Philanthropy night ideas

[PhiMu-tude]

I am looking for ideas for our philanthropy night....I have some awesome ideas but 2 minds work better than one and so on. They need to be inexpensive ideas and fairly easy to do since our chapter isn't what one would call crafty. Hope ya'll can give me some help! Thanks!
Kelly

[DeltaEtaKP]

We have done stationary kits (we decorated plain cards) with flower pens (you wrap the pen and the stem in florist tape), backpacks (from Oriental Trading Co.--we just used stamps and paint and ribbons to decorate them), fleece blankets (pieces of fleece were cut into squares and the girls tied the squares together), teddy bears (someone followed a teddy bear pattern and cut them out, the girls decorated with buttons, ribbon, paint, etc and we stuffed), trash cans (we modge podged them) and chia pets (panty hose with dirt and seeds in it- the girls decorated, but we couldn't take those to the hospital so we took them to a nursing home) other ideas i have heard of are boo bunnies, getting ceiling tiles from the hospital and decorating them so the kids have something to look at... that's all I've got.

[tunatartare]

The hospital I work at for Take Our Children to Work Day got pillows and had kids decorate them for children in the hospital with paint pens, buttons, etc. That was pretty fun and easy. However, the only thing to keep in mind with that is that some of the patients couldn't get pillows because of the buttons and stuff on them (younger kids could swallow something, etc.).

[PhiMu-tude]

Thanks so much guys. They are some awesome ideas. I would also love any ideas you guys had to make recrutment AWESOME. We are having some problems with our skit for theme night because our membership director based it off the movie clueless and this really isn't going to fly at our school with the kind of people who attend it. we need something that works to get our point across but not make us sound like "ditzy sorority girls." Any and all help would be soooo wonderful! Also any good ideas to promote recruitment since we are the only sorority on our campus would be awesome too! Thanks!

[SoeurFidele]

For philanthropy day, we've done boo boo bunnies made from washcloths every year (complete with googly eyes & pink noses!) - theyre pretty easy to make, & the PNMs always think theyre cute
As far as promoting recruitment on your campus, if you have a student activities fair, having a table at that is a great way to show PNMs information about greek life. Also just being visible and active on campus before recruitment (to show that you have fun together as sisters) is a good way to promote a sorority. I'm not sure how the rules work on your campus, but personally inviting PNMs to attend your events (with letters in their mailboxes, etc) or posting flyers advertising recruitment could also be options for you.

[CarolinaCutie]

Just a note about the Boo Boo Bunnies- I've been told that CMN hospitals don't accept them anymore because of their potential risk for harboring bacteria? Which is disappointing because it really is a good, fun craft.

When I was Membership Director, we had a tropical theme on Philanthropy Night and we did sand art as our craft. The girls liked it because it was original!