Get Involved & Encourage Kids to Get Active with a SIMPLE Service Project

Justin and I sat out on the porch yesterday and watched the kids play.  As usual, we were the only family in the neighborhood outside.  Our neighbors across the street have grown children, but they spend more time outside than anyone else on the street other than us.  We talk about this often because we’ve lived here over 2 years and we rarely see other families outdoors.  As much as I enjoy technology, my computer, and blogging- I want my children to grow up being KIDS and playing outside, not glued to the TV, iPod, computer, etc.

That is just one of the reasons I wanted to take part in the Champions for Kids project.  For my SIMPLE Service Project, I am focusing on little kids- getting them active, providing outdoor toys and equipment, AND supplying them with Odwalla juice for snack time.

We are planning to spend a lot of time at the river and campground with my parents this year.  Bryson has already made some friends and he’ll tell anyone who is willing to listen about them.  They love to play in the sand and in the water together.  A couple weeks ago, the bigger kids took Bryson out on their paddle boat and he was so excited!

For my project, I went to Walmart to purchase supplies for the children at our campground to play and have fun with all year long.  Because I want to gear this toward little children, I checked out the selection of outdoor items in the toy aisle.  The selection didn’t let me down and we found so many fun toys for the kids!  We also had to purchase a new life jacket for Bella as we can’t seem to find the one we used when Bryson was her age.  Walmart had new styles in stock and we found one that was Coast Guard approved and comfortable for her.  I created a Google+ album with our full shopping trip and details, so if you want a sneak peek at our purchases, check it out.

 After we loaded our shopping cart with outdoor toys and games, we went over to the grocery aisles to find Odwalla juice.  With all of their time spent in the sun playing, the kids will definitely take plenty of snack breaks!  We’ve never purchased Odwalla products and it took a while to hunt them down.  We looked on every juice aisle and had almost given up when I decided to check the refrigerated juices.  Whadya know!?  There they were!  I’ll remember from now on that they are with the orange juice.

 Walmart didn’t have a couple flavors in stock, so we opted to buy one of each for starters.  We looked for a larger quantity (like a 6 pack or a case) but they weren’t available at our store.  Justin is interested in them now that he saw all of the benefits Odwalla offers- the word “Protein” caught his eye immediately!  Mango Protein is a soy protein shake and the Citrus C is a premium fruit smooth blend- YUM!

He really wanted to try the larger chocolate drink by Odwalla, but after attempting to purchase it, I remembered that it had been voluntarily recalled by Odwalla.  Walmart had not received that memo yet, so when our cashier scanned the drink, it completely shut the register down.  It was only after a manager and then another manager came over that I remembered the product had been recalled due to the possible presence of nuts in the drink.  I pulled up the website, showed it to the manager, and she immediately called for someone to go pull the products off the shelf.  We ended up having to move registers and check-out took over 30 minutes.  Whew- things like that ONLY happen to me!  LOL  Hopefully they’ll get the issue worked out, because my husband really wants to try the drink.

You can find Champions for Kids on Facebook and Twitter.   If you choose to get involved in the #OdwallaCFK project and do your own SIMPLE Service project, please let me know.  I’ll share a post next week detailing what we bought and how we are using the items to get kids active and be involved in our community.

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™. #CBias #SocialFabric  All thoughts and opinions remain my own.  Honesty is my ONLY policy.