#RAZ2011 Random Acts of Zhu – Shenandoah Page One

I was born and raised in Shenandoah, VA…as was my dad and so are my kids. I love where we live and wouldn’t change it for the world. So when I got chosen to be one of the bloggers to participate in Random Acts of Zhu (RAZ) 2011, I knew I wanted to do something within Shenandoah.

Cepia, LLC sent me a LOT of Zhu Zhu product to hand out to a charity of my choice. I was thrilled with the response I got on my personal Facebook page when I mentioned I was looking for someplace to donate the toys (my original idea didn’t work out)…I had posted this picture the day the shipment come in:

I was NOT expecting 96 boxes to arrive...so we just piled them up against the wall (and up to the ceiling) and hoped I would get them donated quickly lol.

A friend of mine, Teresa,  mentioned Page One and that their Christmas party was the following weekend…her husband’s (who is also a friend of the family) mom volunteered at Page One and she would see if they could use them. Within a short amount of time it was a done deal, I would be donating the Zhu-Zhu products to Page One. When I looked at the shipping list, I saw I had enough Zhu-Zhu pets for 24 kids and could give each of those 24 kids 12+ track/accessories!!!! Within an hour or so we (Teresa and another friend on Facebook that I went to high school with, Brittany) were figuring out when (and how) we could take the boxes to the church the party was being held at and how they would be handed out. Teresa said her and her husband could come get them since they have a truck and would help me take them to the church…well Thursday night this is how many there was loading up their truck and van (the boxes filled BOTH the van and truck as full as they would go!)

There was a total of 5 people loading up the boxes, Jeff, Teresa, Kirk (Teresa's husband) and their 2 daughters.

While Jeff stayed here with the kids, I got in my van and went to the church to help organize everything and get it all ready for Saturday. When we arrived, there was people there and they also helped unload the boxes for us…it made it a LOT faster lol.

Theresa and Kirk's daughters (Marina and Buggy) with all the boxes in the church.

Once they were all in the church, they stuck around and helped me open every single one of those boxes and make 24 piles of toys (each one identical with the number of everything) and it wasn’t exactly easy…we ran out of boxes that were big enough…and got mixed up on a few things…but in the end we managed to get 24 evenly packed boxes!

Opening and sorting everything...then breaking down the boxes. This is Teresa, Brittany, Marina and Buggy.

SOME of the packed boxes (we had a total of 24)

Kirk breaking down the boxes at the end (broken down boxes were taken to the recycling center and not just thrown away!)

In the end, this is what each child would get:

This is what **1** child would get!

It includes a Kung Zhu hamster, 3 armor, 2 vehicles, 2 tube track things, and 3 rooms (2 different ones) and a huge battle arena (which is on the bottom in the back and you can’t see lol)

I was so happy to see how everyone come together to get this done, it took the 6 of us a little over an hour to open and organize everything and they were all happy to help!

When Saturday come, I made sure the kids knew we were giving toys to kids who didn’t have as many toys as they do. Jeffery and Jaylin understood and was excited to see other kids and give them toys (even though when the time came, they ended up going to the church’s playroom…they knew why we were there)

This is one of the Page One volunteers, Sue, who helped Brittany and I hand out the toys.

I don’t have words to express how happy it made me to see the kids’ faces when they saw how much they were getting…and the parents not knowing what to say when they were handed a huge box packed full of stuff. After talking to Brittany who had the list of families and the ages of their kids…we agreed to give each family that had a child over the age of 5 one of the boxes and we had just enough for those!

Brittany and Sue giving a box to a little boy (and my Jaxon standing there watching...he has a Blue's Clue on his forehead from the 7-11 grand opening we went to before the party lol)

It was nice to help out 24 families this Christmas season! It’s better to give than to receive and I honestly feel that now…I didn’t realize how good it would feel to give all that out.

Before we finished giving out the toys, they wanted a picture of me with the table that showed what each box contained (I had 3 sets set up on a table as a display) so I guess I could post one of those

The volunteers at Page One thanked me a million times…So I pass that on to Cepia, LLC…Thank you for making the Christmas for 24 Shenandoah families a little bit brighter!

Also, thank you to everyone who helped me when they didn’t have to, Teresa, Kirk, Marina, Buggy, Brittany and Sue. I don’t think I could have done this without them! Oh, and I can’t forget Jeff…when FedEx knocked on my door and told me he had 96 boxes for me, I had to wake Jeff up (he’s on night shift) and he carried all the boxes in, then a few days later he carried them back out to the sidewalk waiting for Kirk and Teresa…then helped put them in the truck and van! This is from a guy who does nothing but lift boxes at work…but he didn’t complain once! <3 Thank you Jeff! Also thank you to everyone who was at the church and helped us unload the boxes and take them in for us.

Disclosure: Cepia, LLC sent products for me to donate to a charity of my choice. All opinions in this post are my own and not influenced by anyone or anything.