Community Service

Teen boys are great at doing the heavy lifting.

I strongly believe in having my children participate in regular community service projects. It's not always a project and many times it is simply part of our every day living.

It's so much part of our family structure that I don't think my children even know there's a name for it..."community service" or "volunteerism."

Our latest volunteer project was to gather donations of socks to send to Greece to be used for Syrian refugees. I made the initial call to action via social media.

The kiddos helped by going with me to shop for socks, counting, packing and accompanying me to the Post Office to mail them off a week later. {42+ pounds later, we ended up with 609 pairs of socks and 40 mylar thermal emergency blankets}

K helps by moving the sock box through the long post office line

I don't believe children are ever too young to learn to serve and volunteer. I try to find ways we can do this together as a family.

In the past we have made and distributed Valentine cards to the community, visited and joined in the festivities of a local convalescent center's monthly party, collected, made and distributed cards to residents at the convalescent center, financially donated to various causes, collected goods for Operation Christmas child, adopted a family with a severely ill child and shopped, made, and delivered Christmas gifts for them, purchased and donated toys at Christmastime for various local children's charities, served Thanksgiving dinner to the local community, donating items to homeless members of our community, etc.

Serving others, helps get children away from the *me* focus, builds confidence in knowing they can actually impact the world for good, makes them aware of global issues, develop compassion and concern for others as well as encourage gratitude. How do you encourage your children to serve?