Five festive ideas for fundraising at Christmas

With the festive season just around the corner, you can make a lasting change to the lives of children living in some of the world’s poorest communities by helping us fundraise this Christmas!

Whether you’re looking to fundraise at school, work or with family and friends, here are five ideas to get you started.

Hold a Christmas cake and coffee morning

You could organize a cake and coffee morning at your home, local community centre, church or school, selling cakes, drinks and other festive goodies. Call on your friends and family to help you bake cakes and brew up some interesting blends of coffee, taking donations for each cake and cup.

If you’re feeling adventurous, why not include a few other ideas into the occasion? You could hold a raffle with donated prizes, get your children to make Christmas decorations and cards to sell at the event, or even organize some carol singing to get everyone into the Christmas spirit!

Organize a toy and clothes swap

A toy swap is an innovative way of finding new toys for your children, while also helping to clear out toys that are no longer played with. Likewise, a clothes swap is a great way to revitalise your wardrobe at a fraction of the cost of buying new clothes. Here’s how it works:

Invite friends and families you know to the event. You will need a venue that can accommodate the volume of toys and clothes that might arrive – for example, a community centre or church hall. The children bring toys they are happy to pass on, while the adults bring clothes they no longer wear, and set them out on tables for all to see.

It's a good idea to keep things simple by deciding in advance on a set amount of money that should be donated for taking home a new toy or piece of clothing, and ensure you have a donation tin at the ready to collect the money.

Get your children involved

Here’s an idea to engage your children in fundraising a positive way – and one that will help you clean up your house in time for Christmas!

Write up a list of chores or little jobs that need doing in the house. Tell your children that each time they complete one of these chores, you’ll donate a small, agreed on, amount of money to Mary’s Meals.

Create a checklist for all the micro-jobs that need to be done in preparation for the Christmas period, such as tidying their room, washing the dishes, vacuuming the house, etc., and check them off each time they are completed. Keep the money in a jar or tin and make a topic of conversation at the dinner table.

Donate your last hour's pay

Before you put the “out of office on” and the festivities really begin, why not motivate your work colleagues to donate their last hour's pay before Christmas? Working out how much you’ll earn in your last hour at work is simple:

• Divide your annual salary by 52 (weeks in the year)
• Divide this by the number of hours you work each week
• This is your hourly pay. 

By gifting your final hour of pay – or whatever you can afford – to Mary’s Meals you'll be signing off for the holiday period with a gesture of goodwill that will help to realize our vision that every child receives a daily meal in their place of education.

Incorporate Mary’s Meals into your gift buying

One very simple and meaningful way to support our work at Christmas is by buying gifts for your friends and family from your national online shop. Whether it's Christmas cards, digital gifts, or t-shirts, or some of the life-changing gifts we offer such as funding mugs and plates for our meals or feeding a class for an entire year, buying our gifts will help change lives of children we serve.

Your generosity will support vital work that has a long-lasting impact in communities where school meals quite simply transform lives. Please do what you can to put hope on this menu this Christmas.