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What Are You Doing To Smile On Another?
Published Wednesday, December 3, 2008 by Champions Centre in Champions Foundation, Christmas, generosityRight now, our society is facing major economic challenges that are hitting close to home. Although budgets may be tight, our desires to be generous and make a difference have not diminished. We know that God's people want to help people in need, but may be struggling to figure out how to do that while their own funds might be more limited this year than in the past. The Champions Centre team decided to take this challenge head-on.
Every year, Champions Centre gives generously to people in need and partners financially with organizations that are making a difference in our local and global communities. This Christmas, we did things a little differently... Actually, it's quite the opposite of "little." We made Champions Centre history.
During weekend services on November 22 and 23, Pastor Kevin Gerald launched the Smile On Another campaign. He asked that one member of each household stand and receive an envelope and in each one was an amount of cash, or "seed money" as Pastor Kevin called it. He challenged each person to take their "seed money" and find a creative way to multiply it, then bring it back to services on December 20 and 21. All funds received will be directed to Champions Foundation and be used to resource its many local and international initiatives. In one weekend, Champions Centre invested approximately $30,000 cash in good faith to its members and attendees.
We're already hearing great stories about how people are multiplying their "seed money" for Champions Foundation, and we've been impressed with the resourcefulness and ingenuity of ideas. So, the question is... What are you doing with your Smile On Another "seed money?"
Leave a comment to let others know what you're doing and help jumpstart their own creativity for how they can multiply their "seed money."
Oh, and by the way... If you missed services on the 22nd and 23rd, but still want to participate in the Smile On Another campaign, it's not too late! You can start with your own amount of "seed money" and use your imagination and unique skills to multiply it and bring it with you to services on December 20 and 21.
Ok, I'll go first. :) This fall I purchased a box of Fuji apples from a Lions Club fund raiser. So now what do I do with a 30 pound box of really delicious apples?! Here's what I did.... These apples have been washed, cored, sliced and spiced just right with cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. I've packed and frozen them in one gallon zip lock freezer bags. They'll be great for apple pie, apple crisp, fried apples or just mix them with your morning hot cereal. Yum! I'm selling the generously filled gallon size bags for $10 a piece. If you'd like to get in on this yummy goodness, send me an email with APPLES in the subject line. My email address is kerrigs03@yahoo.com
Here are a few stories and ideas that I have received.
We received the envelope with $500.00 in it. We racked our brains in many ways to determine the most efficient way to increase this “talent”, and finally decided on this:
I have an Aunt in West Texas that writes children’s books. She sold me 100 personally autographed books for $5 a piece ($2 below her wholesale price). My dad owns a shipping business in west Texas also, so he is sending me the books at his cost. We will be selling them for $10 each which will double the investment. There is a chance that we will be able to move through the 100 fairly quickly. If this happens my aunt is willing to offer the same deal again.
After unsuccessfully attempting to come up with a unique and creative idea, we finally decided to use what was "in our hands", our"relationships".
We know a lot of people in the car business, both owners and sales people, so we approached an owner of a local used car lot to see if he would be willing to sell us a car for the amount of money we had so that we could sell it for more and donate the money to Champions Foundation.
He cheerfully gave us a 2001 Hyundai worth 40-50 times the money we received. The car was transferred into our name and is currently in our possession.
the monies received from Champions Foundation will be invested in advertisement needed to sell the car on Craigs list and in the TNT last weekend!
We received $20 from the Kingdom Builder's breakfast. I also gathered another $20 from my wife's sister and her husband. I put together a meatloaf luncheon at work to benefit Champions Foundation. It was a GREAT success!
My father-in-law cooked the luncheon. I raised $200...
To date I have a total of $250! that's over 1000% from the original $20! I will continue to find ways to increase this amount and expect the windows of Heaven to be open over my life, my family, my church and my community! I got that saying from the Tithe declaration which I will never forget.
Thank You Pastor for believing and entrusting me with your talents.
Seed, Seed, Seed, Seed, Seed......you get the picture
PS my sister-in-law and her husband are now planning a similar luncheon at their work.
At mustard seed market and deli we did not open the envelopes. We are selling raffle tickets for 1.00 per chance to win the envelope in each store. As of November 12 we have raised $904 dollars so far.
I heard about one family: they took the amount of money they received in their envelope and went out to buy the tools and supplies needed to hang Christmas lights. They have been going around to their neighborhood asking people to donate money to Champions Foundation and they will hang they're Christmas lights for them... great idea!
