Giving Back This Holiday Season

As the holiday time rolls around, we look forward to spending time with family and friends and enjoying the season. But it is also a time for giving. The holiday spirit often brings out our desire to help others with the spirit of giving. Our thoughts often turn to helping people who are less fortunate than we are.  

There are great benefits to giving to others. First, it makes us feel good. When we have a chance to help a neighbor in need, it feels great! Giving is a great way to build teamwork and morale in the school. It helps us build a sense of community. Helping others is contagious. When our students and clients see our school wanting to help, they will often want to do the same.

There are so many ways to give back. 

Here are just a few ideas. 

• Lend a helping hand and build teamwork at the same time. Have your team of educators volunteer at a local food bank or soup kitchen. 
• Take your students to the local senior centers or homeless shelters and give free manicures and haircuts.
• Check with the local Red Cross and see what it would take to host a blood drive on campus.
• Support the schools and teachers in your community by holding a school supplies drive. Normally we think about doing that only during back-to-school days. But having supplies to donate to educators in January would be a big help! Offer clients a free haircut if they bring in a box of pencils, crayons, paper, glue, etc. Collect the items and then donate to schools in the area for the start of the new year. Make it more personal by focusing on the schools where the children of your school’s students attend. 
• Hold a food drive. Offer clients a 5% discount on services if they bring a canned food item for you to collect and donate to your local food shelter.
• Have staff and students clean out their closets and have a clothing rummage sale one Saturday at your school. Pick a local charity to donate all proceeds to.
• On Black Friday, offer a free gift-wrapping service. Encourage customers to come in and relax from the stress of the holiday shopping with a manicure, pedicure or facial. Tell them to bring their presents with them, and you will gift wrap them while they get their service. Make sure you have a good system in place for tracking presents. You don’t want to lose anything!

One last idea that I have was shared with me by my friends at State College of Beauty Culture in Wausau, Wisconsin. They have a fundraiser they call “Penny War.” They divide the students into groups and then challenge each group to collect pennies. The team that collects the most wins, and all proceeds are donated to charity. 

The only way to score is to collect pennies—one point for every penny. Points are deducted if other coins or cash is collected. Five points deducted for every nickel, 10 points for every dime, 25 points for quarters and 100 points for bills. 

The winning team gets a prize, such as a week out of uniform in professional dress or a week of wearing jeans. You can make the prize anything students would enjoy. 

How does your school give back during the holidays?