Box tops For Education Marketplace

I am about 3/4th of the way done my Christmas shopping and until yesterday, I hadn't set foot in a single store.  Instead, this year, I decided that the wise thing to do would be to forgo dragging two kids through the mall in favor of shopping online.  Combine that with the plethora of free shipping deals out there, and our house has been a UPS hotspot for the last month.

One of the places I've been feeling pretty awesome shopping through is the Box Tops For Education Marketplace.  Box Tops for Education is an awesome program started to help schools.  Each year, schools are eligible to receive up to $60,000 from the program through collecting box tops from eligible food, buying books from their "Reading Room" and through shopping at the Box Tops Marketplace.

The Market Place is basically a gateway with a list of over 70 stores, such as Old Navy, Barns and Noble, JC Penny, Oriental Trading Company, Pet Meds, Kohls, etc.  These are stores many of us would already shop and perhaps shop on a regular basis. 

I shopped for a chunk of my Christmas gifts through the Marketplace this year and was pleasantly surprised at how easy the process was.  All you do is create an account and chose the school you'd like to benefit.  Then you go to their main page and click on the store you'd like to shop and it'll redirect you to that site.  Shop away and without any further action from you, a portion of your purchase price will be donated to the school of your choice.  Nice, eh?

It's a great way to do a little good this holiday season with VERY little effort.

If you don't have kids in school, consider chosing a neigborhood school or the school of a family member.  You can be grandmom in California and chose your grandson's school in Philidelphia. 

I chose the school where I teach and I've been encouraging others to do the same.  If enough people do that, you can be responsible for a sizable check sent to your chosen school.  Makes me feel good :)

On the left hand side of the site, you can see the current deals from some Box Tops vendors.  Contribution amounts range from 1% to 20%.  Each of the vendors lists their contribution amount on the Marketplace main page.

There's no reason not to try it out if you're going to shop there anyway!  Take a few seconds and sign up and do some good for a community near you.