I sent my a few. The first one I sent, and probably the biggest, was around Halloween. I just got a couple of bags of candy that he likes and a couple of other little Halloween-themed things. Enough to share with his friends. A couple of times I send gift cards to restaurants of something along those lines.
I went to college several states away from home and my mom used to send things that I couldn’t get at school, as well as other snacks. Sometimes a bit of extra money. But not really stuff other than something like a funny comic or something–the sort of thing you’d send your kid via social media or text these days 
I got nothing from my mother while I was in college, but about once a semester my grandfather would send $10-20, and it was like manna from heaven. I could go skiing or to a concert or something that I otherwise couldn’t have afforded.
My roommate’s mother brought a bag of stuff about once a month - mac and cheese, Ramen, cookies, TP, dish soap - all the stuff we didn’t want to spend our money on. I loved her for it.
@LuckyCharms913 yay for frugal people. I get all itchy when I put $15 in postage on a $10 box of goodies.
Once I had to send my D a piece of mail that had come to the house. I wrote “this is a care package” on a post-it and slapped it on a $20 and included it in the envelope. She loved it. I also randomly send Amazon credit, because who doesn’t love Amazon.
I usually send a care package once a month. I have a ds, so it’s almost always food. Every once in awhile, I will include a t-shirt. The contents are usually a mix of baked goods and longer lasting store-bought items. Sometimes, they are all baked goods. I try to include savory as well as sweet treats. I use the large, flat-rate boxes from USPS. I often include some sort of breakfast-y item that is easy to grab and take to class. Breakfast seems to be the least attended dining hall meal. I often line/decorate the boxes with scrapbooking supplies. There is always a card or note with a little cash as well. Any local newspaper clippings of interest.
Of the monthly boxes, three are “group” care packages. We do these for autumn/Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and Spring final exams. I coordinate a group of twelve or so moms from ds’s high school class (the kids are friends, and the moms are, too!). I do it through FB messenger. We get a head count of how many we are packing for (not all moms participate all three times, and some have multiple college-aged kids). Once that is settled, everyone posts what they are bringing so we don’t get duplicates. It’s BYOB (Bring Your Own Box). Everyone piles their contributions on my kitchen island, and we all walk around and pick up each item for our boxes. Good variety that way. Some are homemade treats, some not. Some are cutely packaged, some not. It’s all good - no competing allowed! We do this on a Sunday afternoon. We also have a mom who brings card stock/stickers and we each make a card for our kid that is signed by all the moms. The kids love the group care packages and individualized cards, and it’s a great way for the moms to stay connected and learn what everyone’s children are up to!
I’m cheap. It would bug me to pay postage to send something that could be bought on the other end. I’d rather just say “go use my Visa to stock yourselves up on snacks” than pay to ship snacks, unless they were something unusual or unique. It’s the same principle why I’d stock them up with toiletries that I can buy in bulk vs have them buy one-offs at CVS/Walgreens prices!
Agree with PG. we could deposit money in our kids’ accounts and they could get what they wanted locally. No shipping.
Hoggirl, I think what you describe sounds really sweet. It also sounds really super duper extroverted to this introvert, lol.
I felt that my career and taking care of my own kids/family sucked up my bandwidth completely. I wouldn’t have even known ten other mothers in my kids’ school. I can’t possibly see where I could have found the time to socialize with them. I know (as in would recognize) two of my D’s friends’ mothers and one of my S’s friend’s mothers. It astounds me that people who work have the emotional bandwidth to engage in all this. I certainly didn’t!
I think it’s great you do this, I really do, but I just can’t work myself up to that level of engagement for other people’s kids!
@Pizzagirl - I do stay at home. I totally understand what you are saying. It’s funny that you mention introversion as one of the moms “left” the group care package assembly group after the first year. It was just not conducive to her personality. We do have some full-time working moms. I actually think the group thing makes it easier for them to do care packages. Often our moms pick up items at Sam’s, which works great for large numbers. I have had some in the group tell me they are glad I coordinate because they would never take the initiative to do it on their own and their kids wouldn’t get care packages any other way. Not that that is bad either! My mom never sent them when I was in college. Ds attended a small charter school. Very tight-knit group. Everyone’s experiences are different!
I hope I didn’t come across as sounding judge-y.
No, you weren’t judge-y at all!
I’m a total extrovert. Very outgoing…talk to strangers like they are my best friends.
Still…I would not get involved in a group care package project. That isn’t in my personality make up?
My sister did the ‘group assemble’ care package for her son. He’d gone to an all boys prep school and my sister knows all the mothers, many since 2nd grade. These are not children who need care packages but who like receiving things. Many go to school less than 30 miles away and not only could they just buy the stuff for themselves but could come home and pick the stuff up if they wanted to. Not the point, the point is to get a surprise in the mail.
They’d put all kinds of stuff in the boxes - socks, energy drinks, Starbucks cards, candy, toothpaste. It really didn’t matter.
