Good service projects for kids?

[fidgiegirl]

I am involved in Girl Scouts and recently I got a mass e-mail from a leader wondering if anyone had ideas for a service project at her event. This is a large-ish, one-time event and they want to do a one-hour, on-camp service project and are seeking a new one. These are less than ideal kinds of scenarios, in my opinion, because they often involve bestowing stuff on someone else - stuff that may or may not be wanted. In the past the crisis nursery actually had to say "no more blankets" because SO MANY Girl Scouts were making them they were saturated.

Anyway, it got me thinking, and I started a page on my little Girl Scout website. Who knows if anyone even looks at that thing . . . Anyway, here it is: http://yourgsworld.wordpress.com/service-project-ideas/

What else can you think of? What would be meaningful, one-time shot, inexpensive service projects for any quantity of participants and that may or may not involve making junk?

[Madsen]

How about picking up trash?

[Rosemary]

http://www.doinggoodtogether.org/

This Twin Cities nonprofit focuses on service projects that can include children.

[creaker]

I've been to a couple of volunteer events which involved making cards for some very ill children and their siblings, but I'm not sure who provided the profile sheets of the kids.

If they are in a camp setting, why not some project to improve the camp?

[Bugeah]

What about making "Friendship Bags" for homeless? Get the girls to draw and decorate paper lunch sacks, then fill them with a protein-rich canned food with pop-top lids (Chef Bouyardi works great), a pre-packaged cup of fruit, a boxed juice, spoon, other snack like pretzels or peanuts, and a few other items like razors, toothbrush, or travel toothpaste, soap, shampoo, etc. We do this at our church and the kids have a blast decorating and filling the bags. Then you can take these bags either to a homeless shelter, or hand pass some out to everyone to hand out to homeless people when they see them.

Another idea that my daughter's Rainbow group did was to iron together plastic grocery bags to make tarps for Haiti. I'm not sure exactly how they made these, but they asked for contact paper, plastic bags, and an iron. I bet if you google it you would be able to find directions on how to put them together and maybe even where to send them. This would be a great way to reuse all those plastic grocery bags people have lying around.