Welcome back! This is video 2 on community service ideas for teens! In the
first video of this two-part series, we covered community service ideas that
teens could do to fulfill existing needs of nonprofits in their area. So in this
second video, we're going to continue talking about some amazing ways that
teens can make an impact in their community through service, but
specifically focus on ways they can design their own DIY projects to benefit a
non-profit they care about, and ways to combine service with other activities
they've already got going on in their lives.
The next category of service opportunities that I want to talk about
is for when you have maybe a nonprofit or a cause that you care about or you're
already connected to, but they don't have a specific volunteer need that you can
do as a teenager right now. The idea for this is that you are going to think of
an amazing project that will benefit the cause that you care about using your
skills or talents, and you're going to pitch it to the nonprofit and agree to
do it for them. If you're in a situation where you might have required community
service hours for school or something, a written agreement between you and the
nonprofit that shows what you've outlined that you're going to do for
them can help mitigate any issues surrounding whether the school approves
you doing that project to fulfill your hours. So here's how you would start off
this process: First, you want to think about what you're interested in, and what
you're good at. There really is some way for you to make an impact in the world
no matter what you're interested in and what your skills are - from music, to
writing, to playing video games! So once you figure out what sort of project you
want to do for a cause using the things that you're good at - such as create a
video campaign telling the story about the people the nonprofit serves, or, say,
organizing an awareness or a fundraising event for that nonprofit - you want to
write out your plan, including a summary of what you're trying to do, and what
activities your project will entail. You want to write out a timeline - How many
months you think this project will take, from planning all the way to the end of
the project. You want to include your end "deliverables" so how will you know the
project is a success. Is it that you raised five hundred dollars for the
nonprofit? What are your goals? Basically, an end "deliverable" is
what the nonprofit can expect you have accomplished by the end of your
project. Finally you're going to want to plan out with the nonprofit what kind of
team members support you're gonna need from them. Let's say you are hoping to
plan an event for a non-profit, and recruit all of your friends as
volunteers to do some kind of sporting event to raise money
for the cause. Who on that nonprofit's team is going to have to help you out or
meet with you, or support that goal somehow? Is it gonna be their executive
director? Is it gonna be whoever is in charge of fundraising? Is it gonna be a
marketing person? You want to kind of think through these things before you
pitch your ideas to the non-profit so that they make sure that they have
enough team member availability to adequately support you in the project
that you're doing for them. When you have this plan sort of written out, you want
to then share it with a nonprofit organization that you're hoping to
partner with for your special service project. It might be a good idea, before
you reach out to that nonprofit, to check their website and social media accounts
to see what a major events or campaigns they have coming up in the very near
future. The reason for that is they might be really overwhelmed and not have the
bandwidth to respond to you quickly. I don't want you to get discouraged if you
don't get an answer right away. It's not that they don't care and don't want to
work with you, they might just really be busy at that moment. The benefits of
designing and leading your own service project are that you get to come up with
the whole thing using your unique skills and talents and lead it from start to
finish. The downside is, of course, if the
nonprofit is completely overwhelmed at that time of year and just doesn't have
the ability to partner with you in an effective way, that's not something you
can necessarily control. So you might not get to work with the nonprofit you
picked out first. If you already have a relationship with a non-profit that
you really care about, this could be a good fit for you.
Otherwise you might want to explore a number of different causes that you
might consider could have a need for a project like the one you want to design.
If you're wondering what a project that you design a lead could actually look
like, here are a couple of ideas. You could design a social media marketing
campaign for the cause that you care about! This might mean a series of
photographs on Instagram that tell the story of the impact the cause is making.
It could be a campaign that shares facts and statistics about the problem that
the nonprofit is trying to solve. There's a lot of different directions you could
go with this. Another cool idea I've seen is when a group of people organize a
fundraiser by streaming video games. So it doesn't
have to be super big-time - to have millions of people watching - even getting
some of your friends together and challenging your friends or your school
to watch and donate money could really help the cause that you care about in
your community. Are you pretty artistic? Maybe you want to consider designing a
mural for a building that a non-profit occupies. Here's one that's really great
for the environment - upcycling! you could organize an upcycling or recycling party!
Challenge your friends to all bring something that their family was going to
throw away anyway, and then come up with cool crafts ideas and how to reuse those
things. As a bonus you could do a campaign showing the before and after of
what you did to transform that item to help the environment.
