Discussions
New Community Service Ideas
Posted by DaniG • 10/22/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: charity work, community service, helping others
My kids are in a club that needs to do some community service work. Nothing against soldiers, hungry folks and nursing homes, but for the last decade, we have sent letters to soldiers, care packages to the hungry, and taken baby animals to the nursing homes and this year we need some fresh new ideas. Got any suggestions?
User Comments
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My kids and I are collecting coats for the winter from neighbors in our area and are donating them to a local organization that distributes them to the less fortunate.
Perhaps something like that?-
Ah, that's a great idea. We're in Colorado, so we all have extra coats we could provide. Any other ideas? Does anybody out there know anything about what is required to do a book on tape for the blind? My naughty husband had to do it back when he was in college, but I think they used stone tablets then...
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Any local areas that need cleaning up and maybe beautifying with some plants?-
Hard to plant stuff now. The ground is already frozen, but I could suggest that for the spring.
Bonus points for anyone who can include the need for having my husband dress up in an Elvis costume and still qualify as serving the community. Hmmm. After thinking that over, maybe not. Ix-nay on the bonus points.
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Services for the elderly-shopping, transportation, meals, lovemaking.-
Oh, these young 4-Hers would really light up if they were told to involve lovemaking. Christmas shopping for the elderly would be a great idea though! You guys are GREAT!
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Your husband could then dress up as Christmas Elvis and deliver them
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Looks like the old folks will have to go without whoopee for another year.
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I think my hubby was more inclined to drink a cold, frosty beer for those in AA who cannot. Or, attend a Bronco game for someone who can't. Just kidding. My husband is a saint, but thanks, CR, I'll be sure to mention the Elvis possibilities and let him know YOU suggested it! lol 25 bonus points to you!
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Ah, NP, the scary part is I'm not sure they ARE going without! (Bad mental picture. Bad mental picture.) NP, 15 bonus points to you if your suggestion does not involve trauma or require therapy later.
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how old are they?
our wrestling teams, modified - varsity, adopted a house for a year and would help out the elderly or ill persons by doing yard work and in the summer repairing walks, painting, etc. -
When I was in college in New Hampshire, we used to have a leaf-raking/Fall yard chore service project. We offered a saturday of raking or wood-chopping to elderly people who still lived in their own homes (not a nursing facility or assisted living...)
It was always successful and a great way to connect generations in the community.-
Hi Midwest. Great idea on the raking, too. We cleaned up a yard for a widow a few years back and she was so grateful that she wrote a check to the club for $50, which, we couldn't accept, else it would ruin the quality of it being a community service. I think they cashed the check and bought her another tree for her yard, or something like that. Anyway, poor dear kept trying to pay and didn't seem to get that these kids need to do stuff for FREE! It was very cute.
Kudo's all. These ideas will make the community service projects new again.
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consider animal shelters.
They always need help (or at least fundraising) and kids tend to spark to helping animals.
edit:
Maybe they could try to get old hungry vets to adopt pets
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Visit local pet shelters, wear gloves and bring paper towels, old hand towels, scrub brushes, sponges and good attitudes. Help clean out pens, scoop and sanitize litter boxes, bring clean old towels for bedding and spend some supervised time paying attention to the animals.
These shelters are overcrowded and the poor animals get emotionally starved for attention, because there are never enough humans to assist the staff. -
Love these ideas. Man, the club is going to think I'm some sort of genius! Or, at the very minimum an overachiever! Just wait til I tell them to visit all your blogs. Xmarks and Theresa111, you two hit a soft spot because these kids are all GREAT with animals - and our humane shelter is overwhelmed with work. 50 bonus points to you both.
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Uhm. . . . my blog isn't bad but I make no effort to make it children friendly either. Maybe they should visit Theresa's twice instead.
Hope the ideas help.
Best of luck.
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How about something doing with other, disadvantaged, kids. Let the kids think about what their lives would be like in that position and decide what they can do for those other kids that they would most want done for them. This has the bonus of letting the kids formulate the activity (with some steering) and put themselves in an empathetic position. -
cleaning up litter? -
How old are they? If they're big, hearty, strong, and over 16, may I suggest working in a food bank warehouse? It's good muscle building work, and they'll come home very proud from it.
If they have any performing arts skills, Nursing Homes are always looking for entertainers. You might stop by and help out a little while there.-
Thanks Jeremy. We've got kids in ages ranging from 8-18 - with some of the younger members having to bring along their youngest siblings, which are sometimes 5-6 and some of the oldest members bringing along Grandma.
I am seeing something from a new perspective. I come from a small town. 830 population (including chickens and a few cats), no stop light, one nursing home 15 miles from here. I'm realizing why we had grown a little stagnant...we don't have some of what larger cities have. That said, ALL cities, not matter their size, still have old people and soldiers and hungry folks.
I guess until I posted this, I didn't stop to think - we do not have a single homeless person walking our street. (notice I didn't use the plural "streets" because we really only have one main street.)
We consider ourselves lucky to have one grocery store, and you cannot go there without hearing the medical updates of everyone in town at the in-store pharmacy. (Not from the pharmacist, who is bound by confidentiality regs, but from family members waiting in line to pick up the prescriptions, who are not.) From that news source, it is customary to take a crock pot of soup to those in dire situations, feed their cows while you're there and see if you can't locate why their tractor will not start, which, if successful will gain you the dubious honor of being considered to marry their daughter, who may not be pretty, which explains several of the "mystery unions" here.
Invariably, the poor dears will save up enough money for breast implants, and no one will admit that the new ta-tas did not help. Some get tattoos in a last ditch effort to be trendy only to realize that sitting in the nursing home 20 years from now, they will look ridiculous because the butterfly on their breast at 40 will look like an elongated stork at 60, and a bruise-colored lariat by 80.
I'm blessed to live in an incredibly charitable town where we pretend we don't notice such things. Much of what the folks here do habitually never occurred to them to satisfy "community service" boxes on forms. (Although, it makes me laugh to think of my kids listing "overlooked a silicone breast tattoo" as community service!)
Seriously, thanks for the great suggestions. And for helping me see my home town in a new light. That was a bonus! -
"From that news source, it is customary to take a crock pot of soup to those in dire situations, feed their cows while you're there and see if you can't locate why their tractor will not start, which, if successful will gain you the dubious honor of being considered to marry their daughter, who may not be pretty, which explains several of the "mystery unions" here."
Yeah I live out in a rundown part of Atlanta, where dubious honors include being hit by errant bullets, run over by the worse drivers in America, pickpocketed and hearing all the stories of all the people who lost their various jobs when the Steel mills et cetera (and now the Banks) closed. We have a heavy smog over the city, and I almost never get out of town because I don't have a car and couldn't afford parking even if I did ($600 a semester at Georgia Tech). You can also buy illegal narcotics and prostitutes here, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending upon your view of life.
On the flip side, you have your choice of three different coffee shops and several dozen restaurants and bars within a mile, you can walk to anything, Georgia Tech's an incredible school that I love and has truly enriched me, and from the top of the CRC you can run on an indoor track many feet above the city (6-stories plus one of the tallest hills in Atlanta for a base), amidst a sea of citylights with the skylines of Buckhead to your Northwest, Atlantic Station due North, Midtown to your east, and Downtown to the South and Southeast.
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work for a food kitchen. Tht is so diffrent than collecting food they get to meet diffrent people and learn as they go.
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