Odwalla and the Soccer Mom

First, I never thought I’d be a “soccer mom.” And yet, here we are on our third pair of soccer shoes entering another season. We’ve tried to be pretty intentional in our parenting, and work hard not to let activities prevent us from plenty of family time during the week. Plus, there is much to be said for the merits of plenty of unstructured outdoor play time. With all that said, Sophie has found her sweet spot on the soccer field.

I recently mentioned in Parenting à la française that we try to eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and we’ve been even more excited about it recently. I’m also a huge fan of smoothies (my husband makes them regularly for breakfast for us) and fruit drinks, and I’ve been a pretty big fan of Odwalla C Monster for a while. Whenever I feel myself getting a little sick or low energy, I’ll chug a gigantic bottle full of fruits and vitamin C and notice an almost immediate difference.

So, I’m really excited to have a chance to work on a little Odwalla project. On Saturday, April 14 we’ll bring a bunch of Odwalla for the girls on the team and conduct a used soccer equipment drive for our team and anyone else who might like to participate during that morning’s soccer games at Foerster Park in Rogers, Arkansas. We ask that parents bring old soccer shoes, shin guards and clothing to us at noon that day at the back of the Rogers Activity Center, which we’ll donate through the Rogers Community School Recreation Association to help kids who may not be able to purchase equipment to play. More about the equipment drive, which is an Odwalla Champions for Kids Simple Service Project, in an upcoming post. If you’re interested in participating, please contact me directly or reply to this post.

As I ran by the store to pick up Odwalla and a few other items this Friday, I kind of circled back to the “soccer mom” thought process. I surveyed my car, which was full of a) paperwork from ONSC b) supplies for our Women’s Yoga Retreat this weekend c) a suit for the dry cleaners d) the eight year old’s jackets shed from throughout the week e) a giant bag of donation items for the Salvation Army f) various bags to drop at the recycling center g) snacks from the toddler sprinkled on the floor board h) a mysterious sticky substance on the passenger seat. I don’t think there can be any doubt that my time has come.

As I took my shopping bag into Walmart to load up bottles of Odwalla for myself and my family and friends to sample before I make another run in two weeks for our Odwalla Champions for Kids Simple Service Project, I noticed that my fellow shoppers were looking at me with suspicion as I took juice bottles out of the fridge display and put them in my bag – as though I were blatantly shoplifting! Sigh. I guess it will be a while before bringing your own bag is the norm and not something wacky people do, which is disappointing.

I wrapped up my big shopping trip by purchasing ten bottles of Odwalla, a bag of oyster crackers (my kids love them), baby wipes, chocolate-covered pretzels, red skin peanuts and almonds (healthy snacks for the yoga retreat) and a new camp chair to leave at ONSC for our campfire pavilion. That’s a pretty normal shopping trip for a mom, right?

Anyway, my “path to purchase” and Odwalla shopping experience photos are over in a Google+ story album. I left the berry, strawberry protein and chocolate protein smoothie blends for my family to try, and I swiped the C Monster and Mango Tango to take with me as I headed out to the Ozark Natural Science Center for our Women’s Yoga Retreat. As I do with any product I’m enthusiastic about, I read the label carefully and checked out their website, which I loved. I’m pretty smitten with the plant-based bottles!

I’ll be posting the details on our used soccer equipment drive (which falls in nicely with our mission at ONSC!) next week. This is a “Simple Service Project” through Odwalla Champions for Kids (#OdwallaCFK). Learn more at www.championsforkids.org or on Facebook, or follow Champions4Kids on Twitter. Join us on April 14 or plan your own project!

You can also read more about Odwalla products www.odwalla.com – it’s a great site! Let me know if you’d like to contribute used soccer items and we’ll arrange pick up. And – if you’ve tried any of the Odwalla smoothie blends, let me know what you thought!

This shopping post has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias #CBias. However, all opinions are my own and I only occasionally work with products that I’m super enthusiastic about. I’ve always been interested in the ways that good products can effectively market themselves, and enjoy working with brands I would support or purchase anyway on projects such as this one.