View Full Version : Volunteer ideas for kids
I have been thinking about requiring a certain number of service hours of my older kids per month and, of course, continuing for the younger kids when they are older. The kids I know who do a lot of volunteering really seem to enjoy it and have more gratitude for the things they have. I also think it's just good citizenship and at 7 and 8 it would be easy for it to become a lifelong habit.
Anyway, I have been trying to come up with ideas they can do at their ages. You all are good at this kind of stuff, so I thought I'd throw this out there and see what you guys thought.
This week I had them help me get stuff from Costco for the food shelf, which was running low, and deliver it. We talked about getting the most nutrition for our dollars while still considering that the food should be easy to prepare in case people didn't have a lot of cooking skills or time. We ended up getting canned green beans, baked beans, spaghetti, canned tomatoes with italian seasoning, canned corn, applesauce, canned turkey chili and tuna.
Some other thoughts I've had:
-Stocking food at the food shelf or helping at the baby closet at church
-Volunteering with the portable homeless shelter that comes to our church twice a year (we have done this and enjoyed it immensely)
-Helping an elderly neighbor or a sick neighbor with some kind of task
-Feed My Starving Children (we have done this too)
Any other ideas? I'll take ideas for the future too, when they are a bit older. They are very useful for a 7 and 8 year old, but I know that as they get older more opportunities will open up.
I'm not sure what the age limits are, but friends' children have volunteered at the library and their local (no-kill, state of the art) Humane Society.
Our local humane society and most pet shelters require kids to be at least 10. But you could always buy supplies/food from their list of needs, usually on their website. Our favorite cat shelter has an annual yard sale fundraiser so we cleaned out the house to look for things for that.
We've volunteered at our food shelf. Kids can easily read expiration dates and sort food, but in ours at least, the food storage area was really crowded, and I was a little concerned about cans falling from a few overstocked shelves above DD's height, so I kept really close tabs on her and tried to stock those areas myself.
Other ideas:
Make cards for people at nursing homes or for Meals on Wheels.
Call nursing homes/assisted living facilities, ask if there is a time kids could do crafts with, read with, or perform music for residents.
Call shelters that have children as residents - homeless shelters or women's shelters - and ask if they need toys or kids' clothes. Start a collection to take there.
Collect school supplies - our food shelf takes these, and our church collects school supplies for a women's shelter.
Volunteer gardening/weeding assistance to a local nonprofit. Our church does this at the same women's shelter and plants a vegetable/herb garden every spring.
Think of ways to volunteer that are connected to upcoming holidays to bring the connection home. Our church takes all the kids in costume to a nursing home at Halloween - some residents are so happy to see children that they weep. At Thanksgiving, buy a complete dinner and take it to a shelter or food shelf. Make valentines for nursing home residents. Etc.
fidgiegirl
7-17-12, 2:25pm
Make cards for people at nursing homes or for Meals on Wheels.
At my late Grammy's nursing home, they had a stash of free cards that residents could access to send to loved ones for their birthdays, etc. So there is another twist on the card approach - it might be a greeting for the residents themselves, or might be blank cards for them to be able to use.
Great ideas! I am adding these to the list.
fidgiegirl
7-17-12, 5:03pm
Here's another thing I was thinking - it's more challenging to do this, because service projects so often take the form of giving actual items - but service can be coordinating, too. How about coordinating a kids' book swap at church? Or any take on that theme - kids' clothes, toy swap, etc. Anything left over can be given to charity.
So many good ideas. The emergency food pantry that I volunteered for had children come in with their children to pack up the groceries for clients, and some of the older children made sandwiches for the sack lunches. I enjoyed working with the children there.
If there are organizations that have "friends of" groups attached, you might want to ask if they have ideas about Junior Friends activities.
Tussiemussies
7-17-12, 9:12pm
How about reading books to young children at the library. I think that most libraries have story time!
Making little presents for elderly neighbors, putting on the porch, ringing the doorbell and then running away...
Making presents for family members for birthday's, and holidays.
We have some young boys that come and weed for us and we pay them. Even though they would get paid, still a good learning lesson.
At Christmas time in churches there usually is a list of needy children who need gifts. How about taking your children shopping for the gift and then let them wrap and make a card and give it to the church-- a more expensive idea but a good cause.
