents, community members and other FDC educators donate items or money to buy items and they were very pleased to be able to assemble eleven boxes. 

Not only are the children learning about the gift of giving they are also learning more about drought which is affecting our local communities. Angela said “The children have  been eager to assist and the messages they put into their cards and pamper boxes show they all have kind and caring natures and they are really hoping the rain comes soon to help the farmers”.