Not So Average Mama

North Dallas Texas Mom Blog

Dream Drive with Sam’s Club in Grapevine, Texas and a Giveaway!

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On December 16th in Grapevine, Texas I attended an amazing event!  I had been invited last year but was unable to make it.

Sam’s Club, The Salvation Army and Off The Field came together to take care of a need.  A huge need of 10 local families to have a wonderful Christmas.

Armed with lists the Off the Field members took over Sam’s Club, decked out in red Salvation Army aprons and shopping carts…a lot of shopping carts.

So what is Dream Drive?

Dream Drive works with The Salvation Army’s Adopt-a-Family program. They choose 10 families within 10 different cities to benefit from the program. Each family will have $800 spent on gifts for them and then they also will each receive a $200 Sam’s Club gift card to spend on other holiday needs. The city locations for the events were San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Phoenix.  The Dallas event was held at the Sam’s Club in Grapevine and this is where I attended.

I’m thinking I was at one of the largest events because the amount of people there blew me away!  I was expecting maybe 3 wives tops.  Just check out this list of who was in attendence!

  • Kimberly Alexander, wife of deceased player Eli Alexander
  • Rachel Baxter, wife of Texas A&M coach Randy Jordan
  • Katrina Briggs, wife of Chris Briggs
  • April Crockett, wife of Super Bowl champion Ray Crockett
  • Miesha Jones, wife of retired player Freddie Jones
  • Charessa Kennedy, wife of free agent Kenoy Kennedy
  • Kim Mathis, wife of former Cowboy Kevin Mathis
  • Erin McBriar, wife of Cowboys’ Matt McBriar
  • Tasha Rivers, wife of free agent Marcellus Rivers
  • Michelle Witten, wife of Cowboys’ Jason Witten
  • Shelby McQueen Wyman, wife of Utah Blaze’s Devin Wyman
  • Amanda Davis, wife of Leonard Davis (#70)
  • Tamra Goins
  • Charressa Kennedy
  • Sharee Reed
  • Melani Ismail
  • Brittany Digrenet
  • Sherice Brown
  • Sheila Stoutmire
  • Yolanda Banks
  • Anabela Williams
  • Dawn Neufeld
  • Sheila Stoutmire

I followed the wives around as they shopped.  I have to be honest, I kind of expected them to just start grabbing things and throwing them in carts so they could be done.  I was wrong!  These ladies totally cared about what they were doing.  They took so much time making sure they were picking the perfect gifts!  They also watched prices so they could get more stuff that the family wanted.  I think some of them would have even added their own money to it if they could have.

It was truly a heart warming experience.  I met up with one of the organizers from Off The Field.  She was tweeting up a storm and I talked to her a little and found out that this was their 3rd event at this location and that there was another event in Garland.  This event was the 4th one in the area.  She was a super awesome person as were all the other ladies.

After some major shopping, the ladies went to the wrapping station and wrapped each and every present.  Later the trucks from The Salvation Army would come and pick up all the items for distribution amongst the families.

Sam’s Club is the eighth largest retailer in the U.S. and is a division of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc (NYSE: WMT). It offers exceptional values on merchandise serving more than 47 million members. Saving is made simple with Sam’s Club and on average its members save 30.4 percent on items for home or business over grocery and specialty retailers. Visit samsclub.com for more information.

Off the Field strives to use a network of influential women to enrich the lives of others. The organization is dedicated to raising funds and creating awareness for local and national charitable organizations that strengthen families.

The Salvation Army, a human services organization operating in 121 countries, provides assistance to more than 30 million people each year in the United States alone. 82 cents of every dollar The Salvation Army spends is used to support a broad array of social services in 5,000 communities nationwide. For more information, go to salvationarmydfw.org.

This is such a great thing and I was happy there to see the giving that happened that day. I look forward to attending again next year.

To spread that giving feeling, we are hosting a giveaway for Sam’s Club!

The Giveaway!

One Not So Average Mama reader will win a LeapFrog® Counting Candles Birthday Cake Toy!  This prize is provided by Sam’s Club.

Main Entry:  Tell me how you help others in need, leave a comment below letting me know.

Bonus Entries:  You must complete the main entry before doing any of the bonus entries.  Leave a separate comment for each entry.

  • Follow me on Twitter @stitchblade
  • Tweet about this giveaway:  “@stitchblade #samsclub LeapFrog® Counting Candles Birthday Cake Giveaway! http://bit.ly/gpqHrc” Leave a comment with the tweet status URL, you may do this up to 3 times per day.  Be sure to leave a comment for each tweet.
  • Become a fan of Not So Average Mama on Facebook.
  • Become a fan of My Frugal Home on Facebook.
  • Post about this giveaway on Facebook, please leave a comment with the URL to where you posted.
  • Follow me on Facebook Networked blogs located in my sidebar.

This giveaway will end on December 28th, 2010!

I was compensated for my participation in the Sam’s Club Dream Drive Event Campaign.  All opinions are my own.

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Girl on Fire

Photographer at Loudmouth Photography
Brandy is the wife to a carpenter/musician and the mother of 3 amazingly awesome homeschool/unschooled girls. Brandy is a Photographer as well as a Coach for the Weebellion as part of Rolling Rebellion Jr. Roller Derby. Brandy is passionate about many things and suffers from a very painful and degenerative neurological disease called CRPS/RSD.
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Comments

  1. Elizabeth N. says

    I work at a non-profit and many of our families are in the poverty level. Whenever we can, my husband and I make donations to my work – from food for Thanksgiving baskets to toys for the little kids.

  10. Tori says

    I donate to the food bank, MADD, Susan G Komen, and others. I also adopted our dog from the shelter so the kids like to tell people we saved her life. 🙂

  17. Kimberly says

    We donate to every food/toy drive at school, every bell ringer during the holidays for Salvation Army, and Toys for Tots.

    This was a remarkable event and how lucky for you to witness this generosity! Amazing!

  23. fancygrlnancy says

    This year we participated it the Operation Christmas child with samaritans purse. We packed 2 shoe boxes filled with toys and goodies for some toddlers in need. we picked out sons age group to shop for and did one for a boy and one for a girl. It was fun to get my son involved. Plus we always donate our old clothing and items. We drop money in the salvation army buckets when we can.

  29. Rachel Benson says

    My family donates are gently used goods to the VOA almost every month. Also, donate to Toys for Tots every year.

  78. Jeni says

    We donate to the food pantry couple times a year we adopt a vet for christmas and give toys to toys for tots

  80. Becky S. says

    This year, we were the ones who needed the help, although we still managed to donate some toy and our time.
    beckytag618 at gmail dot com

  96. Elizabeth says

    We are regular donors to a local homeless shelter, and we give to St. Vincent de Paul as well.

  97. c y l says

    We give to a needy child monthly in Guatemala and to various other groups. Also I help out a family who needs help by babysittting and helping the Mom with things since she has an auto-immune disease. This little toy would be great for her kids.

  101. Rosey says

    We’ve donated to charities for years, but we also passed out winter coats to children for several years. We haven’t done that since the baby was born because we don’t want to take him out in the cold weather, but we still donate to charity. And the kids always make a purchase to donate to Toys 4 Tots boxes in the store.

  107. Jennifer Jozwiak says

    i donate my little one’s older toys & clothes plus buy food for my local food bank. I’ve needed help myself so I give back when I can.