Another couple I heard about got $100 in their envelope - they decided to host a fun evening at their house and invited friends and co-workers who do not currently attend Champions Centre.
They used the money to buy food and asked a few people to donate their time for music and serving. They raised over $1200 for Champions Foundation! How cool!
The Remedios family decided to not open the envelope until we committed to a plan. We came up with the idea to purchase an iPodtouch for $219 and raffle it off. We set out to sell 100 tickets for $5 each. We then opened the envelope a discovered $10 seed money and became more excited because we really had to rely on God to succeed. I am happy to report that we will easily meet our goal. In fact one gentleman purchased 10 tickets and wrote a check for $200 because he thought the seed money idea was so incredible. It has been amazing for our family to watch God work when we stepped out in faith and put our trust in Him. Thank you Chanpions Centre for the opportunity to be a part of Smile On Another campaign.
We recieved $20.00 dollars in our envelope. I was shopping at goodwill one day and ran into some chocolate spoon molds. I called my daughter and she said "Mom thats it, thats what you should do with your envelope money". I purchased the molds, bought some chocolate and went to work. We made the spoons and wrapped them with cute little red bows. I brought my grandchildren and set off to Fred Meyers. We sold all of our spoons in an hour. We trippled our seed money. It was amazing!
I received my envelope and a rush at figuring out what I would do with my "seed money". Since this is a hard time economically, I decided to go big in a small way. With a box of blank envelopes, I broke my money up into $1 bills, and a note explaining what I was trying to do. I gave the envelopes out to friends and co-workers, telling them that they could add just a $1 to double what was in the envelope, keep the $1, or pass it along to others.
So far, I've doubled my "seed money" with a simple idea of going big in a small way.
We received $20 in our envelope and we wanted to do something around a Family theme.
We have put together a Family Time gft basket using the $20 resource given to us, as well as some gifts from some generous friends and family. We are selling raffle tickets for $1 each. To date we have raised $60 with a week to go.
My parents and I combined our campaign money. It seemed the obvious thing to do. Their $10 and my $20 proved to be a good move! We've been selling raffle tickets for a chance to win a $100 gift card to Anthony's Restaurant. How the gift card came about is pretty cool!
Back in September, I gave away a pair of tickets to Phantom of the Opera to a friend and his girlfriend (neither had ever seen the show). They had no idea this was coming! To thank me for such an extravagant gift (their words!), they presented me with a gift card to Anthony's restaurant - $80. I was taken more by their thought of the gift than the gift itself, so I just put it away.
Then, Pastor Kevin did the unthinkable. He gave US money! It took me a little while to figure out what I could do with my envelope. I talked with my folks and in doing so a light bulb lit up in my head. "The gift card!!!" I thought. Immediately I told them about the gift card and we easily agreed to raffle it.
Mom was the first one to sell a raffle ticket, even though we had yet printed none! Dad and I have sold some as well. If we don't sell another ticket between this posting and next Sunday, we will have tripled (and then some) the original $30 we were given.
Tickets are still available! $1 each or buy 5 and get one free. I'm working Scrooge tonight, Thursday, and Friday (I'm an usher!). My daughter will be drawing a winner on Saturday night, 20 December at 8 pm (yes, while I'm working Scrooge!). See me before or after each show.
Thank you, Lord, for trusting us to come through for Your Kingdom in this campaign! You are sooo good to us, Father. In Jesus' name, Amen!
Rosa Diaz and Moraima Diaz (my daughter), Doris and Adolfo Santiago (my parents) - Merry Christmas, Champions Centre!
This is what I did with my seed money, after giving it some thought I've decided to bake something and sell it, so I made apple pie, and I also made tamales so right now I have triple the money that I've received.
Thank you to Champion Foundation for the opportunity to smile on another.
When I received the envelope I was thinking of doing Christmas Arrangements( centerpieces). Now I have my double money, but I have 2 more centerpieces to sell. If someone is interested in please email me at: olga_deosebita@yahoo.com , with a subject, "Smile on another". One arrangements is $25 and looks amazing.
Thankyou pastor kevin for giving us the opportunity of being generous.
