8 Tips for Having an Awesome Family Volunteer Experience

Volunteering as a family is a great way to spend time together and make a difference in your community! While you never need an excuse to volunteer together, this Saturday is Family Volunteering Day, so it’s a great time to volunteer as a family or start a new tradition of service!

If you’re looking to start a tradition of volunteering in your family, but aren’t sure where to begin we’ve got some great ideas to get you started.

Don’t rush into it! We know you’re excited, but taking a little bit of time together as a family to talk about where you want to volunteer and what you want to do goes a long way to making sure everyone has a great time and is excited to volunteer together again!

Look for the best fit. You and your family might be tempted to volunteer at the first opportunity that looks right for all of you, but look for a few opportunities that everyone can agree on. Your perfect project might not be the first one you find!

Start small. Think about volunteering at a one-time event for your first family volunteer event. It’s a great way to find out if volunteering with that organization is a good fit for your family. Participating in a few different one-time events gives your family the opportunity to learn what they like to do most when they volunteer.

Find out what’s expected. It’s a good idea to do a little bit of homework before your family’s first volunteer event. Ask the Volunteer Manager what the age requirements are for the project, what appropriate dress looks like, how to be safe, or any other questions you might have before volunteering. If the organization you’re volunteering with has an orientation program, try to make sure that everyone in your family can attend the orientation.

Plan for success! Make sure you’ve planned to arrive on time and know where the volunteer site is. Showing up on time lets you make sure that your family doesn’t miss any important information they might need to have a successful and fun volunteer experience.

Be like Axl Rose. All you need is a little patience (). Smaller children might have a harder time paying attention or staying on task. Be patient with them and praise their small successes!

Take time to reflect on your accomplishments. Taking the time to talk about what you did as a family after volunteering makes the experience more real. Take some time to talk about what you did, why you did it, how you felt and what you learned. It doesn’t have to be just on the drive home! Use this as an opportunity to add to the tradition. Have the conversation about volunteering as part of a special treat.

Share your experience! Share your volunteer experience with friends and family members and encourage them to join you the next time you volunteer as a family!

Are you looking for more tips for having a great time volunteering as a family? Check out generationOn’s resources for having an awesome experience volunteering as a family.

Do you volunteer with your family? Are you volunteering with your family for the first time this weekend? Tell us about it in the comments!

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Are you still looking for ideas for volunteer opportunities that you and your family can share tomorrow for family volunteer day?  Why not try one of these?

1. Organize a one-day adoption fair with your local animal shelter at a convenient in-town location.
2. Collect pet food, rags, newspapers, pet toys, washable plastic pet carriers, paper towels, old towels and blankets for your local shelter.
3. Collect money for the training of Seeing Eye dogs and shelter dogs.  Make an educational flyer to give to donors about these special animals.
4. Make homemade dog biscuits and sell to earn money for an agency that rescues animals.
5. Build a dog park on a vacant piece of town land (with permission).
6. Organize a musical instrument drive and donate the instruments to a local school or community center.
7. Collect art supplies for kids in shelters or hospitals.
8. Make coloring books from downloadable web pages and spend a morning coloring or making a mural with homeless kids.
9. Help newly arrived immigrant children and their families celebrate their “First Thanksgiving” by collecting food, kitchen supplies, toiletries, clothing, school supplies, and toys.
10. Make backpacks of school supplies or toiletries for children and teens in foster care.
11. Start a holiday collection of NEW toys for organizations that distribute gifts to children of incarcerated parents.
12. Organize a collection of prom dresses and accessories for homecomings and proms.
13. Spiff up children’s rooms at a group home with new pillows and comforters and a coat of paint.
14. Clean up neighborhood streets, a playground, a beach, or a community garden.
15. Clean and paint a family housing shelter or community center.
16. Build barbecue pits, picnic tables or trails at local parks.
17. Participate in a brush-clearing hiking trip to help keep park trails in good condition.
18. Buy or collect donated sports equipment for low-income schools, shelters, after school programs, park and recreation programs.
19. Coordinate a healthy snack food drive for children in shelters or low-income after-school programs.
20. Organize a dance or a sock hop.  Make the admission a pair of new socks or a healthy snack to give to a shelter.
21. Collect food for your local soup kitchen or food pantry.
22. Collect new sneakers, pajamas, underwear and socks, cleaning and paper items or whatever is needed most on your local shelter’s wish list.
23. Collect books for low-income schools or after-school tutoring programs.
24. Donate funds or purchase new books to an underserved school or library.
25. Create a family story hour and read to children in your neighborhood or to residents of a senior home or group home.  If possible, leave the books with the residents.
26. Volunteer with a local literacy council to help people learn to read.
27. Partner with another family to repair or paint the home of an elderly couple or a needy family.
28. Make cards or a simple crafts and bring to a local nursing home for them to put on their dinner trays.
29. Visit a veteran’s home or senior residence, offer to interview them about their lives, take pictures of them and post on a bulletin board in a common area.
30. Make meals or buy groceries for a local Ronald McDonald House or Fisher House, homes that support families while their loved ones are being treated in hospitals.
31. Collect phone cards, new stuffed animals, dolls and toys for chronically ill children in hospitals.
32. Assemble activity kits for kids in hospitals.
33. Organize a “quilting bee” – make simple warm and cuddly quilts for sick babies or children.
34. Organize a sports and sporting equipment tag sale.  Use the funds to install basketball hoops or playground equipment for shelters or group homes or neighborhood parks.
35. Turn a vacant piece of land into a baseball or soccer field.
36. Volunteer with your local Special Olympics committee or at a Special Olympics event.
37. Organize a “celebrity game” in your town – i.e. a local radio station squares off with teachers to raise funds for a local need or to improve sporting facilities in your town.

