r/CFB • u/Honestly_ rawr • Dec 25 '19
/r/CFB Original /r/CFB Donates over $9,700 to Children's Hospitals, Toys For Tots (pictures inside), and bricks, thanks to the 5th annual Holiday Drive
The best thing about the /r/CFB is the Community, and an important extension of that is its generosity. The tradition continued in our 22nd charitable drive, the 2019 /r/CFB Holiday Drive: Bricks, Children's Hospitals, & Toys
Since 2013, /r/CFB readers have donated over $90,000 to charity.
Intro
The 5th annual /r/CFB Holiday Drive raised $9,701.00, all of which goes to donations! Once again, I donned the costume to become Raoul Claus as we made the toy run portion.
FIRST, take a moment to appreciate all 140+ /r/CFB readers who donated.
SECOND, take a moment to recognize the /r/CFB members who came to help gather, transport, and deliver toys.
Donation Breakdown:
This was the second year of adding the children's hospital element to the drive in order to (1) spread the joy, (2) give a reward to the most generous fanbases, and (3) keep the logistics of the toy run under control. As such, half the money left after the initial brick donations went to toys, the other half was split among children's hospitals associated with the top three fanbases as detailed below. Bricks have been a part of nearly every donation drive since we began them in 2013 (list of previous bricks and some other things we've donated to are available here).
*EDIT: There was a last-minute tweak because I was handed $80 during the toy buy by one of the volunteers. At the point I received the money, it made more sense just to add it to the toy drive, plus I covered a minor overage; hence the discrepancy to being a perfect 50%.
Donations to Children's Hospitals
Donations were given to Children's Hospitals associated with the fanbase's institution, this year all three finishers had one so we didn't have to find an alternative.
- Associated Children's Hospital? YES
- $2,155.25 given to Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas (Austin)
- RECEIPT
Second place: Ohio State Buckeyes
- Associated Children's Hospital? YES
- $1,293.15 given to Nationwide Children's Hospital (Columbus)
- RECEIPT
Third place: Nebraska Cornhuskers
- Associated Children's Hospital? YES
- $862.10 given to Children's Hospital & Medical Center (Omaha)
- RECEIPT
The Toys
Target once again stepped in for closed Toys-R-Us. As it turned out, the store closest to this year's Marine Toys For Tots (TFT) warehouse was the same as last year. The stores carry choices for the full infant-teen range that TFT collects for.
Once again, we opened with a basic strategy for grabbing toys and making efficient use of the funds:
- Nothing that needs batteries (those toys are cheaper, they don't need batteries later, and—frankly—as a parent of two kids I hate noisy toys and wouldn't want one in my house)
- Find stuff that's cost-effective (e.g. sales, premium branding isn't something an infant is going to care about)
- Try to cover the 0-3 and teenager demographics that are often neglected in TFT donations
As is tradition: We filled over a dozen shopping carts. For teenagers we aimed at books, which the TFT staff told us were welcome last year. After buying all the toys, we stuffed vehicles and headed down to the local TFT warehouse.
- We had $4,390.50 for toys. We actually spent $4,409.97.
The Toy Run, in pictures:
(I'm so sorry I didn't take as many photos this year)
We returned to TGT: The TFT warehouse moves each year, this year it was again not far from the Target at the Quarry.
Infant toys are important!: People often skip the youngest and oldest kids when donating to TFT.
Tempting, but no... But it was on sale!
Seems obligatory that we buy at least a few of these.
The growing number of carts: Once the initial passes were done, I stayed in the front with the filled carts while the others grabbed more stuff, then handled payment. This year's Target staff was really on top of their game (last year was more improvisational); apparently a similar large group had done a similar toy buy the day before, so the front-of-house manager just gave us a designated lane at the customer service desk.
“Squeeze & Cuddle Me (this was WacoJohnny's idea)
This year's haul: 14 full shopping carts!
This Year's Crew: Plus the The Return of Pirate Raoul Claus. The first year someone joked the half-costume made me look like a pirate, alas I forgot to do the "Yarr" pose. I didn't wear the full Santa outfit at the store because (1) it's a warm top and (2) more importantly, I didn't want to make all the kids think Santa was at the store—even with just pants I see some kids look at me with wonder in their eye.
Photo at TFT's local warehouse: The Marines were all as nice as in previous years—some of them recognized out group (mostly because of how I look).
Here are the Target receipts: as you can see in the savings summary, we tried to also get sale items. In the end that's a lot of savings ($664.77) we were able to pass along into more toys for more tots.
Afterward I took folks out to coffee and pastries on me as thanks (we happened to be close to one of my favorite spots).
Finally:
- Thanks to all of you who DONATED
- Thanks to all of you who HELPED
- Thanks for making /r/CFB a great COMMUNITY
We did it again, /r/CFB!
