Hey there! It can be hard to find volunteer opportunities for kids -
especially kids under age 12 - but there are plenty of ways that kids can make an
impact through community service and I'm going to share several of them with you
today. Welcome back! For those new to my channel my name is Amber Melanie Smith
and I am a non-profit executive director and speaker on service, leadership, and
social impact. I make these youtube videos to help aspiring changemakers of
all ages to figure out tips and strategies to make an impact in the
world while living a life of impact and purpose. So please don't forget to
subscribe to my channel! I make these videos weekly and I'd love to see you
back and have you check out some of the other great videos I have that will help
you figure out your path to change making in the world. I previously made a
video about how teens can make a difference through community service and
you can check that out at the link but I wanted to focus today on younger kids
because kids of all ages are out there making an impact and really really
making a meaningful difference in the world and when kids are leading the way
to create change it tends to inspire the adults to follow suit so here we go I'm
gonna jump into all the ways that kids can make a difference that I'm going to
cover in this video in two different sections the first is going to be ways
that kids ages 5 to 12 is what we're aiming for here can do service through
established organizations out there and the second set of ideas is for projects
that you can do either at home or anywhere in the world it doesn't have to
be add an organization but it can still benefit a cause out there as I mentioned
previously I work in the nonprofit field and so my core function actually is to
connect people to volunteer opportunities in their community I work
with hundreds of nonprofits and I have heard of so many different ways for
people of all ages to get involved but it is admittedly more difficult for kids
to get involved so I'm really excited to share a couple of ideas here we go
the first thing I want to share is that some organizations have what they call
at kids days so these are special designated days where kids around this
age range are invited and welcomed to come with their families I know in my
community our food bank has this so a lot of other organizations across the
country will have kids days too we're talking about shelters and soup kitchens
food banks food pantries Ronald McDonald Houses and other organizations that you
would commonly find in your community kids will be doing hands-on activities
at these projects like sorting and packaging food or clothing donations or
in the case of say Ronald McDonald House baking which can be super fun
another great project for kids that will get everybody outdoors is to do a litter
pickup or clean up with your local Nature Conservancy or Keep America
Beautiful chapter they will have regular cleanups of the community picking up
litter one of the cool fun things about this is that some of them have litter
contests so you can maybe get a prize for how much litter you can collect or
you might find unusual objects out there I know when I last let a group this is
actually teens doing the litter pickup at a nature trail in my area they found
a hundred-year-old bottle so it can be really interesting and spark some cool
conversation with you and your kids when you're out there doing these types of
activities okay so this is one of my favorites I know that kids love animals
and I loved animals when I was a kid too but sometimes shelters in your area will
not allow younger kids to volunteer in the more traditional capacities at a
shelter so a cool new service project that I have seen emerging lately is
reading to shelter pets it's a great way for kids to practice their reading
skills and also get to interact with the animals in a beneficial way so that is a
super cool project and I'd love to see you I'll try that out a quick disclaimer
that is possible that your local shelter will not already have reading to shelter
animals on its list of existing volunteer needs so you might need to
propose that idea to them but I'm pretty sure they're
gonna be open to it because it is so cute
another great service opportunity for kids is of course having a game or art
day at a retirement community all throughout the year but especially
around the holiday some seniors and retirement communities are feeling
especially isolated and they might not have family nearby or might not have
family at all so being willing to go in and just spend some quality time and be
present and be a friend to a senior in need is a wonderful way for your kids to
volunteer another idea with established
organizations is a little bit out of the box but it would allow kids to use the
technology that they're so comfortable with now to help a cause and need and
that is to be a storyteller or reporter for a cause so all you would have to do
is work with your child using a phone to interview in organizations clients or
other volunteers and let your child and turn you them about the experience what
they know about the cause how making a difference is so important to the
community for that cause so nonprofits love to have social media and
storytelling and video clips that they can use to spread the word about what
they do so having your kid leave these interviews would be so adorable and I
know for my nonprofit I would just die to have something like that because
having the perspective of a kid telling the story of a cause would be so
impactful of course an added a benefit of having your child be a reporter for a
cause is that they learn all about the cause too and actually just a quick note
on that topic one thing that is really important to do with your child with
your family after volunteering no matter what kind of volunteer experience you're
having is to have a conversation it's to reflect on the experience to talk about
it to ask your kid questions about what they saw what they felt about what they
saw doing this will really help them understand the meaning of the volunteer
work that they have done and hopefully inspire them to continue it into
adulthood so now I'm going to get into some
do-it-yourself or at-home service projects you can do with your kid these
are great for whether or not you can find an opportunity with an established
organization they are very convenient and sometimes just require a little bit
of supplies and planning
the first do-it-yourself project is to make flashcards for a younger classroom
so these can be anything from multiplication or division to studying a
particular science or language topic but what we hear from the schools that we
work with at my nonprofit is that teachers are really in need of extra
resources to help out their kids so flashcard kits that every student in a
class can use would be really really helpful less then your kids get a
refresher on those topics to another at home idea that is super fun especially
for the crafty families out there is to make kindness rocks all you need are
some of those smooth pebbles you can get at most home supply stores or gardening
