The difficulty for our family has always been that most places do not allow children to volunteer. This year we have been especially fortunate to find two local service opportunities that welcome and accommodate children.
1) Helping Hands. Earlier this year my husband and older children were very much involved with hurricane crisis cleanup after Hurricanes Florence and Michael came through our area. They traveled to other cities where the storms hit especially hard. I did not go, sadly. I was the backup crew holding down the fort with the younger children behind the scenes so that others could go out and serve. But we all play a part in making it happen, right? Helping Hands snaps into action in these situations. We sent crews for many consecutive weekends to help those affected by the storms. Here are a few pics of these guys doing their thang. Way to go fam!
2) Meals on Wheels. In partnership with another local charity, Meals on Wheels asked for volunteer drivers to deliver hot meals to housebound or elderly residents on Thanksgiving Day. What a great way to show gratitude (and get out of the kitchen)! We drove by the pickup point to gather our 14 meals and our driving route before setting off for our first destination. At each stop our entire family exited the car (party of eight, sir) and knocked on the door together to make the deliveries. Some of the residents were not interested in welcoming in eight strangers on Thanksgiving Day. They simply took the meal and said goodbye. That's fine. But there were a few residents who really were glad to see all of us and let us come in to chat. This was a great way for our family to connect with the wisdom and love of an older generation. It did tend to go long for the kids by the end of our 8th stop. But it was worth it. I WISH I had pictures.
3) Brown Bag Ministries. This place is so fantastic. Just show up and serve! It's local. So unless you're in the Raleigh NC area this won't help you much. But I'm sure there are other charities out there just like it if you do some digging. They do a number of things but on the Saturday morning we attended, they were preparing hundreds and hundreds of sack lunches for homeless individuals, as well as a hot meal. Our family helped assemble and bag the sandwiches. We also helped count out socks, scarves, and toiletries for the Christmas bags that would find their way into the hands of men at a homeless shelter.
It was great to feel part of something important and useful that would have a direct positive impact on our local community. And it was fun! We even saw some of our friends from church there in the crowd of volunteers. :)
If none of these ideas seem to be a good fit for you or your family, you can check out these other resources to find just the right volunteer opportunity: Just Serve and United Way.
It's so much fun to serve as a family. Even if you don't join up with a formal organization as part of a project, your own family can find a way to serve together. For example, we always like to put together a Christmas gift box with food and presents for a less fortunate family in our area. We dress up in ski masks late at night and deliver the box as secretly and stealthily as we can! We never reveal the family's identity to our children. So many fun Christmas Eve memories doing this with our young kids!
And here's another random thing: Our neighbor's tree feel down just a couple weekends ago when we got a few inches of snow. Weird. But it happened. This neighbor is elderly and is not often in her home, as she spends most of her time with family in VA. I loved getting out there during nap time to saw off branches and sweep up leaves. My husband did the heavy work with the chainsaw, and another neighbor took care of burning up the many branches. My daughter used some of the boughs (it was a beautiful cedar tree) to make a Christmas wreath for her as well. She returned the favor by letting us use the trunk to make benches for our fire pit. Win-win!
There are always things we can do together to serve those around us, and in the process we create many wonderful family memories.
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