My sister and I had 4 kids in school at the same time, and sometimes I’d send stuff to all 4. Sort of my own group assembly party.
I’ve also worked on the ‘study bags’ project for my sorority alum group. We send an email to all the parents and they can purchase a study bag for their daughters and the alum group puts together a bag with treats, office supplies, drinks, a Starbucks card. It’s okay, but nothing special for the kids to receive.
I guess my personality makeup is that if I felt the need for my kids to have X (whatever X is), I’d rather execute it myself than be dependent on others. Kind of like when they were in elementary school and room moms insisted on parceling out the items needed for a party - you obtain the plastic forks, you get the cups, you get the tablecloth, you get the cupcakes, etc. So ten women each chunked off a teeny tiny piece of the assignment, which was so inefficient it drove me crazy. Whenever I was tapped for stuff like this, I’d just get the whole list and be done with it already.
I’m helping run a 5k and I’m supposed to get a bunch of different places to each donate little pieces of the breakfast for the volunteers. I told them - no, I’ll just handle the whole thing myself. The inefficiency of chunking things out in tiny pieces isn’t fun for me. I think that’s why I would politely decline a group gift bag event!
But seriously Hoggirl if you and your friends enjoy doing this, rock on!!
@Hoggirl I absolutely love the BYOB care package idea. In fact, I just texted my D’s 4 best friends’ moms and told them that we should do this. They are all starting their freshman year at different schools.
See, Hoggirl? You’ve started a trend!!
I periodically send stuff direct from Amazon (I’m too cheap to have it shipped to me just to put pretty packaging on it and then pay postage). Every now and then I’ll order some of her favorite treats and have them shipped free using Prime. I also will send odd things like a funky t-shirt from Redbubble or a DVD of a movie she loved as a kid. (she and her suitemates had a great time one snowy day baking cookies and watching the Lizzie Maguire movie).
Baked goods, I’ve ordered shipped from local bakeries, and occasionally send something from the Popcorn Factory (when her suitemates helped out a lot after surgery I sent a huge package from Popcorn Factory for them all to share).
So funny, Ballerina. On Saturday I had my big guy accompany me to the local store from which I tend to send him the snack items which constitute my version of care package. I told him I stand there for a very long time, changing my mind, touching everything, trying to figure it all out, and it would be helpful to me if he could just walk around the store, touch the items he would like more of, or would like for me to include in his junior year series of packages.
I felt so matter of fact doing this that I realized I am so over the worrying about him. He’s fine, school’s fine, maybe he gets hungry at finals and likes some of the salt- and sugar-laden items I’ve included alongside the nuts and notes from his siblings.
@Pizzagirl - yay, me! A trendsetter! Lol! I totally understand where you are coming from about group things, generally speaking. I really don’t “work and play well with others.” Was always the type to just say, “I will do all of the group assignment,” b/c of my personality type. I knew I could do a good job. I wasn’t sure about the performance of the rest of my group members!
@Marcie123 - yay! Have fun with it!
Our style is to be in and out in an hour. I set out some drinks, but it’s a “working” get-together. My mom Happy Hours (I have those, too) are separate events, but you could certainly combine the concepts! Or all even gather to decorate boxes together before filling them. What we do seems to be “just enough” for the style of my peeps.
Also, if a mom can’t come at the designated time, she can drop her box and goodies off at a different time, and I assemble it for her and then she comes to pick it up when she can. Not that hard to walk around my kitchen island more than once!
I do think it’s nice that my group can keep away from the one-upmanship that can happen among moms. Let’s just say we are not Pinterst-y people at all! I have a friend in Dallas and their mom group does the same, but they have prizes for cutest packaging, best treat, etc.! Good grief! No thank you!
Even when kids say they don’t like these (notice these, etc), they do like them. My daughter was not very effusive about the 3 I sent (two in the first semester and 1 in the 2nd) but I was talking with her roommate who brought it up without being prompted and gave me great details about how much the girls on the hall loved them. my personal theory is that the kids who seemed the least affected are the ones who are maybe comforted the most by them.
And it doesn’t have to be food. I sent 4 photos of the cat with funny captions and they were on my kid’s dorm wall when i came to pick her up at the end of the year.
This thread reminds me our gradeshool’s lunch/party food which were assigned to everyone at some point (in a pretty upscale area btw). There are the moms (or dads) that brought the sandwiches made to look like snowman, individually wrapped fruit/veggies, a little sweet treat, with a drink - the kids loved it. Cause for some kids, eating and recess is the best part of the day at school. Then there were the mom’s that sent in a big bottle of apple juice and box of graham crackers in a Safeway bag (with no cups). Never understood rich people being so cheap and selfish. You would think the people that were working and making money would send in stuff at least as nice if they had to buy it, but they gave it zero thought. They just let other people take care of their kids it seemed while they made money. Thanks to the parent’s that do special things for other people’s kids, you are awesome. The kids always know who the awesome parents are and appreciate you too!