It all started in 2010, fifteen years ago, as a sudden impulse. Someone asked me what I wanted to do for my 59th birthday in November and, without thinking, I said, “Meet me in the toy department at Target and help me shop for toys for the holiday store for Sunday Friends.” A group of my friends and family showed up and what a feel-good birthday that was! 

A few years later, a serious group of Sunday Friends staff and volunteers sat around a serious conference table and brainstormed about what kind of signature fundraising event we wanted to establish to help fund our programs. Like all other nonprofits, we considered the wine and cheese party, the golf tournament, the silent auction, etc. But none of those felt like Sunday Friends. Our community of donors and volunteers is made up of families and individuals from a wide variety of walks of life. We needed an event that would draw them all together meaningfully, that would allow families and friend groups and corporate groups and clubs to come and enjoy it together. 

Guess what we finally settled on: An expansion of my little birthday party, the Holiday Shopping Spree.

The Spree developed over the years and grew in popularity, some years drawing in a thousand participants! Even though I’m now retired from Sunday Friends myself, I show up for the Holiday Shopping Spree every year. Wouldn’t miss it!

Here’s how it works: People sign up as teams. A team can be as small as a pair of friends or a parent and a child, or as big as a 30-member corporate group. Each team comes with their shopping dollars - could be a personal credit card or the proceeds from a school club’s fundraiser or a corporate grant. 

When they arrive, each group chooses (or is assigned) a shopping focus: Baby toys, girls’ toys, boys’ toys, teens, women, men, warmth items, etc. Sunday Friends gifts each team with a Target gift card, which was funded by event sponsors, to add to their own resources. And they are sent out into the store to fill their specially decorated carts.

Now for my favorite part! This is what I enjoy the most. When a team has completed their shopping, they come to the Photo and Awards station, staffed by our “Gushers.” Our job is to gush over the items in the cart, especially the ones the kids want to show off, and then to award a special, unique certificate to each team. One team will win “Most Creative.” Another will win “Best Bargain.” Many of the winning categories are spur-of-the-moment, such as “Most Pink” or “Fluffiest” or “Teen Cool” or “Most Manly.” Then the team is posed for a photo with their winning items, their certificate, a sign showing their team name, and a handmade gift from the children of Sunday Friends (maybe a tree ornament?). The smiles and spirit in those photos are priceless.

The last step is checkout in the designated Sunday Friends aisles, where spirit is soaring. Volunteers load up our vehicles with bags and bags of goods for the holidays.

One of our most gratifying moments happened in last year’s Spree when we recognized one of the Target staff members as a girl who had grown up through Sunday Friends. Older volunteers quickly grabbed their phones and pulled up photos from years long ago of Sherlyn in the program with her sister, both sporting giant bows in their hair. The reunion was joyous and we snapped lots of new pictures, including this one, that shows the two of us flanked by two of the photographers who shared all their memories of photographing the big-bow sisters in the earlier days.

But, did you think we just hand out toys and gifts to the families at Christmas time? That would NOT be Sunday Friends! No, we make it possible for family members to earn, select, and gift wrap presents for their loved ones so THEY can be the givers, not us. We don’t give charity, we give the gift of giving.

I love to imagine the family gatherings on Christmas morning, with children opening the perfect gifts from their parents and parents opening gifts from their children. I know that for some families, this is happening for the first time ever.

The Holiday Shopping Spree took a hiatus during the Covid years, but Tatiana and her team brought it back with some brilliant innovations last year and I can’t wait to be part of it again this year. I hope you’ll start planning for it now.

And, if you cannot show up yourself, consider being a “virtual shopper.” Donate some funds to add to those Target gift cards so our enthusiastic teams can shop for you.

So happy I got to share this with you! Happy Holidays.

-Janis, 10/2025