Involving kids in making gifts and volunteering

You people really like upchuck!

So I'm still apparently not done with holiday posts, but tomorrow will be about something different.

Jennifer is asking for suggestions of gifts that kids can help make, that aren't from a kit. She'd like things that aren't super-expensive (so no necklaces strung macaroni alternating with real emeralds), but also things that aren't too tchotchke-like.

My kids help with holiday baking gifts, but we haven't really done anything non-edible homemade yet with them. I'm thinking they might be soon old enough to do something like sewing stuffed animals out of felt for younger friends/relatives. And maybe we'll do some painting of wooden picture frames to frame pictures of them to give.

Here's something absolutely brilliant that my 10-year-old (at the time) second-cousin made for his 5-year-old cousin: He used duct tape to make a knight's helmet, sword, and shield. Can you get over that? (It was the hit of the family reunion, for sure.) I think it took him three days and a few rolls of duct tape, but I was stunned at what a kid with little cash and lots of imagination and love can do.

I know you guys can probably come up with some other great ideas.

Amy writes:

"I know it's easy to think about this at holiday time and then drop it, but I'd like to get this started and continue throughout the year. My 6 (almost 7) year old son is not involved in any extracurricular activities, and I'd like the two of us to get involved together as volunteers in our community. I'm going to ask around at his school for local suggestions, but I was wondering what ideas you and your readers have as good, on-going volunteer sites for early elementary-age kids?"

Great question! And I'm hoping people will come up with good ideas. I'm feeling like a hypocrite, because I've been thinking for months and months that I should be waking the kids up early one morning to go help at the weekly breakfast program for the homeless housed at our church. But somehow the task just seems too daunting. Maybe I will see if I can find something like this that isn't during the school week so we can realistically get there.

Does anyone else have any good ideas about volunteer activities for younger kids?

Comments

[Cathy]

1. For the volunteering, I would suggest Cub Scouts. It's true that it's not everyone's cup of tea - and that's OK, but it's something worth looking into. But they do service projects and reinforce worthwile ideas (a scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, curteous, kind obedient, cheeful, brave, clean, and reverent) and the program is geared in an age appropriate manner.

2. Also for other, more independent volunteering, there was an article in a recent Wondertime magazine (November or December - I got them both within a week of eachother)

3. Homemade gifts with kids: Depends on how old/young the kids are and how much you want to help - salt dough ornaments, painting "blank" ornaments from the craft store, making shirts (or tote bags or whatever else you can think of) with freezer paper templates (check the reynolds web site or any number of internet tutorials).

[Stephaine]

Your local food bank appreciates helpers of all ages, plus they can support the kind of drop-in, occasional help that families provide. My dad used to take us there a few times a year when we were kids and it was fun to sort donations and stuff. Another idea is Meals-on-Wheels. Kids can help put the food packages together and even help with deliveries.

[rudyinparis]

I second the food bank idea. We live quite near one and they do welcome drop ins to help sort. Have I been there with the kids yet? No. {cringe, cringe}

As for making gifts, we have in the past framed Eldest's drawings as gifts. I guess this is most appropriate for grandparents or people who are similarly thrilled by every breath your child takes. I plan this year to do something creative with my holidays cards involving my little artistes.

****

Sorry to go back to the puking, but in a completely unexpected twist (or maybe entirely expected, considering what it's like to be a parent) Younger threw up for the VERY FIRST TIME (the very first three times, actually) last night. The first session all I could muster was a shocked "Oh!" and move her off the carpet. I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised. But thanks to yesterdays discussion I had the presence of mind to go grab a towel. It was a very odd coincidence, I thought.

[Charisse]

I love what they're doing at Mouse's preschool--theres a bookdrive for a local organization called Homeless Prenatal Project (most of the clients have older children as well); the parents are donating books and the preschoolers are making wrapping paper and wrapping the gifts. They're also making ornaments for the tree of another local organization. Mouse came home and told me about how some kids don't have enough books to read and could we please help them. So if you're doing adopt-a-family or something, doing the decorating might be just at the right level for your little ones. (Mouse is 3 1/2)

[Today Wendy]

When I was about 12 my friend's mother taught us how to make dragon boats: http://www.annamariewinter.com/pdf/boat.pdf

I went a little crazy and made them for my entire family, and most of them still use them as Christmas ornaments. I love the internet, I had forgotten how to make them exactly, but then I found the instructions. If you use a little double-sided tape near the pins it is even easier to make these.

[dot]

A couple of ideas for kids' projects:

1) paper beads (just google 'paper beads' for instructions). They are just rolled up/glued magazine strips, and they look really interesting. Then they can string them into bracelets or so forth for gifts.

2) This is more complicated--but would be a neat gift for other children---, I just finished a couple of 'glove bunnies' (think sock monkey friend). They we easy and fun to make (i just sewed them by hand which embroidery thread). Here's a link: http://dabbled.blogspot.com/2007/11/bunny-love.html

As for volunteer activities, I just noticed our local science museum has volunteer programs for kids, but i think it was targeted at older kids. but that's an area to explore...

