Smart Shopper Coupon & Cookie Swap & Food Drive Saturday

You are invited to the 3rd Annual WRAL Smart Shopper Holiday Coupon Swap, Cookie Exchange and Food Drive on Saturday, December 3! Read on for the details and registration information.

Posted 2:00 p.m. Nov 28, 2016 — Updated 2:02 p.m. Nov 28, 2016

You are invited to the 3rd Annual WRAL Smart Shopper Holiday Coupon Swap, Cookie Exchange and Food Drive!

Let's share some coupons, enjoy some cookies and make some donations to a great cause!

We still have 5 spaces available so if you would like to attend, please let me know. Registration details are below.

Event details:

Date: Saturday, December 3, 2016

Time: 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Location: WRAL TV, 2619 Western Blvd., Raleigh, NC 27606

Space is limited to first 25 people to register. See below to register.

How it Works:

If you plan to come, you’ll need to bring coupons to swap, cookies/sweets to exchange and at least one non-perishable item to donate to the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina. Feel free to bring more than one item to donate!

If you only want to come to the Coupon Swap and bring a donation for the Food Drive, that's fine as well. Not everyone is into a cookie swap and that's just fine with us.

Coupon Swap:

We’ll start the event with a Coupon Swap. Bring your unwanted coupons already cut and in a plastic bag or envelope. After everyone briefly introduces themselves and shares how long they have been couponing, we will all sit around the table and pass the coupon envelopes from one person to the next until they have gone all the way around and you get your envelope back. Take out the coupons you will use from the other envelopes and pass the rest on.

There is no need to sort the coupons by product type, but I usually paper clip the pet food coupons together and the baby product coupons together in the envelope I bring to share so people who don’t use those products can just skip over them. Again that is not necessary, just helps move things along.

Additional tips: Please make sure your coupons are already cut out of the inserts so folks don’t have to spend the time fumbling with scissors.

Please make sure all coupons are in date and that there are no expired coupons in the envelope you bring to share with others.

Expired Coupons: If you have expired coupons, you can also bring them in a separate envelope. We will send them to our US military overseas who can use them at commissaries on US bases for up to 6 months after they have expired. The expired coupons should be no more than 3 months expired so there is plenty of time for the coupons to get to the bases. We want to make sure that the soldiers and their families have enough time to use them.

Cookie/Sweets Exchange:

After the Coupon Swap, we will have a Cookie/Sweets Exchange! Each person who attends this event should bring 5 dozen of the same type of cookie or sweet treat to share. That’s 60 sweet treats per person.

Feel free to bring cookies, fudge, candy, brownies or another favorite holiday treat that is easy to separate into individual servings. We aren't not limiting this to only cookies because sometimes your favorite holiday recipe is not a cookie. Plus, we’ll have a wider variety to take home if there are more than cookies to share.

You do not have to separate them out ahead of time into individual containers or bags. Just bring all 60 treats in one or 2 containers.

Each person should bring an additional empty container to fill with the treats from the swap. It needs to be big enough to hold 5 dozen cookies/sweets. You bring 5 dozen of one type of treat to share and you go home with 5 dozen treats of all different types!

Before the exchange starts, each person will stand with her/his cookie and briefly describe the cookie and why you picked that one to bring (Grandma’s favorite recipe, wanted to try something new, etc).

When the cookie exchange starts, each person will go through the line and take 2 of each of the different cookies. Then we will all make a second pass at the cookie table and each person can take a total of 10 more cookies of any kind. At that point, you will have 60 total cookies to take home. Yum!

Please bring a piece of paper with the name of the treat on it to place in front of your creation so we all know what you made.

Last year there were some delicious treats! I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with this year.

For those with allergies: there were a number of treats with peanut butter and various nuts last year so keep that in mind if you plan to attend.

Additional tips:

Please do not bring treats that are really messy or gooey (like pie). They need to be easy to transport.

If you really want to join us, but you don’t bake or you simply do not have the time, I totally understand. You can still bring quality store made cookies/sweets from the bakery (grocery store bakery is just fine). Just be sure to bring 5 dozen to share.

If you would like to e-mail the recipe for your creation to me, I will compile them all and post them on the blog so all our readers can enjoy them.

Food Drive:

Please bring at least one non-perishable item to donate to the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina. Feel free to bring more than one item to donate!

You can find out more about the Food Bank on their website. www.foodbankcenc.org/

Since this event is limited to the first 25 people to register, please let us know a few days in advance if you will not be able to attend so we can open up the spot for someone else.