-Join the Big Sister program. Volunteer to work with an 8 year old girl. Include her in various family activities. For logistical and safety reasons, ask for a girl without ADD or ADHD.
-Dust the lower parts of things for older people who are injured or who have had surgery.
-Create a garden bed and donate produce. Usually a 4x4 space can provide a salad a day or a vegetable a day for 1 person for the growing season. This could go to a soup kitchen, a senior apartment building, or an older person in your church who can cook, but can’t do the moving around that gardening requires. Harvest would usually need to go to them about every three days, though you may be able to harvest at 3 day mark and hold in your own refrigerator for delivery with the second harvest once a week. See the Square Foot gardening books for designing a small garden with diverse produce.
--Some charity groups put together shoeboxes of school supplies for people in other countries.
--Rake leaves in the fall for older people who are injured or who have had surgery.
--Start a clothing/textile mending morning/evening at church perhaps twice a month. Include children 6 and up to teach them mending. Invite older adults who are experienced at mending. Invite people who don’t know how to mend to come and learn or just to have things mended. Require that items be washed or dry cleaned before mending. This will provide a multigenerational preservation of mending skills. As a bonus, you may get some retired widows and widowers in contact with each other under casual meeting conditions. Who knows where that might lead? ;) On the other hand if you discover that some older gentlemen are cutting buttons off their shirts in order to spend time with their favorite mender, encourage them to ask their favorite mender out for coffee instead. If several people bring sewing machines and extension cords that will help. If everyone brings a variety of thread colors that will help. Encourage church members to cut off and save all buttons from clothing going into the rag pile. Cut out zippers and hooks as well. Let children practice sewing buttons by creating button cards from the cardboard in tissue/cereal/cracker boxes and sewing sets of salvaged buttons onto cards to keep sets of buttons together. Alternatively snack bags can be used to keep sets of buttons together. If there is extra time after mending is done, use seam rippers to pick out the threads and detach the zippers out of the cut off material.
--Make lap quilts, quillows, or twin size bed quilts for kids in homeless shelters or foster care. 9-patch, amish shadow, and rail fence patterns are good for this. Depending on the size of donated material they may be able to do some strip quilting or quilt in a day techniques. More complex patterns such as flower basket with appliqued flowers work well. Try to find someone who would machine quilt the completed tops for you.
I strongly urge you to find what your kids are interested in and allow them to use their talents and interests to serve others. You also don't need to be restricted to organizations. I'm sure there are lots of people in your own neighborhood who could use some help. An elderly person who can't bend as easily as they used to, may want help weeding a garden for example. I find that when kids follow their own interests and serve that way, then serving becomes a habit.
SteveinMN
7-18-12, 10:15am
The "Casserole Ladies" thread elsewhere made me think of this. A few times a year, we join someone who is very active in serving meals at the Ronald McDonald House in Minneapolis near the Children's hospital. It's a longer-stay kind of place where parents and siblings can stay for free while their kids are being treated for cancer and other serious illnesses.
Contrary to what I initially believed, there is not a Quarter-Pounder on the premises unless a family brings it in. :D There are three kitchens so families can prepare foods on their schedules but there also is a large rotating stock of volunteers who prepare and serve a homestyle meal for the families almost every day. I am not aware of an age limit, and, anyway, even if there is one for serving, or if you have your own limits for your kids based on what they can do, it is possible RMH would want them to volunteer in other areas, like groundskeeping (pulling weeds, collecting windblown trash, etc.) or to work with the kids (there's actually a school on premises) and a schedule of activities.
I will note that RMH does not provide financial assistance for the food -- just the kitchens and plates/napkins/glasses, etc. -- and you're usually preparing to serve four to six dozen people (depending on the day) so it's not the kind of thing you could just walk into. It might be a project to take on with neighbors or homeschool kids/parents to cover the costs. Or if you know someone who works at a food place (supermarket, food wholesaler, restaurant), that might help financially, too. Just thought I'd throw that in here.
You guys are awesome! I love these ideas! This is much, much more than I would have come up with on my own. I am getting really excited to get started with this!
Square Peg
7-18-12, 6:37pm
My son and husband are currently volunteering together at a horse rescue farm. Humane society would work too :)
Zoos have volunteer programs for teens.
Library
Political office is so inclined.
When my sisters and I were younger, we used to volunteer at our church, serving coffee, tea, and biscuits, for such events as bazaars, annual teas, and craft shows. We dressed up in our finest and were always greeted with a warm and happy crowd, and playing servers, never failed to make us feel so grown-up and mature.
