Our Vision

The Family Giving Tree Elves envision a world where every child feels like a valuable part of their community through a national belief in the power of giving.

Our Mission

The Family Giving Tree fulfills the exact holiday wish and provides backpacks filled with school supplies to those children in the most need in our communities inspiring the values of kindness, philanthropy and volunteerism.

Our History

The Family Giving Tree began in 1990 as a San Jose State University MBA class project. Jennifer Cullenbine and Todd Yoshida were asked to "create a program that adds value to someone else's life." They created the Family Giving Tree with the hope of providing holiday gifts to 300 children in East Palo Alto. Encouraged by the success of the first year, Jennifer decided to continue and expand the organization. In the 20th year of the program's existence, the total number of gifts and backpacks donated had grown to over 700,000, making the Family Giving Tree the largest gift and backpack donation program in California.

Our Process

The programs work by selecting families, students and homeless persons who have registered with recipient social service agencies and schools. These individuals are interviewed to ascertain their current needs. Their requests are printed on cards and distributed to host companies throughout the Bay Area. Many of the hosts place their Giving Trees in break areas or cafeterias so their employees can participate in the program. Other hosts place their Giving Trees in more public locations such as building lobbies where customers, as well as employees, may donate gifts. Employees and/or customers pick one, or more, wish cards from their tree, purchase the gift, then return it with the wish card attached, to the Giving Tree. Volunteers collect, sort and distribute the gifts to the recipient agencies.

In addition to the holiday program, the Family Giving Tree runs a Back-to-School Drive to collect and distribute backpacks filled with school supplies to children in September.