Volunteerism is the willingness of people to work on behalf of others without being motivated by financial gain.
I've been thinking of how do I get CiBaby into the "volunteer" mindset from an early age? Yes, I realize she's only 2 years-old, but no time like the present to start preparing.
I was raised with the volunteer mindset. My parents volunteered all the time...and I tagged along. I remember going grocery shopping with my mom when I was in early elementary school in preparation for a Loaves and Fishes supper at a nearby community center. We shopped, chopped, cooked, served and cleaned up. During this time I interacted with many of the recipients of the meals...it was a great learning experience.
When I was in 3rd-4th grade* we had a speaker come from a children's home in the area to speak about volunteering...in general. Well, I went right home and told my mom that I wanted to volunteer there. So off we went to the children's home. Apparently I was the youngest volunteer they'd ever had. I was assigned to one child, Donna was her name, and she was actually older than I. Donna had a lot of strikes against her. She was blind, couldn't speak and had multiple health issues, but she was a sweetie. We would read together and play. I did this for several years. I still keep a card that Donna made for me.
I did many volunteer jobs as a kid...including being a candy striper in a physical therapy department. The list is quite long, so I won't get into it. But my point is that it is a part of me. Always has been, always will be. I want this for my child as well.
So today I was out on MinnMoms.com and found an article on getting children involved in volunteering. They had some great ideas and good websites for ideas as sometimes it's hard to find age-appropriate volunteering for our little ones. How fun would it be for your little one to make a card for a sick child? How fun would it be for that sick child to get some fancy mail?! There are a couple of websites out there devoted to just this Hug and Hope for Sick Children and Make a Child Smile. There are probably more but this is a good start. There is a local organization that is dedicated to helping families volunteer called Doing Good Together. Their motto is building strong families, caring kids and a better world. I think that really says it all.
*I had to call and confirm this time frame with G-Mama as I wasn't sure, but I knew I was young.
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3 comments:
Good on you for starting young. We've been looking into it too. I found a meetup that has a few child friendly volunteer meetups and we definately plan on helping out at Feed My Starving Children when Alex is older.
Something fun for Alex that we do is let him pick out the food we put in the food shelf bin at the grocery store. We do it every week and he likes picking out things that the other kids will like.
Fun!! Let me know if you come up with anything great for their age.
The food shelf bin is a great idea! I think we'll wait on that for a little bit until she understands it a bit more...but great idea! thanks
Never too early! We started very early with pumpkin and petunia and I feel that at ages 9 and 7 it has really stuck and become a part of who they are. We really started with just very small gestures. We have a lot of elderly neighbors and we have always done small things for them that the children are involved in like bringing in their barrels on trash day, making extra cookies or an extra pie and bringing it to them, clearing their leaves for them in the fall or even just drawing them a picture or making a card. Now, the kids initiate these things on their own and have become surrogate grandchildren to a few neighbors, including their pictures on the mantle with all the other "real" grandchildren.
As they got older, we have broadened this base with official charities that they identify with. For Pumpkin it's the Jimmy Fund as it's a Red Sox sponsored charity that supports children with cancer. Baseball and (unfortunately) cancer have both had major impacts on his life, so it's a good fit.
Their schools also do a great job of reinforcing the importance of service (both public schools). Petunia's school is only pre K-2, but service is a HUGE part of the theme of the school thanks to a wonderful wellness teacher who has really taken the lead on this in a major way.
Sorry, I could go on forever. : )
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