Another do-it-yourself project is to organize a kindness campaign. I've seen
kindness campaigns take a lot of different forms - from painting kindness
rocks that you can then lay out all over your neighborhood or school, to
letter-writing campaigns where you are just telling other people in your
community, whether they're friends or even strangers, how amazing they are and
giving them a little bit of encouragement for the day. The final idea
for a project that you can design and lead yourself is to organize a resource
day. This is an event where you are basically spreading the word to people
in your school or community or neighborhood about all of the resources
available to help them with a particular thing. It might be where they can go
for mental health support, where to go if they need help with basic needs like
clothing or food, or maybe even where they might find jobs or job training
resources. The idea is that more people know about and have access to these
resources, they will be better off and get the help that they need in whatever
area you're tackling. In this final section I want to talk about ways you
can combine community service and helping causes that you care about with
other things you just have going on in your life, like driver's education or
after-school activities. These ideas are great if you just have a crazy schedule,
but really want to find a way to fit service into your everyday life.
Number one: Combining community service with an after-school job!
A great way to get the best of both worlds is to invite your coworkers to be
involved in a project for charity. A lot of businesses are already involved in
something to help the community or are looking for ways to get involved, so
there's no reason that you can't be the leader of this initiative and get your
whole company involved in something great. When I was a teenager I worked
after school at a bakery and I saw one day that we were throwing away all of
the pastries that were uneaten. So I worked with the manager to help organize a
way to donate those leftover pastries to a local food pantry so that they
wouldn't go to waste. There are ways to build service into pretty much any type
of workplace. If you work at a restaurant or some kind of grocery store there
might be opportunities to find a way to donate that leftover food or even
organize a food drive for a cause in the community. If you work in retail or some
kind of clothing store, you might be able to find inventory that isn't going to be
sold and make sure it gets to a good cause, or organize a campaign with your
manager to allow customers to donate some amount of money to a cause whenever
they check out. If the place you work is looking for an awesome team building or
a training opportunity, why not volunteer together? Volunteering together is a
great way to get to know your co-workers and hone those leadership skills while
you're at it. Next up is combining community service with family time! Do
you have a younger sibling? Get them involved! Teach them how to do a
simple service project with you, for example making cards for homebound
seniors. Then afterwards, sit down and talk to them about why helping people is
important. There's a lot of great research out there that talks about how
talking about and reflecting on service after you do it helps it become part of
your everyday life in the future. So hey, you're not just helping a cause,
you're training the next generation. :) Next is combining service with an
after-school Club. There of course a lot of after-school clubs that are all about
service - and those are awesome - but I'm actually
talking about clubs that do not have a service theme already and how you can
combine helping the community with those types of clubs. For example, clubs with
an academic theme, like math or science - you could use those clubs and practice
those things by tutoring younger kids in need on those subjects. If you're
part of a debate club, why not find issues that you all care about as a club
and make a video about the topic that you are trying to raise awareness about?
Next up is sports! If you are part of a team then you have a whole group of
people who could be making an impact with you right there! You could invite
other team members to chip in a little bit extra to raise money for sports
equipment for kids who might not otherwise be able to afford to
participate, or maybe even host a lemonade stand at one of your sporting
events to raise money for a cause that you all agree to support as a team.
Another way to integrate service into other activities is through driving
practice and driver's ed. Are you working on getting your learner's permit or
driver's license? Why not combine driving practice with service? Many nonprofits
need volunteers who could help them transport goods from one place to
another - we're talking about volunteer opportunities like bringing a meal to a
homebound senior, transporting canned goods from the grocery store to the food
bank, or maybe something like bringing a collection of clothes from a clothing
charity for kids to a school where those kids will be receiving those items. The
final way that you can combine service with things already going on in your
life is through birthday parties! My organization has helped teens and
families organize "service parties" and there are a lot of fun. One way to
approach service parties is that you ask your friends to - in lieu of presents - or
hey, in addition to presents, bring some item or donation for charity. This might
be a new toy for kids in the hospital, or canned goods, or some other item. And the
other way to approach a service party is to make your whole party a service
project, like going out and baking a cake for the women's shelter, or even do a
service project right there in your house, like assembling hygiene kits for
people in need. I really hope that some of these ideas have gotten your wheels
turning! I'll be sure to leave some links down below with some ways to find the
opportunities that I've talked about or even guides on how to design and lead your
own service project idea. There really are endless unique and creative ways for
teens to do community service to make an impact, and the world really needs it.
Do you have other unique or unexpected community service ideas for teens? Be
sure to leave them in the comments below. Please don't forget to subscribe to my
YouTube channel and stay tuned, because i'm going to be doing more videos on
topics of community service for all ages. Other than that you can expect to find
more videos on social impact, nonprofits, and making a difference in your
community every week on my channel.