stores or maybe even in your yard and some acrylic water-based paint and you
can just paint the rock whatever color you'd like or multiple colors and then
write inspirational words and designs on the rocks a lot of hospitals community
centers or even schools are using these to beautify their outside areas and
inspire people when they walk by a third idea that is also in a crafty vein is
plug I just learned about plug I think it's super cool plar is basically
plastic yarn so what people are doing is taking old plastic grocery bags which I
know are just completely overwhelming my pantry right now and probably yours too
you take them you cut them into strips and then you can actually crochet them
into other things like more sturdy bags or mass that can be donated to a shelter
for folks experiencing homelessness this has been a great project that I have
personally seen done with kids in my community if you're interested I can
leave a link to where you can learn more about how to do that in my description
below the fourth idea is to combine something you might already be doing
with helping a cause and that is to have a birthday party for a cause so you
would ask your friends to bring some kind of donated items such as
food or clothing or other items that a non-profit you want to benefit has
identified as a need and you'd ask your friends or your kids friends to bring
those items in lieu of birthday present this is a great way to have your kid
think about what cause they want to help as part of their birthday celebrations
and drive that conversation around change and how to support the cause in
the winter or summer a great thing to do is to have a hot cocoa or a lemonade
stand in your front yard to raise money for a cause you care about so again the
kids can identify the cause that they care about and what they like to raise
money for they can drive the whole effort to make the hot cocoa the
lemonade and collect the money outside from your neighbors and it's just a
really really fun way to practice so many things from learning about money to
being a great salesperson to how important it is to help will cause
financially as well as giving your time my dog's really cute right now she's
having a dream and her little paws are twitching the next do-it-yourself
project is to make cards for kids in the hospital or seniors experiencing
isolation loneliness there are many organizations out there who work
directly with these populations so you just need to connect them to figure out
how to get cards to them that they can distribute to those kids or seniors
another super fun twist on this project is to make it social so your kids can
invite all their friends over and have a coloring and card-making party for the
folks in need and if your kids and you are not that artistic that's okay
there are lots of templates online that you can print out that have color in
designs that are also greeting cards so you can print those out and then just
make it a coloring party instead of a card-making or artistic drawing party
and then have your kids write a nice message inside the card and boom you've
got some beautiful cards to give to people who would love to hear from a
friend the next is to make pet bandanas and care kits
for pets in the shelter so a lot of shelter and animal rescue organizations
love to have cute little things like bowties and bandanas and just things to
make their animals look even more adorable to increase their odds of
getting adopted and this is super easy to make at home you can find templates
and instructions for how to make these vandana's out of old shirts or fabric
that you have and some fabric paint and write things like adopt me or I love
snuggles or something really cute like that and then give those to the shelter
and if you want to go step further you can collect things like pet toys or
snacks or food to include in a care kit for the animals as well another creative
way that you can help animals and shelters get adopted is if you are
artistic you could have your family draw portraits of the dogs and the cats and
the other animals who are up for adoption
so I'm talking hand-drawn colored in portraits of these pets the shelters can
put next to the pets in their kennels at the shelter's and also share online how
cute is that who knows you might fall in love with
the animal your kids have drawn you might have to take them home
my final do it yourself at home service project idea is a little bit different
and that is to help teach your kids about not just finance but helping other
people through allowing them to donate their allowance to a microfinance
organization and before your eyes glaze over let me explain microfinance is this
idea that has really taken over the nonprofit and social enterprise world
over the past couple of years that is about having everyday people make small
investments in people in underdeveloped countries and in their businesses so
we're talking about organizations like the Grameen Bank or one of my favorites
Kiva you can make an invite Smit as low as 20 or $25 in someone
else's business across the world to help them pull themselves out of poverty so
they're taking these small investments and they're putting them back into their
business whether it is agricultural you know raising animals that they sell or
you know making clothing things that will help them grow as a business that
they can take better care of their families this has been a really
dignified way of allowing people who have the means to support people in
other areas of the world that are less developed the cool thing is when you
make an investment in one of these businesses through a non-profit like
Kiva you actually get the loan repaid so if your child donates their allowance to
a business that they pick they can see the people on the Kiva website and
choose who they want to invest in then the majority like 99% of these loans are
getting paid back by the people who have now grown their business and started to
lift themselves out of poverty then your kid can reinvest at allowance in someone
else's business and continue the ripple effect and making a difference so it's a
little bit more of a sophisticated type of service project but it could be
really interesting to talk about in terms of you know financial literacy and
allowing them to pick exactly which family and business idea from someone in
some other part of the world for themselves okay so those are all of my
ideas for now I would love to hear about your ideas though what are you doing
with your kids in this age range to make it impact in the world what has been the
most fun for your kids and for your family and what is made the biggest
difference in your community I'd love to hear about it share in the comments
below I'm going to include a few links about some of the things that I talked
about in my description so be sure to check that out and once again don't
forget to subscribe because I make weekly videos
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all work together to make a bigger impact in our communities thanks again
for watching and see you next time