Local Companies Doing Good
- Granite City (Roseville)- Offering Free Meals. Every kid can receive a free lunch, just ask for a manager and they will make it happen.
- Billys on Grand (St. Paul)- Kids 14 and under can receive a Free meal week of March 15th from 11am-2pm.
- Day by Day Cafe (St. Paul) They will be offering hot dogs and chips to kids home from school starting March 16th.
- Bourbon Butcher (Farmington)- Give a call to 6513447600 to receive a free boxed lunch starting Tuesday 3/17/20 for any child that needs one.
- Reduce Reuse Renew- Free kids mindfullness coloring page download on Etsy.
- Coconut Whisk (St. Paul)- Receive a weeks worth of pancakes or waffles if you are concerned your child will not be able to eat healthy daytime meal.They have also had strangers asking to sponsor families, they will let you Venmo them @coconutwhisk to help sponsor a family. Sending $8-$10 covers the shipping costs per family.
- My Chef Box Meals (Minneapolis)- They are a food delivery service, delivered weekly and if school closures have you concerned about access to food, send them a pm and they will give you a meal if you need it.
- Hope Breakfast Bar (St. Paul) They are offering breakfast, ready and waiting for any family that has a child who needs breakfast. They will bring a takeout bag for the whole family. You can also go to Hopebreakfast.com/give-hope to donate if you would like to help them feed people.
- Fashion Fix MN-Discounting her virtual styling consultants to $30 (regularly 75) where you can chat for 30 minutes virtually and discuss your wardrobe, advice, ways to feel more confident and more. Additionally she is donating $5 of every purchase to the Tubman and Sabathani Community Center. Visit www.fashionfixmn.com to learn more.
- Rascals Bar & Grill (Apple Valley)- Starting 3/17/20 they will have free boxed lunches available for pickup between 11am-2pm for any child that needs one. Call 9514317777 during those hours to arrange pickup.
- El Tejaban Mexican Grill (Richfield)- They are offering any kids meal for free to children under 15 until April 1st 11am-5pm.
- Comcast (national)- Offering 60 days free of WIFI to those in need.
Ways Your Family Can Help
- Be involved of the groups setup for people in your local community pages. You can pickup an item at a store for those who are self-quarantined and drop it off in their mailbox.
- Leave notes for your elderly neighbors to ask if they need items in their mailbox.
- Leave flowers,drawings or may baskets for neighbors on their doorstep or mailbox.
- Send letters in the mail to family and friends.
- If you are taking a walk outside, pick up any trash you see along the way.
- Donate to Veap- even $1 provides 6 meals
- Go to foodpantries.org or hungersolutions.org (for MN specifically) to look up local pantries to either donate or receive food if in need. To contact Hunger Solutions call 1888-711-1151
- Donate to Sheridan Story– They help kids out with food items needed on weekends.
- Donate to Domestic Shelters
- Order Takeout or Delivery from your favorite resteraunts.
- Shop online for local boutiques/shops/small businesses.
- Purchase Gift Cards for restaurants or small businesses to use at a later time.
- Start a Facebook Group or Nextdoor Group to help neighbors
- Setup a video chat with any elderly neighbors/friends/family.
Ideas of Things to Do At Home
- Online School with Science Mom and Math Dad. Available on YouTube.
- Visit a museum virtually!
- Visit San Diego Zoo and Yellowstone virtually.
- Virtual Field Trips of Boston Childrens Museum
- Explore the surface of Mars on the Curiousity Rover.
- Follow Busy Toddler on Instagram or her website for lots of at home activities with toddlers.
- Canadian site FarmFood 360 offers virtual tours of farms.
- Virtual Tour of Great Wall of China
- Cincinatti Zoo will have Free Facebook Live videos at 3 pm daily sharing an animal and various activities.
- The louvre- Virtual Field Trips
- Check out the free Libby app for free Ebooks as well as books out loud for children.
- Visit Teachers Pay Teachers, with is filled with lots of free and inexpensive resources for families of all ages.
- Practice another language with the app/website Duolingo.
- Listen to The Coffee Break Series on Spotify-Learn phrases from other languages.
- Science Experiments at sciencebob.com
- Nat Geo for Kids
- Mystery Science- Free easy to do science lessons
- Brave writer- They are offering daily writing tips.
- Khan Academy- Take free college courses online.
- McHarper Manor- They are going live daily with free art tutorials
- Explore your passions, organizing, write a book, etc
- Scholastic learn at home program
- Use puppets for little kids to help with gaining their attention.
- Josh Gad is hosting online readings of childrens books.
- Use Tape to build an indoor hop scotch.
- Play Balloon ping pong
- Make a bucket or wish list with your kids (baking, experiments, etc)
- Highlights for Kids.
- Math and Language Games at Arcademics.
- Online crafts, activities and mazes at All Kids Network.
- Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems on Youtube.
- Listen to kids stories read by celebrities on Save With Stories via Instagram.
- Math Games at Fun Brain.
- Free home access to ABC Mouse, Redeem code SCHOOL7771 for Free access to ABCmouse.com.
- Have shark story hour every day this week at 10am via the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy facebook page.