I was a part of Acteens growing up in church - it was for girls, RA's was for boys. You could do different levels and earn college scholarships (as long as you went to a Baptist University which I did). I worked my way up to Queen and then did Service Aid....which was all about service projects.
I volunteered at the hospital (they had a Volunteen program), at HeadStart as a room aid, at a nursing home, at a children's home (also bought and paid for christmas gifts for a boy there with no family), went on a summer long mission trip, worked with a local day camp, fed and walked pets for a local vet, cleaned stalls after 4H fair, and I can't remember what else but I can tell you I was busy all the time.
I sure appreciated the scholorships that I earned from that as well as the life lessons and the desire to always serve/help others that I developed during those early years.
My boys volunteer at a local meal program during the winter months. I really should of looked into something for them over this summer because next summer they'll both be working.
Excellent ideas! I am adding them to the list.
This coming week I have arranged for us to help out with our church's annual baby stuff drive sorting the donations. I think this project is so good for them and they are so excited about it.
shadowmoss
7-20-12, 12:51pm
I don't know if serving at a soup kitchen (probably has a more politically correct name now) and/or helping clear tables there might be an interesting learning experience for them.
Adopting a part of a roadside and picking up trash, either formally or informally. Any cans collected could be redeemed for cash and either used for treats for them or donated.
A volunteer organization where I live schedules "booyah" dates - particular dates/events when younger volunteers are encouraged to sign up. More chances there will be peers volunteering, which I think is really important, it's very different if you're not the only child there volunteering.
I remember one summer (I was 16?), I got roped into helping coach a t-ball team. To my surprise I actually enjoyed it.
I second (third?) the idea of having your kids make cards or drawings for seniors.
I was a recptionist at a retirement community and when the mail came I was bombarded with people asking if there was anything for them. Many times there was not.
I asked for help from the local school, and they sent me packets of homemade cards and papercrafts from the children. I (with the director's permission) would put things in the various boxes. What a lot of pleasure they gave folks.
Our organization's rules were the children only signed with first names and that the cards were not to be addressed to a particular resident. This protected everyone's privacy
Simpler at Fifty
7-21-12, 7:51pm
You could adopt a wing at a nursing homes and then have the kids make cards a couple times a year and bring them to each resident. They would love it. My Mom was in a group that did this and I went with her for years. Finally in Jr High I took it over myself and brought Easter and Christmas cards to each person. They were not homemade but I still remember how much they all appreciated them. I think that is why I am more comfortable around Elders than even people my own age. The stories they tell are amazing and the warm fuzzies abound each time you visit.
I agree with LilyB about the privacy issue. You would want to check with the nursing home first. In the last one I did private care in there was a man that only had his first name on his door. He was assaulted by some punks and never was the same afterwards. (the family told me what happened because he was in the room next to my client)
The same nursing home has gift lists for residents that do not have family. You can adopt someone and either donate a gift anonymously or deliver it to them yourself.
My near-nonegenarian MIL's neighbor kids have done stuff for years that helps her. Little stuff like they take her garbage bins to the curb for pickup every week. Not much effort frothe kids but it is a big deal that they do this stuff. Over the years thay nad their mom have grown a close reationship with the MIL. Like we have more relatives now.
My cat rescue org uses Junior volunteers. They clean cat messes and spend time socializing the cats to make them more adoptable., The HS aged kids we've had have been a joy. I imagine similar orgs in other towns do this.
Awesome, awesome ideas everyone! I am loving this thread. There are so many ways to do good!
Grandpa (my dad) has been wanting to donate to the food shelf every week, so we made a deal with him that if he gives us the money ($100 a week) we will do the shopping and delivery as part of our service hours. We are also volunteering with a baby things drive again next week and the week after. In August Charlotte's Godfather is spearheading a walk to raise money for the homeless. One mile per person (babies count) transfers $10 from a grant fund to the homelessness charity. There are seven of us, so that is $70 and even baby Charlotte gets to do some good. :) It's close to home too, at Silverwood Park.
Now I'm trying to decide how many service hours I want to require a month. I'm thinking maybe 6-8 to start. That's 1.5-2 hours a week. That seems reasonable and doable. I am already finding this to be a really rewarding thing for all of us.
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