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Group offers no-cost gift ideas

Workshop has tips to help people take a thrifty trip through the holiday season.

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By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer 12:38 AM Sunday, November 8, 2009

HAMILTON — Even if you’re not looking for work, the 225 Jobs group is offering a program this week that may help you with your Christmas budget.

Dick Haid will present “Giving Holiday Gifts from the Heart, Not the Wallet,” a program he’s been presenting for about 15 years, and so has accumulated an abundance of ideas on how to give free gifts without seeming like a Scrooge.

The 225 Jobs group meets twice a month at the First United Methodist Church, to provide support and encouragement to people who need jobs. This workshop will be 9:30 a.m. Monday, Nov. 9.

“We invite anyone in the community who may not need jobs but are concerned about their holiday spending,” Haid said.

He first presented the program 15 years ago at the invitation of the Hyde Park Methodist Church in Cincinnati and has been giving the workshop regularly ever since, and has plenty of anecdotes about how successful these ideas can be.

“The purpose it to encourage people to give gifts of experience, gifts that are created or recycled, or gifts of personal service,” he said.

Haid said that in this economic climate, the idea of “re-gifting” — of recycling a present you may have received at another occasion — has become more socially acceptable.

He said that he will provide blank gift certificates so that people can promise the gift of cleaning a garage, fixing a leaky faucet or giving someone tomatoes or flowers from their garden later in the year.

“We’re basically talking about freeing people up from the pressure of the holidays,” he said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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