Do you have plans for Family Volunteer Day? Tell us about them in the comments!

Today’s post comes from Tiffani Alexander, a member of generatiOn‘s Youth Advisory Council.

Community service has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember and continues to be as I have committed myself to giving back through volunteerism in my community. During the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, my family would deliver food baskets and toys to people in need through our church – this was the beginning of my journey with family volunteerism. When I was in the 2nd grade, I began volunteering with the Prevent Child Abuse Rockdale (PCA Rockdale) program, helping in the nursery, while my parents facilitated adult and children’s classes on how to prevent child abuse. Now, at the age of 14, I have been volunteering with PCA Rockdale for seven years.

My brother, who is five years older than I am, was also bit by the service bug and started a club through PCA Rockdale which I volunteered for, and as I got older, I wanted to do more. My brother told me to find something I was passionate about and run with it, and that’s just what I did.

I took my love for insects and turned it into a club – “Butterflies, Beetles and Bees, Oh My!” – that uses insects as a tool to demonstrate the importance of empathy and being sensitive to others’ needs. The program teaches children how to care for and nurture small insects and how those skills can also be used to interact with other human beings. For the past three and a half years, I have facilitated my club using activities such as bringing in live Bess Beetles to help the children learn about kindness, safety and compassion. The idea is, if children learn to be aware of others’ feelings and needs, they will hopefully become more compassionate citizens and be less likely to hurt others. The club currently has more than 60 members, ages 6 -12, and continues to grow.

The feelings that come with volunteering through “Butterflies, Beetles and Bees, Oh My!” are exhilarating and incredibly rewarding, and reflect what I call “Serving with Heart”. Volunteering with my family each week is very inspirational and is a great way to bond while helping others.

In honor of National Family Volunteer Day on Nov. 17, we will host a special family service project and families will make “No Sew” blankets using fleece to donate to Project Linus, an organization that collects and distributes blankets to children in hospitals, shelters, and social service agencies.

National Family Volunteer Day is a perfect time to “Serve with Heart” and encourage family members to take on a rewarding project to help others, or volunteer for an activity already taking place. Below are a few tips on how to get involved and instill within your family a commitment to making a positive impact in your local community, and beyond.

Tip #1: Parents – introduce community service to your child(ren) at a young age, and kids – get started early. If children develop a passion for community service when they are younger, they are more likely to volunteer when they are older. Talk to your family about why service is important and how to make volunteering fun.

Tip #2: Find something that your family is passionate about. Whether it is working with animals, homeless people, babies, or senior citizens, making a difference can be even more rewarding when doing what you love with the people you love.

Tip #3: Volunteer on a consistent basis. Partnering with an organization is a great way to establish a consistent service commitment. However, if flexibility is what your family likes, commit to finding a new project each month. For example, choose and volunteer with a homeless shelter one month and maybe an animal shelter the next. The choices are unlimited.

Tip #4: Find projects that are local. When you are first starting out, find local projects that interest you. You can make a difference in your community.

Tip #5: Look for ideas and resources. Organizations such as generationOn are aimed at getting children 5-18 years old involved in service. You can find great ideas and monthly projects for your family.

Get out and get involved! Once you find a project that your family loves, stick with it. Consistency is everything, so make it a habit to volunteer on a regular basis and honor your commitment – people are counting on you. For more project ideas or stories about how other youth are making their mark on the world, visit www.generationOn.org.

