Community Service Projects or Family Friendly Volunteer Projects

[TheAttachedMama]

Hi Everyone,

 

I help organize a small homeschooling group made up of around 20 families.   We are looking for some community service projects that we could participate in.   Like a lot of homeschooling families, we have kids of all ages who would be along for the ride.   Does anyone know of any good websites I could look at to find such opportunities?

[Bambam]

Some suggestions:

 

1. Organize periodic sing-along sessions at your local nursing home. Print out lyric sheets of popular songs from their era and have the kids sing and enjoy the residents to sing with you. Afterwards, if the kids are comfortable with it, have them go around saying hello to the residents. Or schedule a game night and take several games - assuming the group is okay with that. Simply call your local nursing  home and ask to speak to the Activities Director. Many also have one birthday party a month - and often they welcome people to help with that.

 

2. Make cards for people - kids in the hospital, veterans, misc people in the nursing home (who don't get much mail).

 

3. Adopt a park or street for trash pickup

 

[Rachel]

I don’t know if websites, but I would look at what’s available in your community.

 

In mine good opportunities would be: food bank, clothing bank, nursing home, humane society. The humane society usually requires volunteers to be older but may make an exception if you were coming in as a group for the day to help them complete a project like putting packets together.

[Bay Lake Mom]

I am a leader for American Heritage Girls. Our troop is made up of girls aged 5 to late teens. These are the things we participate in regularly.

 

Food Bank - The food bank in NC has kids day on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month from 2-4. Check out your local food bank for similar opportunities.

 

Retirement Village - We’ve reached out to a local retirement community to let them know we were interested in helping. They have shared so many opportunities for us to help out. The kids have helped with Bingo night, they’ve hosted a carnival there, they’ve helped with a dance, as well as many other things.

 

Cards for kids in the hospital - we have got together and made cards out of card stock, stickers, markers... We take them to the child life team at the hospital, and they pass them out to the kids. They especially appreciate this near Christmas and Valentines Day.

 

Freezer meals for the fire department - the firemen love to have ready made, nutritious meals they can pop in the oven. A large group can work assembly line style to make these. A smaller group would deliver. (Possibly have the younger kids deliver while enjoying a visit to the local fire department!)

 

There are so many others. There is an excellent book called “The Kids Guide to Service Projectsâ€. I highly recommend if you’re wanting to lead service projects.