Coupons, Discounts and Free Stuff… LOVE!
I love high quality stuff that is super efficient and serves a specific purpose. I am not much for trinkets and frills. What’s more, is I love a great price. I often like to consider a big purchase in how many hours I would have to work after taxes to get it. Is it really worth it? If you are a Dave Ramsey fan, you would say that I am the NERD. I take it as a compliment and use it to our advantage.
Sharing the same mindset at Embrace Compassion has really helped us. We must use every dollar wisely entrusted to us for a purpose. We must see results. And what’s more, we must add other value to the $ money given to us to really make it go far. I thought it might be fun to give you a peak into our “nerdy” penny pinching, and extreme generosity from our volunteers just from December.
When we pinch our pennies and God multiplies the gifts like loaves and fishes, every little bit goes so far!!!
We were given extremely generous sponsorship gifts to host the Christmas parties by Immix Law Group and the Alibi Restaurant so that 100% of our gifts the nights of the events go to our programs. We took those gifts and stretched them….
We purchased paper and envelopes and stamps… our AMAZING team under the volunteer supervision of Lisa Thoele produced our beautiful invites and letters…design, some of our copy expenses, stuffing, stamping, writing, database management etc were all put together by volunteers.
Michael Schmidt has given countless hours to design and maintain and continually update our website and our systems. Thousands of dollars squeezed from a big heart. Another volunteer maximizing our gifts.
Our little office space, utilities and the use of wonderful color printer…all donated for the last three years.
Discount shopper gurus continually watch for the best deals, like three $68 sewing machines that should have been $200 purchased on “Black Friday” and then an employee discount thanks to Shana Reece’s mom.
What about products that are awesome given at a deep discount like over $8000 in solar given to us for a third of the cost, thanks to GoalZero and their desire to bless our community.
And then there is free stuff like our Leatherman knives given to us, just because for our moms. I love this!
Coupons saved and used so we could get the perfect shelving at Home Depot and at more coupons at Michaels and Croc shoes. LOVE THE COUPONS. Suzanne found a coupon and took her receipt back to the store just to give us a few more dollars and Nicole and Mick both have saved their Michael’s coupons to use on things we have needed.
Shana Reece donates her accounting skills…incredible talent in multiple ways behind the scenes that allows our dollars to be stretched so far. Thousands of dollars of her time, that truly is priceless because her time is not for sale, only as a gift to us, because she believes.
Anna went shopping for our Bright Spots and scored big and brought Origami books for our kids that were donated to her. Jennifer Shuggart has been sewing and sewing and sewing, little leggings and needed items.
The most extravagant cookies were made for our event by our friends, I mean absolutely beautiful and delicious, stretching our dollars because we did not have to pay a penny. Thank you to Nicole Callen for coordinating them…. and then our gorgeous venue was donated thanks to the Putnam’s opening their home! Don’t forget the clean up crew who pushed through to the end! AND we are looking forward to this coming weekend at the Butler’s home.
We saved coupons and gift card give backs from the Container store to purchase extra shelving and watched for sales at REI for a couple more needed bags for traveling. At the fragrence counter at Macy’s a salesperson shared tiny bottles of perfume with me as I shared our story of our moms.
Vivianne carefully handpicked fabric to mail to her sister who sewed headscarves for each of our mamas. Gorgeous!
Like new clothing has been donated to us from estate sales, kiddos growing out of clothing and friends like Rosslynn who brought us jeans. We only have to pay for the cost to take them on the airplane, that is it!
Rachel Coggins, a high school student, set up at a Christmas Bazaar and the Red Sled donated the space to sell some of our treasures.
Friends helped watch friends’ kids to give moms time to share.
Tammy Fraser worked with her mom to put together 30 beautiful hand crafted blankets to take for our kiddos!
Nichole and her family sold mistletoe on their farm, a true labor of LOVE to give toward a project.
Kids like Micah and Phoebee share the story of the village at school at the Christmas fair. Wow!
I’m sure when Shana see’s this post, she will carefully begin to strategically produce a formula and spreadsheet that will soon allow us to say, for every $1 that is donated… we produce $X dollars of blessing! She is just super cool like that! Until then, please know that we are so careful and we love to maximize each and every gift. We treasure your trust and love to give back with pictures and stories of the difference in lives that your gifts make!
So many details made possible by incredible people giving of themselves.
Your gifts get stretched SO FAR!
Misty, Shana, Anna, Amy, Mick, Shane, Lisa, Michael, Nicole, Vivianne, Tegan, Kaytlynn,
Jennifer S., Suzanne, Rachel, Nancy, Tammy, Cassie, Rebecca, Carmen, Alex, Bryan and Dee,
Renee, Phoebee, Micah, Nichole, Kristi, Kimberly and Aser
Time given and gifts multiplied just in December…
You are Embrace Compassion and YOU make us great!