Posts Tagged ‘Home’

Leap into the Unexpected this Leap Day!

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

Today’s blog post originally appeared on the VolunteerSpot daily blog on February 28,2012. This post was written by  Jessica Young, a social media specialist at VolunteerSpot. Jessica also coaches volunteer leaders in getting the most out of social media and her organization’s free online tools.

Leap Day comes but once every four years – a day that does’t exist 75% of the time!  It is truly a GREAT opportunity to take action and do something out of the ordinary.

Do the Unexpected!

Involve your family and friends in random acts of kindness and LEAP into to the UNEXPECTED!  Here are 29 ideas for inspiration!

  1. Hand-deliver a muffin and hot cocoa to your child’s teacher Leap Day morning (click to find more teacher appreciation ideas).
  2. Secretly pay for the coffee for the person behind you in the drive-thru line.
  3. Deliver a vase of bright tulips to an elderly neighbor.
  4. Love Bomb the front office at your school with Thank You notes!
  5. Surprise your kids with a trip to the movies after school.
  6. Surprise your kids with a ‘picnic’ lunch during their lunch hour at school.
  7. Surprise your teenager with sushi for lunch, and bring enough for her two best friends as well!
  8. Walk to a neighborhood park with gloves and plastic bags, and do a quick clean sweep.
  9. Find a totally random non-profit online and make a one-time, quick-click donation.
  10. Take twenty minutes for yourself: walking, sitting on the porch, or just relaxing.
  11. Treat yourself to the unexpected – a movie in the middle of the day, trying out the new cafe you’ve been talking about, or checking out that book you’ve been meaning to read.
  12. Prepare dinner for a community member going through a tough time.
  13. Mail out a card to a friend you haven’t connected with in a long time.
  14. Sneakily pass a  local restaurant giftcard to the bank teller, grocery store clerk, or café barista who serves you on a regular basis.
  15. Call the local animal shelter, ask what they are in need of the most, buy and deliver it that day!
  16. Collect canned goods, gently used clothes, or books and make a family trip to donate them.
  17. Gather loose change in your house if you plan on being by a parking meter and fill up all the nearby meters as well.
  18. Purchase several boxes of granola bars and a bag of apples – when you happen to see homeless people out in your community, without judgement, dole out the snacks.
  19. Use social media to send out a thank you to the world – find a poem that expresses your thoughts and share it with your facebook friends.
  20. Use old school methods to connect with elderly parents/grandparents and friends who appreciate a real phone conversation!
  21. Bake a sweet treat with your kids and doorbell ditch a neighbor with the unexpected goodies.
  22. Celebrate an ‘unbirthday’ party with a handful of your children’s friends over for a playdate—bonus points if it REALLY is someone’s birthday!
  23. Surprise a co-worker with a handwritten note of appreciation, JUST because!
  24. Depending on your weather, beautify your family’s green space by raking, shoveling, weeding and planting.
  25. Offer to pick up groceries or run quick errands for a homebound neighbor.
  26. Capture a special moment of a new mom and child with your camera and frame as a kind surprise.
  27. Drop by the local fire station with a homemade cake and thank you notes!
  28. Break into a jammin’ kareoke session with your kids – hand out hairbrushes and wooden spoons and turn up your favorite old school tunes.
  29. Say hello to strangers you pass, hold doors for others, and smile!

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5 Tips for Talking About Volunteering with Children

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

As the school year comes to a close, you might be wondering what to do with your kids this summer.

May we recommend volunteering?

You can ensure that a child’s volunteering experience is positive and memorable!

By implementing a few simple but effective tips and strategies, you can ensure that young volunteers leave their service project feeling inspired and empowered to continue doing good work.

1. Be cognizant of word choice

Children are developing and growing their vocabulary each day.

If you feel a word may not be as developmentally appropriate as another word, substitute it or explain the concept the word conveys.  Alternately, choose two or three words or terms to explain the same concept.

For example, when explaining volunteering to a child who is six, consider helping the child make a connection.

“Volunteering is when you do something nice for someone else — maybe even someone you don’t even know – and you don’t ask for anything in return.”

2. Model or show final results

Give children something to work towards.

Many children, especially under the age of nine, are not yet at the developmental stage in which they can “imagine” what something will be like at a later point.

When working with a child on a craft-type project, have a completed example on hand.

When working on a project where the final product cannot be shown, describe the desired outcome using steps and descriptive terms that are on the child’s level.

3. Reinforce success

Continually remind children that they are on the right track.

Positive reinforcement — “good job” or “you are an amazing volunteer” — is a tactic that gives a child the assurance and motivation that they are going in the right direction.

It also further helps the young person experience the joy that volunteering and giving can bring. However, be specific in your praise.

“Your message about peace is beautiful” or “This yellow card you made will really cheer somebody up!”

