Volunteer or Service Work??

We do volunteer and service work, but not on a regular basis. We always do something at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and sometimes Easter. My husband even works for a non-profit benevolence ministry, and we still only get around to it 2-3 times a year! Sad, I know… Last Thanksgiving, our family led a music service for the homeless people who were about to receive a Thanksgiving meal. Then my children went around and passed candy out to the patrons. At Christmas, they participated in a play at the same ministry, and they actually played Mary and Joseph. They give their own money regularly at church. Also, right after the earthquake in Haiti, we had a 7yo cousin who wanted to raise money for Haiti, and our kids helped. He was reading books and people made hourly donations for however many hours he read. My kids wanted to give $1 per hour, each, and ended up sending $21 each! If you don’t have time to get out of the house for service projects, try to think of ones you can do at home, like our cousin.

Pick a charity or fundraiser that just your family can raise money for. Our cousin started a blog about what books he was reading and kept a count of how many hours he read. It was a great way for him to be reading every, single day and still give of himself to help others. He raised close to $1500 by himself! We may do something like that this year. My father-in-law is a part-time missionary to East Asia, and is always needing financial help for the people group he ministers to.

Anyway, sorry to ramble. We’re not that great at volunteer opportunities either. At least you’re trying!

We’ve hooked up with a local charity that provides baby layettes for families in the hospitals. The charity provides all the materials and patterns, plus regular workshop meetings where the ladies work together and teach the necessary skills, like knitting, crocheting, and sewing. In our case, we go to the meeting, collect materials, work on the projects at home, then drop them off at the next meeting. In our area the charity is called Tiny Stitches, but you can probably find a similar organization in your area. It’s a great way to make sure handicraft projects are useful too.

In addition, our church has provided several service opportunities among our church family and in the community.

We volunteered at a food pantry for several months as a family.

Another thing we did was for many years, my children and I visited a local nursing home every month with a few other homeschool families. The children sang, played piano or violin, and visited with the residents.

Nanci