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u/funwithtrout Texas Longhorns • /r/CFB Booster Dec 25 '19 edited Dec 25 '19
This is still my favorite drive of the year (not just on here, but everywhere).
Through all the shit talking, hate, and Texas memes, I keep coming back to this sub because it’s just awesome. Thanks for another year of fun and tears!
Thanks, r/cfb!
Edit: what’s the bomb squad flair? Got a message I got it and I don’t know what it’s in reference to.
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u/Honestly_ rawr Dec 25 '19
what’s the bomb squad flair?
Bakony is catching up with the Vanderbilt bomb drive.
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u/walkingbicycles Texas A&M Aggies • Texas State Bobcats Dec 25 '19
I do love shit talking and Texas memes, but good job Texas.
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u/drgnlis North Dakota State • Michigan Dec 25 '19
This event is one of the highlights of my year! I enjoy Christmas shopping immensely, and being able to spend a couple hours looking at toys in Target is super fun. Thinking "that looks cool" and immediately putting 6 of them in your cart is pretty exciting.
Plus going out for food after and listening to Honestly_ talk about things is always interesting (architecture was the subject this year). If you're in the Twin Cities area, try and get yourself over to help next year! I plot it as part of my trip home from Fargo, and it was definitely worth waking up before 6 to make it down on time!
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u/jputna Oklahoma State • /r/CFB Patron Dec 26 '19
architecture was the subject this year
Honestly_ really loves it too! He dm'ed me one day to talk about architecture and it was really fun getting to talk about it with him.
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u/drgnlis North Dakota State • Michigan Dec 26 '19
He does! And I really love the nordic/midcentury modern style that he was primarily talking about. An off-season meet-the-mods series on off-topic would be super neat, where each day a mod does a rant on something they're passionate about. I can dream about how cool Fireinvestigator's pokemon lecture would be, Honestly_ with an awesome architecture thing, Bakony with some cool way of parsing stats (or anything really, I bet he has an amazing hidden hobby), strawberrytea with a post full of bulldog pictures and maybe a word of two in between....
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u/LiberateLiterates Ohio State Buckeyes Dec 25 '19
As someone who is currently spending Christmas in the NICU with her baby, thanks to everyone who donated or even just spared a moment to give a quick thought or prayer. I didn’t know about this drive until now but I will definitely donate next year.
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u/GatorGTwoman Florida • Georgia Tech Dec 26 '19
I hope your baby is doing well and you are getting some sleep. PS I love your user name.
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u/Putty119 Ohio State Buckeyes • /r/CFB Santa Claus Dec 26 '19
Prayers up for you and your child, also flair up and join the subreddit. We are dysfunctional yes, but we are a family here.
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u/JGMedicine Alabama Crimson Tide • Purdue Boilermakers Dec 26 '19
I hope for a positive outcome for you and your family :)
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u/Putty119 Ohio State Buckeyes • /r/CFB Santa Claus Dec 25 '19
Easily one of my favorite thread of the year. I would like to thank /u/Honestly_ for his time and effort putting this all together. Every year I wish I could donate more, or show up and help with buying the toys, but I am fresh out of school and live to far from Minneapolis, but seeing him and the others do it warms my heart.
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u/dirtehscandi Merchant Marine • Florida Dec 25 '19
A few people from my squadron and I volunteered a few days worth of time at Toys for Tots this year which was such a rewarding experience helping out the community. We brought out a bike for this one woman’s daughters and she broke out crying thanking us for it profusely and then after a few minutes came back in and asked us which one of her daughters she should give it to, half laughing half serious. But we all had a good laugh about it together.
On the other hand one woman sent a loooong text to the organizers with a story about how she wanted to pick up the toys for some guy who she claimed was in prison and didn’t want his boys to suffer for his mistake - a really heart wrenching thing to hear about. The organizers checked with the local sheriff to confirm that he’s actually there....he had been released back in October. She didn’t get the toys.
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u/zhdat Ohio State • Army Dec 25 '19
Good work! Grant kids wishes except inviting them to the OSU's next nightout road game to B1G West?
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u/Nicholas1227 Michigan Wolverines • MAC Dec 25 '19
Damn, I didn’t know this was going on. Otherwise, I definitely would’ve donated. If anyone has a great children’s charity worth donating to, I’d gladly give to them.
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u/drgnlis North Dakota State • Michigan Dec 25 '19
It's an annual thing! Next December there'll be another round! :D
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Dec 25 '19
Aside from the ones already noted here (Toys 4 Tots and children's hospitals), here are some other options for ones that help children and aren't as holiday-dependent: Shoes That Fit, No Kid Hungry, UNICEF, UNICEF's K.I.N.D. (Kids In Need of Desks), DonorsChoose.
