Christmas For the Kids is the site for the annual Disadvantaged Children’s Christmas Shopping Spree sponsored by the San Jose Fraternal Order of Eagles with the help of their members and local businesses.

We all know that there are many worthy causes you can donate your time and money to, but if you REALLY want to see a difference, why not do it on a local level? This charity serves disadvantaged children right here in the San Jose area.

These are children who attend school in the San Jose Unified School District and are chosen by their teachers based on three criteria.

* One, they must come from a disadvantaged or at-risk situation.

* Two, they must have shown an improvement in school, whether it’s their grades, their attendance, their attitude or a combination of any of these.

* Three, the children need to be between the ages of 7 and 12.

These children come from homes that, if it were not for this annual event, they would get little or nothing for Christmas.

The way it works is this, the children are brought to a local Target store by their parents on the morning of the event. The parent turns their child over to an Eagles Volunteer who escorts the child through the store, during which, the child has $150 to spend on whatever he or she wishes. (Of course, the Volunteer supervises the shopping to ensure no inappropriate items are purchased) The store opens an hour early and only participants are allowed to shop during this time.

To date, the San Jose Fraternal Order of Eagles have awarded more than $100,000 in shopping trips to local children. In all our fund raising efforts, 100% of all monies raised goes directly to the the children with NO Administrative costs! How many charities can you say that about?

We are constantly getting thank you letters from the children. I can’t publish them here due to safety and privacy issues, but below is a copy of a thank you letter from the Assistant Superintendent for San Jose Unified School District.

Here’s another from the County of Santa Clara Social Services Agency.

And yet another from Special Olympics

We also have a Youtube Video of the event here.

The only way the San Jose Fraternal Order of Eagles can continue this work is with the help of the community. If you would like to make a donation to help local children have a merry Christmas, contact us at (408) 549-1036 or send a message to the event Chairman at robert at christmasforthekids dot com. (make sure to use @ instead of “at” and . instead of “dot”. I wrote it like this to avoid spam.)