Hi,
We were so excited about this challenge that we knew before we ever left the Church with the money, what God would want us to do with it! We knew no matter how much we were given that God had a plan to change it into millions of wishes and dreams to come true for the people who would be effected and by our own family. We wanted to let you know how we are doing with the money we received from Champions Centre, so far we have feed the Homeless at the Puyallup Army National Guard for Thanksgiving (4 huge turkeys) and supplied the local Food Banks with over 4000 new bags to hand out food to the needy. And we are not done yet were are hoping to feed the Homeless again for Christmas Dinner, get the Food Banks more bags and collect food for the Food Banks. We decided to put the money we were given into the gas tank to get around to collect the above items, we have so far turn the $10 into over $200! We definitely believe Gods plan is so much bigger than anything we have could ever think of and just hope and pray to do our very best to help God each and everyday he gives us here together.
We want to thank you so much for this opportunity!
Merry Christmas
The Finch Family
My daughter and I received $10 in our envelope and could not decide how we would feed the seed...so instead, we just reached out to family, friends, and co-workers (even out of state) and asked them to match the $10 we received for Champions Foundation or more if they wished. Not surprisingly, many gave with no questions asked for they knew when we ask for donations, it is always for a great cause. We have received $70 so far. I have picked up a handful of the Champions Foundation brochures and will give each giver a brochure and a thank you letter for their generosity during this time so they will see where the money is going to and the appreciation that is felt.
Pastor this idea is simply genius!! I love how you aren't afraid to implement new ideas and place the trust in us to carry them out.
I was so excited when I got the envelop and knew exaclty what I would do with the money.
My husband and I own a u-cut Christmas tree farm.I was determined to only use the seed money and buy a beautiful ornament to be raffled off for $1.00 a chance at our farm. I will have to admit I was a little dissapointed to find only $5.00. What could I get for $5.00? I went to Macy's and with my coupon, various discounts, I bought a beautiful hand blown Lennox ornament...you guessed it, $5.00. I was laughing in disbelief and I shared what I was going to do with the ornament with the sales clerk. She was so touched by the "Smile On Another" campain that she may come to CCC. To date we have raised $270.00 and we are still open this weekend.
This has provided an amazing opportunity to tell many people about Champions Centre.This Is Fun!
When I received my envelope, I already knew "What" I was going to do with it but did not know exactly "How" I was going to go about doing it. When I got home from church, I opened up my envelope and received $10! At that time it came to me...and that was to purchase all the vegetable ingredients & meat product that I could, along with a little added donation from myself, to put in the Fried Rice and Lumpia dish that I was going to serve to my co-workers for $10 a plate!! I was soo excited that when I went to work, I sent out an email to the 2 offices that I work out of and explained to them what my church was doing and how I was going to contribute to it and how I would need their appetites and money to help make it happen!! They were all even more excited when they got the email that they started asking me when it was going to take place. I told them whenever they were ready I was going to bring a dish of Fried Rice and Fresh Lumpia deep fried right in the Branch! Both Branches participated and it was a blast!!! I then emailed the other 2 offices in my District and they all jumped on board as well!! So far I have raised $220 and still pending!! I am very "Thankful" for this opportunity to give and am very "Blessed" to have this talent to use for God's Kingdom!!
(I purchased "Believe That You Can, It's time To Make It Happen!" by Jentezen Franklin and read: "If you can tie your dream back to the harvest, then He can bless it." I have been planning to open a small Mom & Pop restaurant for quite some time and being able to tie it to the Kingdom of God has been a "TRUE BLESSING" for me!!)
Check out the money giveaway... on YouTube....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4uvmZuvmEw
We wanted our kids to get involved in this so at a family meeting we voted. What won out was making cookies to sell. We used the $10 to buy ingredients and our daughter and our exchange student have been making cookies and packaging them for me to sell at our office. They have become quite popular. I created a sign using the Smile on Another logo which I am attaching. We have quadrupled our investment and the girls have had a great time making cookies.
It seems like a small thing but we thought it was a good lesson for our kids as well.
K. Hunter
We received $20 at the Kingdom Builder's Breakfast and we figured that we needed to make 5x that amount as in the Parable of the Talents. Also, I've always believed that if everybody did what I do in giving, would that be good. My wife had just bought a coupon book from Missing Childrens Poster Partners Organization for $10 with 60 free coupons for lube,oil & filter changes, a pedicure,manicure,haircuts,personal pan pizzas,month of tanning,bowling,skating,day of childcare,and lots more. On the back I noticed it said $20, but I found out that was for fundraisers,which was just what I needed for my idea for " Smile On Another ". I've sold 10 books for $100 in profit for the Champion's Foundation and also helped out Missing Childrens Poster Partners. It's a win-win for everybody including those that bought the books and got all these free items. It's definitely one that might be used by other groups in the church. Blessed To Be A Blessing! Mark T.
