Christmas Gifts that Give: Shop the Charity Gift Shop

The holiday and Christmas seasons make us want to give. We want to give gifts to our loved ones and friends and we'd like to give to good causes too.

Sometimes we can't do afford to do both. Or we get tired of giving the same meaningless gifts over and over. Shopping at charity gift shops allows you to give a gift and help a good cause all at the same time. Check out these charity-run sources for your holiday shopping:

The American Cancer Society Gift Shop. The ACS gift shop stocks a great array of "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" pink merchandise like apparel, jewelry, totes and coffee mugs as well as similar gifts with the American Cancer Society logo and Relay-for-Life "Hope" gear, including a "Hope" holiday ornament. Please click here to visit the ACS Gift Shop.

Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest). Feeding America has wonderful holiday greeting cards available. They're sold in a packet of five for a suggested donation of $35. The outside of the card spells out, "HOPE," in fruit and vegetables and the interior reads, "A gift has been made in your honor to FEEDING AMERICA." Please click here to view the 2009 holiday cards.

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). The ASPCA has a really good selection of gifts for the people and the pets in your life. Proceeds support the ASPCA and its programs. Please click here to visit the ASPCA gift shop.

World Vision. World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting worldwide poverty and injustice. Their website has an online gift catalog where a donation can be made honoring a friend or family member, with a specific dollar amount providing a certain benefit to their programs. One example: A gift of $25 will provide 2 chickens to a needy foreign family. If you'd rather keep your donation closer to home, your $25 can be designated to help provide basic necessities to the poverty stricken here in the United States. Please click here to visit World Vision's online gift catalog.

Don't Forget Your Local Charities. Don't limit yourself to worldwide organizations. Do internet searches on your favorite local charities. Or give them a quick call. The Monarch School in San Diego, for example, schools homeless children in the surrounding area and Butterfly Enterprises is their online gift store, featuring jewelry made by the students of the Monarch School. Please click here to visit Butterfly Enterprises.

With very little effort and imagination, you can quickly locate gifts for the holiday season that are both functional and supportive of a good cause.

Sources:
American Cancer Society Gift Shop
http://www.acsgiftshop.com/index.html

Feeding America 2009 Holiday Cards
http://help.feedingamerica.org/site/PageNavigator/holiday_cards?__utma=1.1047229587.1258079284.1258079284.1258079284.1&__utmb=1.2.10.1258079284&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1258079284.1.1.utmcsr=bread.org|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/learn/links.html&__utmv=-&__utmk=95360540

ASPCA Gift Shop
http://www.aspcaonlinestore.com/

World Vision Online Gift Catalog
http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?go=gift&§ion=10389

Monarch School's Butterfly Enterprises
http://www.monarchshop.com/