5 ways to volunteer with your kids this holiday season
By Angela Bahng
I have two daughters, ages 5 and 8, and thankfully this year they are really beginning to understand how important it is to think of others during this festive period.
Here are 5 different ways we are trying to encourage our girls to have a broader perspective this festive season.
1. Help the kids choose a practical gift to send to needy families overseas.
Our kids have looked through the World Vision gift catalog and decided on one goat, one sheep, and two chickens to gift to a family. This activity always gets them excited and helps us talk about how such a gift could help a family out for an extended period of time by providing food or income.
My five-year-old has apparently been thinking very hard about which animals would be the best gift without us even knowing it. The other day while we were eating dinner she said very seriously (and completely out of the blue), “I think a sheep would be good because the family can use the wool too.”
I love that this opportunity to give is making them think about what others need in different parts of the world.
2. Visit a local refugee family that recently moved to the area.
Through a partnership with Exodus World Service, our kids have been involved in collecting items and delivering welcome packs to newly arrived refugee families with children from places like Syria and Afghanistan. The opportunity to actually meet the families has been very eye-opening for them and also has sparked lots of thoughtful questions from them about families who don’t have a safe place to live.
3. Choose gifts for children whose parent is in prison.
Prison Fellowship has a program called Angel Tree Christmas that provides gifts for children whose parents cannot be there for their kids during the holidays because their incarceration. My eight-year-old especially likes being able to choose a gift for a child that is the same age as her and also going to the store to pick out the gift and deliver it personally to the family.
4. Help pack meals at a non-profit organisation like Feed My Starving Children.
We are lucky to live near a facility that has a warehouse and takes volunteers from children as young as five to help pack nutritious meals and send them to places like Haiti and Uganda. The girls enjoyed physically being able to scoop the vitamins, vegetables, soy and rice and help children who do not have enough to eat.
This was the first time our five-year-old had the opportunity to participate, and she enjoyed it so much that she is already asking when she can go back. I love the tangible nature of this volunteer activity and how even the youngest child can understand how they are making an impact.
5. For something a little closer to home, the kids have enjoyed visiting a local Alzheimer’s memory care center.
The kids were able to talk to the residents and participate in a dance and musical performance. It was nice to have the opportunity for them to interact closely with them and see how their presence could make someone else feel a little more joyful.
What are some ways your family has enjoyed volunteering over the holidays with your children?
