The Northern Birthday Box Project
Have you ever been walking through the grocery store and found that cake mixes and icing were on sale for 1$ each and next thing you knew you were home baking a cake for no particular occasion? Well, consider yourself lucky, because in more remote areas that same cake mix can cost upwards of 10$ and the icing 15$ or more! With prices like that you would think twice about baking an any day cake, and for those who could not afford it birthdays would not be the same. I mean, who doesn’t want to blow out the candles on their birthday cake and make a wish?
And this is where the Northern Birthday Box Project comes in!
A friend participated with her children and was talking about it so I took a look and found this description on their Facebook page:
The only issue I faced during this process was with Canada Post!
As soon as I received the details of the child I went out and purchased all of her requested items along with the medium sized pre-paid box from Canada Post. This lets you ship up to 5kg of stuff anywhere across Canada for a flat rate. Because shipping takes forever to these remote regions (we were given Iqualuit) I made sure to get the box out exactly 5 weeks in advance so as not to disappoint. So, imagine my surprise when I get a delivery notification only 4 days later! I looked at it more closely only to realize that they had shipped the box to my own address! Which, by the way, is a 15-minute walk from the post office so I don’t understand how it took so long to get there but that’s beside the point.
Anyhow, the next day I went back to the post office, box in hand, and explained what had happened. The employee stated that this was not the first time and it has happened more often than she felt comfortable admitting. She very clearly, in black sharpie, wrote “TO” and ”FROM” across the package and so far… one week later… it has not come back so I am hoping that it is safely on it’s way!
I plan to do this at least once a year from now on, maybe one for each of our birthdays as we don’t need anything ourselves. I encourage you to check them out as well and make it a family project. Are you a teacher? Make it a classroom project. It’s a fun way to teach your kids about Canada, kindness and giving as a whole. Or, if you want to participate but don’t have the time or patience for it all, let me know and we can work something out.
To read more about the Northern Birthday Box Project, check out these articles:
And this is where the Northern Birthday Box Project comes in!
A friend participated with her children and was talking about it so I took a look and found this description on their Facebook page:
This page was created to assist in bringing birthday fun to children aged 1-17, living in remote and Northern Canada. Completed birthday applications must be submitted at least 2 months before the child's birthday in order to qualify for a box. Each child is matched with a sponsor who gets the name, age, gender and party preferences of the birthday child. Boxes include cake mix, icing, and a few birthday decorations. The sponsor shops and ships directly to the child's family. All costs are covered by the sponsor, including shipping.With my birthday coming up at the time I knew it was the perfect chance to ask everyone for donations towards sending a box of my own in lieu of gifts for myself. My mom actually gave me 100$ so this covered my first sponsor with some money leftover for the next.
The only issue I faced during this process was with Canada Post!
As soon as I received the details of the child I went out and purchased all of her requested items along with the medium sized pre-paid box from Canada Post. This lets you ship up to 5kg of stuff anywhere across Canada for a flat rate. Because shipping takes forever to these remote regions (we were given Iqualuit) I made sure to get the box out exactly 5 weeks in advance so as not to disappoint. So, imagine my surprise when I get a delivery notification only 4 days later! I looked at it more closely only to realize that they had shipped the box to my own address! Which, by the way, is a 15-minute walk from the post office so I don’t understand how it took so long to get there but that’s beside the point.
Anyhow, the next day I went back to the post office, box in hand, and explained what had happened. The employee stated that this was not the first time and it has happened more often than she felt comfortable admitting. She very clearly, in black sharpie, wrote “TO” and ”FROM” across the package and so far… one week later… it has not come back so I am hoping that it is safely on it’s way!
I plan to do this at least once a year from now on, maybe one for each of our birthdays as we don’t need anything ourselves. I encourage you to check them out as well and make it a family project. Are you a teacher? Make it a classroom project. It’s a fun way to teach your kids about Canada, kindness and giving as a whole. Or, if you want to participate but don’t have the time or patience for it all, let me know and we can work something out.
To read more about the Northern Birthday Box Project, check out these articles:
- The High Cost Of Food In Nunavut Should Shock All Canadians – Huffington Post
- Northern Birthday Box Project - That British Woman
- The Northern Birthday Box Project - Wellington and Grey
- Facebook groups helps southern sponsors spread birthday cheer to northern families – CBC News
- Birthday boxes ship party fun to Northern communities – Local Love
Comments
Post a Comment