The answer depends on if you are giving exclusively for the idea of giving or if you are giving also as a way of promoting your name / business. Charity is actually not the later, but even help in the name of advertisement is help needed.
The best one can do for any community during the holiday season is find out through sources what families are in need (struggling so much that they can’t afford Christmas). Many will donate toys and such to these families. Some will donate money. I find that in order to ensure that needs are best served for Christmas is to give food. A suggestion is, buy 12 cans of cranberry sauce, 12 cans of corn or green beans, 12 whole chickens, 12 boxes of stove top stuffing (or a generic equivalent), 12 graham cracker crusts, and 12 cans of pumpkin pie filling. This can feed 12 families of 4.
Next step is to find someone in the community who will donate these items to 12 needed families or just get a buddy to do it for you, in order for you to remain anonymous. If you are doing it as some sort of promotion show up wearing your company’s t-shirt and hand these out.
Trailer parks, housing projects, and budget apartment complexes are the best places. I’ve done this before and also had unisex brown bags of mixed candy and small toys made up to go along with it. I had a friend drop the stuff off to the manager of the trailer park I chose to donate to.
And in all honesty, the fact that to my buddy did this for me, kept my name out of it, and that 12 families were fed by an anonymous source for the holidays (actually witnessing the magic of Christmas with no strings attached) was the best gift I ever received.
Second best gift was my first bicycle - cliché, I know but who doesn’t remember their first bike?
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