Posts Tagged ‘Youth’

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It’s Fun to Volunteer: Keeping Paradise from Becoming ‘Not Beautiful’

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

By Mills with a bit of help from Keller and Ward – an 8 year-old writes a few words about a recent clean-up day at Howard Finster’s Paradise Gardens in Summerville, Georgia

We arrived just in time for lunch.  We had barbecue for lunch.  After my dad, my brother, and my baby brother finished, we looked around.

My favorite place was the creek.  They had plants and sidewalks that had gems and glass in them.  The little creek surrounded it.  Howard Finster had lots of paintings of Jesus.

Then we started working.  We worked around the creek.  Other people were working on making the place prettier by painting around the gardens.

When we finished I asked a couple of questions.

My baby brother’s favorite thing was the bottle house and the sidewalks.  My other brother’s favorite thing was the chapel.  My brother’s favorite job was sweeping the sidewalk.

It’s important to volunteer because you are helping out the community.  It’s important to keep the gardens open because it might become a really not beautiful garden.  So we should keep taking care of it.  So that’s why I volunteered at PARADISE GARDENS!

Tags: , Howard Finster, Service Project, Summerville Georiga, , , Youth Volunteerism
Posted in Get HandsOn, Inspire, Service, Volunteer Reflection, Volunteering, Volunteerism | 1 Comment »

5 Reasons You Should Volunteer with Your Children

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Again, summer’s coming…

Have you planned a service project to do with your kids yet?

You should volunteer with your children because youth volunteering:

1. Promotes a healthy lifestyle and choices

Kids who volunteer are less likely to become involved in at-risk behaviors.

2. Enhances development

Volunteering heightens psychological, social and intellectual development and growth.

3. Teaches life skills

Volunteering stimulates skills needed for a productive adulthood, including responsibility for tasks, teamwork, punctuality, cooperation, tolerance and problem solving.

4. Improves community

Kids have the opportunity to be active citizens and contributors to their communities.

5. Encourages a lifelong service ethic

Kids who volunteer at a young age learn the importance of service and have a higher probability of continuing to volunteer as an adult.

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

Tags: , , , , Life skill, , , Theory of cognitive development, , , , , Youth Volunteers
Posted in Education, Equip, Get HandsOn, Inspire, Mobilize, Volunteering, Volunteerism | 4 Comments »

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 »

The Serve America Act, Year Two: Looking Ahead

Friday, April 30th, 2010

In the current environment, we witness service:

  • easing the effects of a recession that has one in ten people jobless;
  • strengthening our nonprofits at a time when their services have never been more needed;
  • through partnerships, bridging the gaps left by state and local governments whose budgets have been slashed so that schools are furloughing teachers, state parks are closing, govt offices and libraries have reduced hours, after-school programs have been eliminated; and
  • propelling a civic-minded millennial generation just entering the workforce, who want to make a difference, are tech-savvy, and love a challenge; they are 75 million strong.

As it has been just over a year since the passing of the Serve America Act,  I’m thinking about the power of an extensive push to fully implement the Act and the power of the positive change that could unleash.

The passage of the Act was an all-too-rare example of bipartisanship.

It’s clear that we need to seize the momentum created by a dramatic confluence of events:  urgent economic needs, a President committed to service, a huge civic-minded generation of young people, and our own passion to truly make service part of our schools, our workplaces, and our culture.

We need to look at what and how we teach, how we rate companies, how companies incent their employees, how government and nonprofits partner with each other, how we measure success and how we benchmark best service practices.

Looking ahead, we need to think about the intersection of  service and social innovation – how can innovative, high-impact organizations to further leverage citizen service?

We must define strategies to sustain the momentum from the Serve America Act – how can we seize the moment to fund the Act at the level it needs?  How can we demonstrate to the public and to government the high quality of programs made possible by the first investments in the Act?

We must re-imagine service – how can communities leverage volunteers effectively to drive real social change?

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Posted in Equip, Impact, Inspire, Michelle Nunn, Mobilize, Service, Volunteering, Volunteerism | No Comments »

Change Notes: The Power of the Next Generation

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Friends,

Last week’s National Volunteer Week included Earth Day and culminated with Global Youth Service Day – a demonstration of the power of young people to change our world.

