5 Ways To Get Your Children Involved In The Community

Getting involved in the community and giving back is something that all people and children should be taking part in. Even the smallest contribution that you make can make a huge positive impact on someone else’s life.

You may think that getting involved with charity will take up huge amounts of time it doesn’t have to be, you can give as much or as little as you like and there are many ways to give back to the community. You can donate money, things you don’t use anymore or you can give of your time.

There are also other ways of helping that are so simple, quick and easy such as following charity or community pages and sharing their posts with your friends and family. This will help them to get their message to more people and will be a huge help. It just takes a second of your time to click share.

Your children may not understand how privileged and lucky they are to have a home, food and a good school to go to. Getting your children involved in charity is a great way to make your children aware of the inequalities in the world, to teach them how to be grateful for what they have and to show your children how to be kind and generous towards others that need it.

There are many charities and community projects that your children can take part in and that support different causes, there are so many ways to volunteer.

It is important that you find something that your children will be interested in otherwise it may seem like too much of a chore for them and they will lose interest.

Here are some great ways to get your children involved in the community:

Homeless Shelters

Helping out at homeless shelters will be a great way to get your children to be involved with community projects. There are many ways to make a difference at homeless shelters such as donating money, time or goods.

Very often homeless shelters have feeding programs such as soup kitchens. Depending on the age of your kids they can help to prepare the food and/ or to serve it.

Homeless shelters are always in need of things for the homeless from clothing to toiletries and toys for children. Get your children to help you sort out their clothing each season and put aside some things that they have outgrown that can be donated to the homeless. If they have outgrown toys those can also be donated.

If you are cleaning out your garage or doing a decluttering of your home there may some items that your nearest homeless shelter may find very useful.

Let your children come with you when you take the things to the shelter.

Animal Shelters

It is not just people that are in need of food and shelter, there are many animal organizations that are in desperate need of help.

There are many ways to help out at animal shelters and your children may find it great fun to help out. The animals need to be bathed, brushed and played with. Dogs need to walked and cages need to be cleaned out. They also need to be fed every day and their water bowls need to be topped up with fresh water.

You can also donate things like old bowls, blankets and cushions for the animals.

Christmas Gift Programs

There are so many children all over the world that don’t get any gifts for birthdays or Christmas. If you look online you will find that there are many programs each year that connect families with children to donate Christmas gifts.

This year we took part in the Santa Shoebox program and my children loved it. They got to choose a child online to pledge a gift to and we printed out the list of things each child must receive in their shoebox. My kids picked out all the gifts for each child and then they decorated the shoebox and packed it.

Each child gets some necessities such as toothpaste, a toothbrush, soap and a facecloth, some school stationery supplies, some clothing and a toy.

Picking Up Litter

There are often events which involve communities going out for the day and collecting litter which you and your kids can take part in to clean up your neighborhood.

You don’t need to wait for an event for picking up litter in your area though, teaching your children to look after the environment is a wonderful lesson that you can do any time you are outdoors. Make sure to always have a bag or two with you when you are out with your kids. You can all collect litter wherever you go and separate into rubbish to throw out and a bag for recycling.

Adopt A Granny

There are many adopt a granny programs and this can be beneficial for both the granny and the family that adopts the granny. There are many elderly people that don’t have any family left of perhaps their family is far away and not able to visit regularly. Elderly people can become very lonely in their later years in life.

Bringing children into their world that they can talk to and spoil will brighten up their day and of course your children may just love all the additional attention.

These are just 5 ideas for teaching your children to take part in the community and helping others, but there are many charities and organizations that are looking for help in lots of different ways. As your children get older try and encourage them to take up a cause and to help in some way.