Each Christmas Eve, drop off gift-wrapped new or almost-new books at a nearby hospital.
I remembered that someone had submitted a Christmas idea for The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas when I put that together in 2002. Here it is for your consideration during the week of Christmas, 2009. The idea was submitted by Athena Dalrymple of Columbia, Maryland.
Each Christmas Eve, drop off gift-wrapped new or almost-new books at a nearby hospital for the children who happen to be there that day or the next to have a little something to read and be cheered up. Write on the gift wrap or on a separate list the approximate age for which the book is appropriate and maybe a little something about it (sports trivia, scratch-and-sniff, mystery, etc.), so the books can be well matched to the children.
Some hospitals allow the children who drop off books to visit the patients, but others will not, due to confidentiality and infection control. We’ve found hospitals that are not children’s hospitals to be the better place to perform this service, as children’s hospitals tend to get a lot for children at this time of year. Additionally, they have trouble deciding which twenty or thirty (or hoever many books you are donating) children to whom to give the books when they have hundreds of patients, where other hospitals often have very few children on Christmas Eve and thus will have enough to go around even a few days after Christmas.
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