This year Points of Light Institute demonstrated its commitment to engage youth in service and civic leadership through its merger last spring with Children for Children, a national leader in youth service programs. The new organization, now called generationOn, brings together the expertise of Children for Children, Kids Care Clubs, HandsOn Schools, and our HandsOn Action Center-driven youth programs – all under one banner. We are scaling the success of the HandsOn model and putting youth at the center of change through service. We saw the impact of this next generation throughout the country last weekend.

Here are some of the stories that rippled out through our Network:

A group of students from an inner-city Detroit school created a musical about healthy eating for an area with few grocery stores.

They used exercise in their dance routines and taught lessons about a proper diet to their peers through performance.

United Way of San Diego County and other agencies held a cause-related flash mob at Servapalooza, 2010, an annual festival and “service-thon” in honor of Global Youth Service Day. The flash mob promoted an initiative to find permanent solutions to that city’s homelessness problem.

Twelve-year-old Velma and her friends got up early Saturday morning to join 150 volunteers in Manhattan, helping City Harvest re-pack apples from 2,500-lb crates into family-sized bags for
shelters and food pantries. She decided to volunteer after reading Jiggy, a book about adolescent obstacles faced by a young boy. “It’s important to have a big heart,” said Velma about her urge to serve.

HandsOn Nashville partnered with Oasis Center and the Lost Boys Foundation of Nashville for a unique project where young volunteers learned more about the lives of Sudanese refugees living in the United States. And HandsOn West Central Ohio joined with two local high schools to present Volunteer Speed Matching events to connect students to service opportunities.

Through generationOn, we are mobilizing the energy, ingenuity and compassion of young people to change the world and themselves. Our goal is to scale exponentially the work we already do with public schools, district-wide partnerships and youth-serving organizations. Currently, generationOn includes more than 30 youth programs and 1,800 Kids Care Clubs that engage more than a million young people throughout the 50 states and globally from Beijing to Saudi Arabia. It also includes significant tools, resources, and on-the ground mobilization to increase our reach to kids, parents, adults who care for children, teachers and school administrators.

It is often said that our young people are our future leaders, but the remarkable efforts of this past week show that this generation is ready to lead now.

Other Global Youth Service Day News

- Steven Culbertson on GYSD and service

In Service,

Michelle Nunn
CEO, Points of Light Institute
Co-Founder, HandsOn Network

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Posted in Change Notes, Impact, Inspire, Michelle Nunn, Mobilize, News & Links, Service, Volunteering, Volunteerism | 1 Comment »

Making Positive Change One Youth at a Time

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

This week,  as part of National Volunteer Week, we’re celebrating people in action  and I wanted to recognize Rich Mullins and all of the Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

Big Brothers and Big Sisters make sure that youth across the nation  know that someone truly cares about them.

I learned on the Boys and Girls Club of America Web-site that 52% of the young people who participated in the Boys and Girls Club of America as kids said involvement in the club “saved their lives.”

That’s impact!  So thank you to the mentors inspiring youth each day to reach their full potential as productive, caring and responsible citizens.  Your work inspires me!

Rich Mullins started being a Big Brother because he wanted to make a difference in the lives of young men.

Concerned with the growing number of young men in his community who lacked a father figure or role model, Rich began volunteering with his local Big Brothers Big Sisters program 29 years ago.

As a Big Brother mentor to eight boys, Rich has had a direct and positive influence on young men in his community.

These young men lacked a father figure and male role model in their lives and needed assistance with academics and learning appropriate behaviors and social skills in interacting with peers and adults.

Rich committed to spending time with his “Little” each week to provide a consistent role model in his mentees’ lives.

He formed meaningful bonds with his mentees, and included his Little Brotrs on his family vacations and trips.

He mentored each young person for several years, teaching his mentees how to make positive choices.

Through his influence eight men have changed their lives for the better and improved their own local communities.

Today, Rich’s eight Little Brothers have all graduated from High School and ome went on to college.  Some are married with their own children.

As an ambassador for the Big Brothers Big Sisters local program, Rich has recruited more men to meet the growing need for mentors.  He has also involved and supported his Little Brother mentees in their efforts to serve their communities.

In his own words,

“It is critical that we reach out to young people so they have the opportunity to grow up into healthy, happy, productive adults.  The youth of today are tomorrow’s leaders and it is everyone’s responsibility to do their part in helping them along the way.  Service to your community is critical to improving the quality of life for everyone.”

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Posted in Inspire, Service, Volunteer Recognition, Volunteering | No Comments »

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