Family Volunteer Day, a Points of Light signature day of service, demonstrates and celebrates the power of families who volunteer together, supporting their neighborhoods, communities and the world. For 22 years, Family Volunteer Day has been held on the Saturday before Thanksgiving to “kick-off” the holiday season with giving and service. This year Family Volunteer Day takes place on November 17 and is being powered by generationOn and sponsored by Disney Friends For Change, a global initiative that inspires kids and families to take action to help people, communities and the planet.

Tiffani Alexander | Covington, GA | Age 14

Tiffani, a member of the generationOn Youth Advisory Council, is the founder of Butterflies, Beetles and Bees, Oh My!, a bug club she runs in partnership with the Prevent Child Abuse Rockdale program. Most kids are scared of insects and would sooner squash them than take care of them, but Tiffani has turned to these oft-neglected animals as a means of teaching compassion and nurturing—all in the context of exploring a very difficult issue: child abuse. Tiffani fearlessly tackles this important, yet challenging topic in the most unusual way. Her program teaches children about how to care for and nurture small insects and how those skills can also be used to interact with other human beings.

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Today’s post comes from Jenny Friedman, Executive Director of Doing Good Together.

Family Volunteer Day is Saturday, November 17. With the holidays around the corner, it’s a great time to latch onto the seasonal spirit and decide to become a volunteering family. Yes, it means putting one more thing on your burgeoning to-do list. But the multiple benefits that “giving back” activities can have for children, families and communities have made me passionate about families spending time together, building a better world, one small project at a time.

Consider: powerful new research confirms that by giving to others we can improve our own—and our children’s—mental and physical health, life satisfaction, longevity and success. “Giving,” says one researcher, “is the most potent force on the planet. [It] shines a protective light over the entire life span.”

If you’re hesitant to add a new commitment to your family’s overscheduled life, you’ll see below that even a couple hours a month makes a difference. No matter how old your children – or how much time you can spare – you and your kids have the power to make a difference in someone else’s life. Here are five simple ideas for getting started.

1. Choose a kitchen-table service activity. These are small, doable projects that can be completed at home – things like writing cards for children with chronic illnesses, making pet toys for an animal shelter or coloring pictures for the elderly. You can find dozens of these projects in “recipe” format at bigheartedfamilies.org. Even these simple projects can start a conversation with children about the importance of reaching out, conversations that can have a lifelong impact. (Each Big-Hearted Families project comes with reflection questions to jumpstart your chats.)
2. “Adopt” a local food pantry or shelter. Decorate a grocery box (or bag) and put it in a conspicuous place in your kitchen. Each time you go to the grocery store, choose one additional item (take advantage of 2-for-1 sales) and deposit it in your box. When it’s full, donate it to your local food pantry. You can do the same for a local homeless shelter or social service agency, using your box to collect new and gently used clothing, toys and household goods. If you’re having fun, consider refilling and dropping off all yearlong. Also, ask to take a tour to learn more about the agency and find out about other ways your family might help out.
3. Carve out a set time for service. Choose a time each week or each month to focus on “doing for others.” One mom has designated “Giving Thursdays” as her family’s time to make a difference.
4. Find one ongoing opportunity. When my children were small, a friend and I delivered meals twice monthly to the homebound. At each house, my friend or I would take one of our preschoolers, tightly clutching a meal, up to the door. Our children felt important, and the people were delighted to be handed their noonday meal by a grinning 3-year-old. You can find all kinds of ongoing family-friendly opportunities – mentoring a child, visiting the elderly, cooking at a homeless shelter, fostering animals — through your local volunteer center.
5. Make service part of your holiday traditions. For example, get your relations to help downsize large bags of rice and beans for a foodshelf on Thanksgiving, shop for Toys for Tots in December, and create a giving box on New Year’s Day to catch stray change that you’ll donate later in the year. More ideas: On your children’s birthdays, make a blanket to donate to the hospital where they were born, Trick or Treat for UNICEF on Halloween, and bake goodies on Valentine’s Day to show some lonely folks they’re not forgotten.

Take time this season to start a family tradition of service. When parents and kids volunteer together, they learn that every human being has worth, that we are stewards of this planet, and that the world is a better place when we care for one another.

Family Volunteer Day, a Points of Light signature day of service, demonstrates and celebrates the power of families who volunteer together, supporting their neighborhoods, communities and the world. For 22 years, Family Volunteer Day has been held on the Saturday before Thanksgiving to “kick-off” the holiday season with giving and service. This year Family Volunteer Day takes place on November 17 and is being powered by generationOn and sponsored by Disney Friends For Change, a global initiative that inspires kids and families to take action to help people, communities and the planet.