4. Provide constructive feedback

Do not hesitate to correct a young person if they are off track.

Allowing a child to proceed if he or she is doing their assigned job incorrectly is less beneficial than correcting them.

Providing constructive feedback will ultimately allow them to be successful in the end and have a positive volunteer experience.

One way to phrase correction is to say,

“This looks really great, but let me show you something that will make it even better.”

5. Stay age-appropriate

Consider the participant’s age as it relates to their developmental level.

Sharing instructions or even defining what it means to volunteer to a young person who is six differs from sharing the same message with a young person who is twelve.

With younger children (ages six to eight), give directions that are broken down into steps. It is difficult for a child who is six to fully comprehend a set of complex instructions presented as a whole. However, don’t underestimate a young person’s ability to understand instruction by speaking to them below their level.

Take Action! Search for a project, evaluate the ones you find, start your own or join a Kids Care Club!

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Posted in Equip, Get HandsOn, Mobilize, Tools You Can Use, Volunteering, Volunteerism | 5 Comments »

coming back to life

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Brian Leftwich, a HandsOn Network staff member is volunteering in Haiti and sharing his experiences here.

I wanted to share an excerpt from my friend’s blog. She is a PA with us here and the women on the medical team are my heroes. Tonight I held down a 3 week old infant, so we could get an IV started. I am pretty sure I will never forget his screams as they searched for a vein. I consider myself so honored that these children would share their lives with me. Even if it is only because I have a smile and give amazing hi-5′s.

“This week’s good moments… A little boy of about 8 years old flashed me an obscene finger gesture as he stared at me through the bars on the truck. “No,” I yelled at him, flashing back the peace sign. “La pe! La pe!” (Peace. Peace.) He looked taken aback for a moment, then lifted his index finger to join his middle finger. “La pe..?” he said tentatively to me. “La pe!” I gestured back, encouragingly, fingers raised in the universally recognized vee of peace. Suddenly a smile lit up his face, and he waved his peace sign vigorously shouting, “La pe!! La pe!” His buddies quickly followed suit. If only all peace talks were so simple.

Antoinette, with the most perfect, fragile, angelic face and soft, musical voice. Crushed under a wall inside of her house while pregnant, with one leg amputated and another crushed, was told this week we could remove the metal external fixator holding together her shattered tibia. And that she is now allowed to walk. She is our last patient finally cleared to walk. When told, she immediately stared off into space, rocking back and forth and chanting something repetitive. Concerned she was fearing the upcoming procedure, I asked our translator what she was saying. “She’s saying, ‘Thank you God, thank you God…’ he said, matter of factly. Lying in the caring arms of Dr. Jenn, with eyes closed, softly singing, the stabilizing metal rods were one by one removed.

Baby Kenny, the three pound near-death septic baby, for whom we artificially breathed every three seconds in the back seat of our truck on my first day in Haiti…fighting for his life…whose mother wailed in fear of his imminent death…is now back in our care. And through the patient education of Beth our midwife, is now breastfed by his teenage mother. And this week, hit a whopping five pounds.

Patrick, a 13 year old boy who presented to our clinic a few days after the earthquake with his tibia bone broken and jutting out through his skin, will get his metal external fixator device off next week as well. He’s had a long, challenging course, complicated by recurrent infection and skin grafting. A young man with great grit and courage. He currently walks around with crutches that he’s decorated with small sayings in English written in Sharpie pen. My favorite is a spelling error, where he mistook an “n” for an “m”. It reads, “I BELIEVE IM GOD”

Rony, 11 year old boy with a crushed, scarred right face and bot fly larvae removed from his eye orbit, who wandered the street for 6 weeks without care before finding treatment, picked up a pen today. And drew a self portrait. Of a beautiful symmetrical boy.

Jameson, a young boy we found in the slum of Twa Bebe, near the plastic bottle and pig filled river, went home this week. We’d found him in a bright green, dirty cast extending from his abdomen to his foot — treatment for an unstable femur fracture. He’d been released to the streets with no follow-up…destined to outgrow his restrictive green prison. We were able to scoop him up, get follow-up orthopedic care, ultimately remove his cast, and provide him with physical therapy. A beautiful moment, as he walked with us down the cement path to his home, assisted by his crutches. He paused at the door to his single room cinder block home and a woman came out — his mother. She cradled his face gently in her hands, staring into his eyes. And kissed him on the forehead as tears welled in her eyes. She then folded her hands across her heart, turned to look at us, and bowed her head, saying “Merci…merci….” Jameson, in typical preteen boy fashion, shrugged away his mom’s attention with a grimace, and wandered over to sit on the stoop — apparently his favorite spot. The spot from which we’d plucked him. Coming back to life. Yeah, it’s been a good week.” -Barbie

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