I’m taking advantage of my employers matching funds. It’s not the most creative solution we considered but it does guarantee that the $100.00 our family received gets doubled
Jeff Z.
Thanks for giving us an opportunity to do something for Champions Foundation! It’s a charity that I highlight on my website to let my clients know that this is something important that their monies go to and to encourage them to give as well. Mark and I received $30 total from the breakfast and Sunday morning gift. I was at a holiday bazaar and decided that a raffle would be the best way to multiply this money. We had a sealed envelope and sold $5.00 raffle tickets. We didn’t have a big turnout but I still made $105.00 for the raffle which was pretty exciting. God is good and we’re looking forward to hearing how the money has been multiplied by others!
Blessings,
Joyce and Mark J.
With the $10 we received, we are planning two movie nights. We are supplying popcorn, drink and a movie. We will charge for admission and have a kids movie night and a grownups movie night.
We have a theater room with a 300 inch projection screen and surround sound.
Because of Scrooge we have no time to do this before the return money weekend so it will come later in the month.
We look forward to a great return though!
Garret & Chris
Side note:
Who Garret and Chris:
If you went to Scrooge...Their Daughter is the Flying Angel, and Garret He played Marley the 1st week-end and the Angel of Christmas Present the second week-end. Chris is in Costumes.
I prayed on this and God revealed to me that I have everything I need this year. Since my work hours are so crazy right now it was hard for me to come up with doing a fundraiser that I would have time to fulfill.
So I asked family and friends to not get me a present but instead make a donation to the church. I also decided to match whatever I received in donations. Unfortunately, they are finished sending me donations so my enevelope will be late but I have already tripled what I was given in my enevelope.
We combined our money with our Son and his Wife (We each received $20 for a total of $40) and we purchased the beginning supplies we needed to make "light gifts" - glass blocks with lights in them and beautiful ribbons. We all put notes up a work that said purchase the gift of light and brighten someone's Holidays! - All proceeds will be donated. The Lord definitely blessed our project, because we couldn't hardly make them fast enough to keep up with our orders. We turned our $40 into $600! - Wow, this is really a testament to when you put your heart into something for the Lord, he blesses it! We're so thankful to be able to give this money to Champion Foundation! - Bob & Tammy DaSilva and Jon & Sarah Brock
Dear Pastor Kevin,
What an experience this has been!
I must admit, it took us a while to get started, but what ended up happening is going to bless us as long as we live.
I will save the details about the first few weeks since it was the last week that counted the most.
My family decided to join with some others and pool our money together. The original plan was to create a decoration or something for the holidays to sell, when tragically we learned that God didn’t give ANY OF US that talent! All I will say about that is…it was a few trips to a few stores to buy supplies and then back to the same stores to return or at least try to return the supplies. Let’s just say that after some begging we obtained a gift card for the amount.
We quickly changed gears and decided on a raffle, but what to raffle? Perhaps a coffee card or something like a chauffer ride to a nice restaurant. At this point, we had $70 to work with and after thinking it through a bit more, figured a night on the town in our Subaru and dinner at the McDonald’s drive thru probably wouldn’t cut it. So, we passed on that idea!
Finally it came to us, a GAS CARD! After all, anyone could use free gas in this economy! We then decided our goal was to advertise a raffle at “just” our work places and then double our investment. It seems as though, one of us got a bit overzealous and by the time “they” got to work, “they” were selling to anyone who could hear “them” and texting those who couldn’t. So, needless to say, it went further than just our workplaces.
In the first day, we had a few people just give us money to make the gas card bigger and the gas card grew to $130. Then, within a couple more days, another person pitched in the money they received and the gas card grew to $150.
In one week’s time, we collectively sold a total of 135 tickets for $5.00 each and raised $672.21. This amazing amount was raised by 5 families that received only $90 from the Smile On Another Campaign.
We had a blast seeing God multiple the money. It was all His timing and His plan. We are all humbled to have been a part of something so great for God. We look forward to hearing the many stories to come from this adventure.
As a group we thank you for challenging us to step out of our comfort zone. We look forward to seeing the work that God is going to do as a result of this campaign.
