{sponsored by Coles}
It's no secret that I've been doing my grocery shopping at Coles for years, but now that Bella's school is participating in the Coles Sports for Schools campaign it means that I can shop at Coles and collect vouchers for all of my purchases. For every $10 that I spend any Coles, Coles Online, BI-LO or Pick n’ Pay store, I receive a voucher. Then, at the end of the promotion, Bella's school can trade the vouchers for sports equipment!! It's a fantastic program.
On Monday I stopped off at Coles and did our weekly grocery shop, collecting 26 Coles Sports for Schools vouchers at the checkout. I was doing all of my grocery shopping online for a while there, but lately I've been converting back to good old fashioned service and lining up at the checkout. I know my way around the supermarket, where the products are located and if I work off a list, then I always come home with what I need. When I don't work off a list, I'm often tempted with other goodies. Okay, sometimes I work off a list and I'm still tempted with the other goodies, especially family viewing DVD's and magazines - they just seem to hop right into my trolley.
What ended up in my trolley this week? All sorts of random goodies including: x2 roasts (on special), a DVD to pop away for Christmas (told you I can't resist), fresh vegies, four punnets of strawberries, toilet rolls (we all need those), doggie biscuit treats, plus the ingredients to make a double batch of chocolate chip muffins for school lunches.
After unpacking all of those groceries from the car, it was baking time:
I know that I've shared my chocolate chip muffin recipe before, but here it is again for all of my lovely new readers. I've been making these for years and the family never tire of them:
Chocolate Chip muffins:
(Mixture makes 12 muffins)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 free range egg
1/2 can of NESTLE caramel top 'n' fill
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 packet choc chips
1/4 cup milk
Combine oil, sugar and egg in bowl. Stir in Nestle caramel top 'n' fill.
Lightly fold in flour and remaining ingredients. Cook in moderate oven 180 degrees for about 20 - 25 minutes (in muffin pan).
{photo above courtesy of Coles Sports for Schools}
Now, just getting back on track after my recipe share - last year a massive 7,665 schools across Australia participated in the program, and were provided with over $7 million worth of gear!! This made it the largest provider of sporting goods to schools in the country (including state and federal governments)! As I mentioned before, the idea is that Coles vouchers are collected by school kids (once their parents do their grocery shopping) and exchanged for sports equipment to be used by their school. The Coles Sports For Schools Catalogue covers most sports and features more than 350 products including big names like Sherrin, Speedo and Adidas.
Here are some Coles Sports for Schools statistics for you:
- Last year, Coles gave away over thousands of items including:
- Enough footballs, soccer balls & rugby balls to fill the MCG
- 600 moonballs & 400 Cannon Catchers
- 500 rubber chickens
- 200,000 waffle bats
- Enough basketball rings to simultaneously play 100 basketball games
Who knows how big those figures will be this year!
The lovely team at Coles recently sent our family out a HUGE box of sports equipment (from the program) for us to enjoy. There was great excitement opening the box to see what goodies were inside.
Here we are playing with just a few pieces of the sports equipment that we received:
Ahh, stilts! When I was at kindergarten (way back!) we had tin can stilts and goodness, how I loved walking around on them. Stilts have certainly come up in the world since the old tin can days!
We like to call this little creation the hedgehog. You load up the ball and jump on the hedgehog, sending the ball through the air for the other person to try and catch or hit with a bat.
Bat & ball games are always fun - I love seeing Bella's tongue poking out to help with concentration.
Little fuzzy balls, big red balls and a whistling vortex - they were some of the other Coles Sports for Schools goodies that we've been busy playing with. But, the biggest excitement of the day was when Bella discovered that there was a wooden egg and spoon set in the box.
Bella: MUM, I've ALWAYS wanted one of these!!!!
We had a lovely afternoon at the beach with our new family sports equipment, thank you Coles.
Before I sign off, here's a little recap of how you can be involved and help your school receive goodies like the ones we had fun playing with above:
- Shop at Coles, Coles Online, BI-LO or Pick n’ Pay store and collect your Coles Sports for Schools vouchers
- Find out if your child's school is involved in the program and donate the vouchers. Don't forget to collect the vouchers for grandchildren, cousins and neighbours that might be participating. If you don't know any little people, still collect the vouchers and donate them to a school in your neighbourhood.
- Have a happy and warm fuzzy feeling that you've helped a local school with free sports equipment for their students.
Are you already collecting the Coles Sports for Schools vouchers? If not, please get cracking :)
P.S. Please note: This is a sponsored post. Coles provided me with Sports equipment, a Coles Gift Voucher, and payment for this post. All opinions and ideas expressed in this post are my own.
