November is a time to be grateful – grateful for our family & friends, grateful for our health, and grateful for a wonderful community where we live!  It’s also a time to be grateful to others around you.  FairfieldMoms has put together Ways to Give Back to Our Local Community this month to give families of Fairfield a chance to lend a helping hand, whether it is a small gesture or a large one (virtual or in-person).  Read more below about how you can get involved with helping others this Holiday season!

Al’s Angels

Touchless Toy Drive – Now through December 17th

With the challenge of Covid-19 this year….there are many that are spending time in quarantine at home. So many are no longer going into workplaces and/or shopping venues. This year we are launching a Touchless Toy Drive. We are connecting with Amazon Smile to allow you, your employees, friends, relatives, customers the ability to shop line and ship to our location so that we can manage wrapping and delivery to those in need in the most efficient and Covid conscious manner. You can share our Touchless Toy Drive link to everyone you know. The more people that shop this way for Al’s Angels… the better chance we have to reach our 21,000 child goal.  Sign up here!

Remember: Ship Your “Touchless” Toy Donation to:
Al’s Angels – Adena Fetzer
20 Winter Green Lane
Trumbull, CT 06611

Holiday Meal Assembly – December 5th 5am – 1pm
The Al’s Angels Holiday Meal Assembly Event is tentatively scheduled for Saturday December 5th . Volunteer Registration is now OPEN. We need volunteers to aid us in both packing meal bins, loading our trucks and delivering either in our trucks and/or in your own vehicle.  More information can be found here!

Sign up to volunteer here!

Bridgeport Rescue Mission

November 18th – 24th – Great ThanksGiving Project
We’ll provide 3,200 families in need with a turkey and bag of fixings so that they can prepare a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal. We’ll also give out 15,000 winter coats, along with hats, gloves, scarves, and socks. Here’s how you can be part in this outpouring of compassion and hope – click here!

Blanket & Bedtime Bag Giveaway
Each Christmas we bring comfort to people who are homeless and struggling, with a special Blanket and Bedtime Bag Give-Away.  Adults receive blankets, and children receive a Bedtime Bag filled with a book, a NEW small stuffed animal, a children’s toothbrush & toothpaste, a washcloth with mild soap, and a small fleece blanket.  YOU can help by organizing a drive for warm king and queen-size blankets and items for Bedtime Bags! Please bring items to our Donation Center by December 15.  Click here to learn more!

Connecticut Food Bank

Learn more about how you can donate or volunteer here!  Thanksgiving for All – more info here!

Fairfield Fire Fighters Charitable Foundation

Santa Express: It’s that time of the year. We proudly announce that the Fairfield Fire Fighters Santa Express will be back for its 15th consecutive year. Many of you have made us part of your holiday traditions and it is great to see the same faces year after year. We have seen your children grow up before our eyes. We feel humbled to be part of your holiday. Last year was our most successful year ever and we were able raise over $26,000 for the Tommy Fund for childhood cancer. Well childhood cancer does not stop for Covid and neither do we. This year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we are going to have to be a little but more creative and change things up a bit.  Here’s what we have in mind….Your kids get an email from the North Pole asking about their Christmas list and asking them to join one of Santa’s elves online to talk about their list and make sure we have it right. While talking to our elves Santa and Mrs. Claus pop in, chat, and spread a little Christmas spirit.  Register here!

Light Up Fairfield – This brand new Town Wide contest will give us the opportunity to show our holiday spirit with our families and our community while maintaining a safe social distance.
Categories include:
Clark W. Griswald – The Display you can see from Outer Space
Traditional – Light Display the captures the classic Holiday motif
Most Creative – Are you creative enough to have dancing lights to music?

Prizes will be awarded to the Winner and Runner-up in each category. Entry fee is $20 per residence. All the proceeds will be donated to the Tommy Fund for Childhood Cancer.  Help us spread the holiday spirit and raise some money to combat childhood cancer!

First Church Congregational

Annual Advent Event – November 22nd 2pm – 4pm
We will be decorating our reverse advent boxes to fill with food items to donate to Operation Hope.  RSVP by November 16th.  More information here!

Homes for The Brave

Learn more about how you can donate or volunteer here!

Nourish Bridgeport

Learn more about how you can donate here!

Operation Hope

Learn more about how you can donate or volunteer here!

Rehabilitation Associates, Inc

Annual Holiday Toy Drive – Now through December 10th
We will be taking donations of new, unwrapped toys at all of our offices from now through December 10. ⁠ Looking for a contact-less option? Would you like to purchase your gifts online? You can mail them to our Fairfield office!⁠⠀Please include “ATTN: HR – Toy Drive” to your package!⁠⠀

Thanksgiving Pie Raiser

Bake (or buy) a pie for local soup kitchens in Fairfield County, CT!  We are only accepting pumpkin pies!  Pies will be collected the day before Thanksgiving (Greenwich, Darien, Westport).  Please email [email protected]

The Black Rock Food Pantry

Learn more about how you can donate or volunteer here!

Wakeman Boys & Girls Club

Uconn 4-H Teen Council Food Drive, November 20th and December 18th, 9am – 3pm
More information on the food drive can be found here!

Food Drives

Check your local school or places of worship!  Many are holding their own food drives to support a local cause.

Local Charities / Foundations / Non-Profits to Support

• A Cure for Cam
• Alex’s Lemonade Stand
• AWARE CT
• Bridgeport Rescue Mission
• Clothes to Kids Fairfield County
• CT Challenge
• Dress for Success
• End Allergies Together
• Filling in the Blanks
• Habitat for Humanity of Coastal Fairfield County
• Harbor Light Therapy and Social Center
• Homes with Hope
• Kidz Give Back Foundation
• Malta House 
• March of Dimes
• Mikey’s Way Foundation
• Norma Pfriem Breast Center (Pink Pledge)
• Only You Foundation
• Operation Hope
• Person-To-Person
• The Pilot House
• PinkAid
• The Cancer Couch Foundation
• The Salvation Army
• Sandy Hook Promise
• Save the Children
• Star, Inc.
• United Way of Coastal Fairfield County
• Wakeman Boys & Girls Club

If you know of any events / volunteer opportunities, please send them to [email protected] so we can add them here!