We received $250 in our envelope and teamed up with two other families (both receiving $20) and scheduled Dec 20 for our 'party with purpose'. We ended up having to cancel tonight due to the majority of guests calling to say they couldn't make it because of the weather. However, we do plan to reschedule! For now, this was how our night would have gone ~ we had a fun night planned with fellowship, food, games, Forever Home video presentation along with sharing the heart of the foundation and a free will offering. Then we were going into a fun, live 'mystery' auction with several great gifts to bid on! (Many of these gifts were donated by going around the community asking if they'd like to join in! We had great response!) Combining the money from our envelopes allowed us to have more than enough to buy everything we needed for the party. We look forward to rescheduling and expect even GREATER things from it !!!
In addition to this, my husband wanted to have a chili-feed at work for donations. He collected $110 in donations!!
This has been one of the most amazing and exciting things we have ever been involved in. It's been a blessing being a part in making church history!!!
Our envelope contained $20.00-after much thinking and no riginal ides my husband decided to work some overtime to contribute to the envelope. Just as I was giving up on what I could do-my boss asked me if I would take care of the cat they have while they were on vacation-someone else would come in to feed it-so yes you guessed it-they needed me to deal with the cat box-so I said I would do it for $20.00 to donate to champions foundation. This was a true sacrifice believe me ! But well worth it!!!We ended up turning 20.00 into 80.00-thanks for this opportunity!
Dale & Deborah Ryker
Our family was away during the Smile on Another weekend, but after hearing about it, we still wanted to be a part of giving back this Holiday Season. We decided that we would use Operation Blessing as a way to Smile on Another this year. Usually each year we take three children, one for each of our own children. This year we decided to share the experience with those who have never heard about Operation Blessing or who don't attend Champions Centre.
I manage a business with 16 locations so I thought we would pick a boy and a girl for each location and ask the employees if they would like to donate gifts for these children. Our original thought was that 32 children would be ten times what we usually do and that would be a huge accomplishment. Little did we know that my employees would want to do much more than just 2 children each. They used their creativity to get customers and others involved and the gifts started rolling in. In the end, there were over 100 gifts collected in all and dozens of people introduced to Champions Foundation and what church is all about at Champions Centre.
I received $10.00 And made charm bracelets. I sold them for $5.00 at work telling everyone about the Smile on Another campaign and I had to finally tell everyone that I no longer was taking orders. I didnt have much support from my family so I did this on my own and raised $230.00. I was so proud to be a part of gods work. Thank you for giving me this chance to be blessed by doing for others. Ruby
Glenn and I got $5 in our envelope. We had some brownie mix that we should not be eating all by ourselves. We used the money to buy, a foil pan, and some eggs and oil. I made a tri-fold foam board sign by printing pictures of the kids from our South Africa Champions forever home along with info and enlarged parts of the Champions Foundation brocure and putting them on the board. Glenn took the brownies to work and set them next to our sign with a donation envelope. Then the snow started falling! No one went to work for a few days! We showed up to church on the night we were supposed to turn our money in but the donation money was still stuck at Glenn's work. We put $20 dollars in the envelope and turned it in. When Glenn made it back to work he looked in the envelope and there was a $20 bill eclosed! We are going to turn that in to add to the donation! That's our story! With Love from Liz and Glenn Stutz
I am so excited to share my 'Smile on Another' story with you!
I received $20 in my envelope. At first I thought, "that's not much to work with!" But I decided to put one of my hobbies to use in an effort to multiply my $20. This hobby is, oddly enough, clipping coupons! i have been clipping coupons since I was 10 years old, as that was one of my 'chores' that I did for my mom. So I sorted through all my coupons for 'baking' items, such as cookie dough, cake mix, brownie mix, butter and oil. i went to my favorite store, which just so happened to have everything I wanted ON SALE that week!! and purchased exactly $18.99 worth of items. With that initial investment I baked over a hundred items and had my first bake sale, sold everything and my new total was then $110.25! Then i 're-invested' another $19.77 (with another handful of coupons!) into more cookie dough, cake & brownie mixes. I had another bake sale at work & sold everything! Finally, I re-invested a small portion of what I made from the bakesale, bought some fleece material and made some winter scarves. I was able to sell 11 of them to my coworkers!
I started out with $20. With some wise shopping & a lot of baking, I was able to multiply that initial $20 into $236.17!!! This has been so much fun and a great challenge. Thank you for the opportunity to bless Champions Foundation in such a unique way!
Tammy Smith