Colorado Springs business woman hands out free graduation gift baskets

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- It's been a tough time for a lot of people. Many are unemployed, and it's rough on families who have recent graduates. Some of them aren't able to do the special thing that they may have wanted to do for their grads. So Alize Tran and her family decided to help. She owns a gift basket shop called Simply Yours. She spent the day giving out free graduation gift baskets to the class of 2020.

"We just wanted to do something to get back," Tran said. "Especially for families that have been hit hard. I know a lot of people personally that are just struggling right now. So we thought, 'hey, we just started our business. Everything's going really well, let's get other local businesses out there. They wanted to make contributions so we thought we could pack everything up and get it out there for all the grads. "

About 15 local businesses came together to make this thing happen. Some donations were big, others were smaller, but all of them were just trying to find a way to make this a special graduation season.

"It's amazing, the reality of it. I know I had this picture in my head to donate these baskets and I wasn't sure how it was gonna turn out. To see the smile and the joy on the parents faces, as well as the graduates, it makes me feel so happy inside and I'm so happy that we can do this."

The items in the gift bags included cookies, restaurant gift cards, hair cut vouchers and even toilet paper.

The businesses involved are Centennial cuts, Short stop, Dairy Queen, Slingers coffee shop, Sugar Plum bakery, Warriors Heart Studio, Swirly cow, Rita’s, Adorn Salon, Hair HQ, Foil Salon, Josh and Johns, Honey Salon and Spa, and Design5sixty.