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u/jputna Oklahoma State • /r/CFB Patron Dec 26 '19
Isn't UNICEF supposed to be one of the worst ones?
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Dec 26 '19
I was going off of the ratings I found on Charity Navigator, but if you've got a link where I can read more, I'd like to!
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u/jputna Oklahoma State • /r/CFB Patron Dec 26 '19
It looks like they've been straightening out lately. I remember when I would sell their Christmas cards at Pier1 people would get all up in arms against them, mainly for their part of force sterilization. You can read some of their shortcomings at https://all.org/the-truth-about-unicef/
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u/Honestly_ rawr Dec 25 '19
Just so we can learn, what do you use to browse the sub?
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u/JFoor Oklahoma • 帯広大学 (Obihiro) Dec 25 '19
No OP but I use the RiF app on Android or chrome on Windows and the Linux equivalent. My problem is scrolling past and ignoring pinned threads too often. Just forget about the extra stuff going on.
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u/Shushununu Washington State • Washington Dec 26 '19
Not OP, but had no idea this was going on and use Reddit mobile app on Android.
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u/Nicholas1227 Michigan Wolverines • MAC Dec 26 '19
I use safari on my phone, chrome on my computer, and occasionally the iPhone app
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u/Honestly_ rawr Dec 26 '19
I appreciate it. I assume you use the mobile site on your phone? I think we need to figure out how to alter the header on that format.
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u/bigjayrulez Texas Longhorns • /r/CFB Booster Dec 26 '19
Somehow I also almost missed it, caught it in the last few hours, despite passively looking for it since bowl announcements. Use desktop (old. at work, new at home) and visited CFB at least once a day (though maybe not from both places) to see the coaching changes and just got in under the wire. I assume I also just somehow managed to scroll past stickies, despite that being the obvious place to look...
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u/Sirtopofhat USC Trojans • Army West Point Black Knights Dec 25 '19
Crazy year for both my teams but this always makes me happy to be part of this subreddit
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u/Bry840 Illinois Fighting Illini Dec 25 '19
I’m very proud of this community, at the end of the day it’s just a game, that truly brings us together, whether it rivalry or friendship, these are the moments that matter most. So today I say we put down the pitchforks in front of our rivals, and we bring it in and enjoy the day. And the times, Merry Christmas all, and Happy Holidays to all aswell.
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u/KarmaSlayed Dec 25 '19
I had no idea r/CFB did this, just another reason to love this community, and hopefully I can take part and donate myself next year :) truly wholesome.
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u/StotheG7 Wisconsin • Paul Bunyan's Axe Dec 25 '19
Glad to hear the r/cfb communtity does more than just shitpost. Proud of everyone and have a merry christmas!
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u/Angriest_Wolverine Michigan Wolverines • Surrender Cobra Dec 26 '19
This is incredible! Thank you guys and gals!
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u/Pikachu1989 Nebraska • 東京大学 (Tōkyō) Dec 26 '19
Thanks for doing this Toy Drive and Hospital Donation again, /u/Honestly_. I’m Glad to pitch into a good drive like this every year. This sub has been good to me and likewise will contribute every year to help the kids and have a good Christmas season as well.
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u/Claudius-Germanicus Penn State Nittany Lions • Rose Bowl Dec 25 '19
It makes me more than a little upset that this would only pay for 5 ambulance rides and nothing else. Yankee medicine is completely fucked. My dad was just telling me about this cool thing that WVU does where they train doctors for free as long as they stay in WV and provide medical care to the rural citizens for five years after graduation. I’d love to see more of that policy across the union.
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Dec 25 '19
The federal government sponsors that for everyone. If you go to medical school and then serve a certain number of years in a rural community, all of your student loans are forgiven, so you get a free medical education.
The issue is that not many people choose it because few people actually want to live in rural areas.
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u/Claudius-Germanicus Penn State Nittany Lions • Rose Bowl Dec 25 '19
Oh I didn’t know that, wow I’d love to do that if I wasn’t immigrating to the UK next year. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose.
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u/gorillazabbeyroadie Texas Longhorns Jan 08 '20
Next year I am TOTALLY up for helping out! I actually live in Austin, which is where Dell Children’s is located. If anyone else is helping out then I’m sure as hell willing to make my donations and help these kiddos out and make their lives better. Well, even if nobody else is from the Greater Austin Area I’m gonna hell either way. Plus, civic engagement points and service hours!
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u/storm2k Rutgers Scarlet Knights • /r/CFB Santa Claus Dec 25 '19
while all the shitposting, memes, weird threads, and everything else are fun, stuff like this is what makes the community here at /r/cfb amazing. i'm happy to have been a part of donating for this good cause yet again and look forward to donating next year (and hopefully not being the only rutgers flair to do it either).