A friend of mine came up with a great idea to have those of us in our mom’s group get together with clothes and toys our kids had outgrown and swap them. She had seen this on a show, and thought it would work well for our group. The idea was to have snacks, chit chat, and swap out our kids boring stuff for new stuff. Then anything that was left over would be donated to charity. Needless to say it was rather brilliant.

We had nine mom’s who gathered items their children were no longer interested in or could no longer fit, which left a large selection to pick through. It was ideal for the moms and kids as we were given an opportunity to get rid of the unused collections gathering dust, and the kids felt like they had all new toys to play with. The true beauty of it being a swap, is that you were not adding to an already crowded toy box or closet, simple trading it. I believe just about everyone walked away with some cute picks for there little one’s or family members, and the enormous bundle of left overs was taken to the local homeless shelter.

I wanted to blog about this because when I tried looking up ideas before hosting, I came up empty handed. Personally this event saved me a bundle since my daughter gathered a small wardrobe for the winter. Plus I was able to get some stuff out of the house and organize the toy box which was packed to the top. The entire event was a win win as about ten enormous bags of suitable children’s clothes and toys were taken to children in need. Hopefully this will be an idea which spreads.