Bag It Forward With Elmer’s

For the 3rd year in a row I am proud to take part in the “Bag It Forward” campaign. I participated two years ago in the virtual campaign and last year donated a bag full of school supplies to a little girl whose family had lost their home. This year I chose to “Bag It Forward” to my nephew, Camden, who is headed to Kindergarten. I felt like it would really help my brother and his family by not having to stress about the cost and time of having to go get school supplies.

I headed to Walmart with the boys to pick up school supplies. I had the list of everything Camden needed and boy was it a long list! I don’t remember needing nearly as much of those things when I was younger. When we walked in the door we easily found the back to school section because it was in the front aisles.

I love that Walmart has a school supply list holder. It’s so convenient for parents to easily ensure they are buying the supplies that their kids actually need and not just what they think they need. I read the information about the 1st Day app and excitingly downloaded it. What a fun way to document the boys first day of school and easily help give back to others!

One thing my mom told me that Camden really wanted was a Transformers backpack and lunchbox. I found backpacks for only $10 and I thought this was a great find because I had just spent $19 on the backpacks I purchased for Jacob and Lucas at another store.

Jacob loved helping me find the supplies we needed.

Lucas also enjoyed helping mommy shop. He was very excited when I put these watercolors in the cart {I think he thought they were for him!}

After I had gotten most of the school supplies on Camden’s list we head to the toy aisle. Jacob always asks me, “mommy, I look with my eyes?” and circles his fingers into glasses. It’s so cute that I just can’t resist his request! On our way there we saw a great display with school supply kits in it.

Pre-made school supply kits! What a great idea. And for $20 with over $30 worth of coupons in it the price can’t be beat when it’s purchased to give to someone in need. I thought of the supplies on the list that I still needed because they were out of stock and added one of these bags to my cart.

After we looked at the toys we looked at the clearance shirts. I thought it would be nice to get a shirt for Camden to wear on his first day of school. We then picked up the rest of the things we needed and headed for the checkout lines. {You can see more pictures from my shopping trip in my Google+ story}

We headed right from Walmart to my mom’s house for our playdate with the boys’ cousins. Thankfully the kids napped on the way there. Once we got to my mom’s house we surprised Camden with all his school supplies.

My nephew was so excited to see that he got the backpack he was hoping to. I also think he won’t need any school supplies throughout the year because we even got him some backup supplies!

Afterwards, the children sat down to do a craft. I had brought my Elmer’s glue, craft sticks, superhero stickers, and letter stickers so the children could decorate picture frames.

Maddie, Camden, and Jacob enjoyed decorating their frames. Maddie and Camden went crazy with the stickers while Jacob kept it simple with just his name on it.

I love how Maddie’s turned out!

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Do you have someone in your life who could use help getting the school supplies they need? It’s as simple as heading to Walmart and picking up a prepackaged bag of supplies while you do your own back to school shopping. I also created a list on list.ly with my top 10 school supplies young kids need.

Another easy way to give back to others is by using the 1st Day app. It can be downloaded from the iTunes store,  Google Play and from the website www.the1stday.com. This application was especially created for parents to use on their children’s first day of school. It makes it easy to organize the pictures and share them with friends and loved ones. For every photo uploaded, Elmer’s will donate one product to The Kids in Need Foundation (up to 200,000 products). I love that giving back is as simple as uploading photos of my children on their first day of school which is something that I was going to do anyway.

See how others are bagging it forward on Pinterest.

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(Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and and Elmer’s.  #BagItForward #CBias #SocialFabric )