Dot

[tish]

How about making crafts and then taking them to an assisted living community as your volunteer project? My grandma lives in an ALC, and I know she would love it if kids made art projects for her to hang on her refrigerator.

[caramama]

My niece and I have been doing holiday baking for years. I try to pick things that are appropriate for her age, starting with easy things like sugar cookies and moving to truffles. We wrap up sets of the baking and give those as gifts.

There are also ornament sets that you put together that you can buy in craft stores. Also decorating plain balls with glue and glitter or puffy paint or things like that.

[Christiana]

On volunteering - Operation Christmas Child involves packing presents/ school supplies in shoeboxes, which is something tat can be done by young children.
Also, I remember my church (though obviously not everyone has a church they're involved in) used to take us to nursing homes to sing for the residents. (I'd suggest that you start this early with kids - 5 or 6 years old, because by the time they're older, if they're not used seeing the people it's kind of creepy to them).
A woman I know volunteered to go get groceries for a home-bound woman, and always takes her kids along to the store and back to the woman's house when she visits.
And an old family friend used to do a run with Meels on Wheels every Friday morning to make deliveries - she always made her boys join her, from the time they were very young until they graduated high school.

[Jen (yup, another one)]

Great suggestions (I am the Jennifer who asked about craft ideas). I think I'll give salt ornaments a try. Off to Google a recipe....

[Jen H.]

This isn't as direct as helping at a shelter or something, but most grocery stores have a bin for donations to the food bank. While doing your normal grocery shopping, it's a good opportunity to talk with kids about how some families are not so lucky and what can we pick out to put into the food bank bin. A few items per shopping trip and it probably starts to hit home eventually. This is an all-year thing in our house, not just at Christmas.

[julie]

My husband used to take his 4th grade class every month to a local retirement community. The students did projects with the folks, read to/with them....they each had a special buddy they visited each time. It was nice. I'm sure you could do something like that - especially around the holidays. Some of the Folk don't really enjoy little kids.....but many of them absolutely love them.

Also, if you are involved in a church/synogogue, that would be a great place to ask about volunteer activities. Most have ongoing projects they always need help with.

[wavybrains]

For several years running as a kid, I made different ornaments for family/friends. Orgami ornaments are easy, no clean up, and all you need is a stack of pretty paper and a book from the library. I took the rings from a six pack of soda/dog food (does anything still come on rings? If not you could cut out the center on plastic lids or use craft rings) and crocheted around the ring with green yarn and decorated each "wreath" with tiny berries/sparkles from a craft store. This a great beginning crochet project--each ring takes minutes to make. I made friendship bracelet ornaments the year I was into making those using thick red, green, and gold yarn/plastic lanyard rope. I did sclupee (the easy-bake clay at craft stores) ornaments one year too. Little snowmen, wreaths and other simple shapes are perfect for small fingers.

Another year a relative had given me a bead loom the previous x-mas so I made earrings for the girls and bookmarks for the guys. Ditto the loop loom I got as a gift--potholders for everyone! (You can now get loops in bulk online!)

[scotti]

Your local Volunteer Center is the best resource for finding volunteer opportunities - including family opportunities.
Find the volunteer center nearest you:
http://www.pointsoflight.org/centers/find_center.cfm

Or try searching for volunteer opportunities online (you can do an advanced search and ask for family opportunities):
www.1800volunteer.org

[regiemino]

Salt dough ornaments are great - I made them every year with my students when I taught grade one. If you paint them with acrylic paints, they look fabulous. Here's another idea, kind of baking/craft combined. You make "gingerbread" ornaments that smell great, but are not edible.

mix 1/2 cup unsweetened store-bought applesuce with 1/2 cup cinnamon together in a sturdy ziploc bag. knead in the bag until it has the consistency of cookie dough. Roll out to 1/8 inch thickness and cut out shapes with cookie cutters. Use a straw to make a hole in the top. Let dry on parchment-lined baking sheet for 24 to 48 hours, and decorate with sequins, glitter, fabric paint or beads.
This recipe is from the Canadian Living Christmas book (the old one).

http://www.canadianliving.com/
is a treasure trove of ideas.

[MrsHaley]

Re: volunteering with kids -- Most assisted living facilites / nursing homes have programs for kids to visit with the residents and do a storytime or make a craft or something. Even if the one near you does not, you can call and find out who might appreciate a visit from a little friend, or when you could show up in the common room with some books & toys and have some quite playtime with any residents who might be interested. Alzheimer's isn't contagious, but the joy of child is!

[Jan]

I know that before I was old enough to be in school I was helping my mom collate mailings, stuff envelopes and sort by zip code for bulk mail. We did this at home, which I'm sure made it easier to involve me.

I've thought of (but not checked into) taking my Munchkin (3 1/2) to the animal shelter to help out with tasks like cleaning cages, walking dogs and loving kitties.

When I was in elementary school I used to sometimes go to the library and read books onto tapes -- do they still do that?

[sue]

My oldest is 3, so when she makes gifts, it's usually baking (everyone gets extra sprinkles on their cookies) or helping out in small ways on a larger project. My husband likes to do a lot of woodworking with her (she even has her own saw - yikes!) but they have yet to produce anything gift quality as made by the toddler (the husband's own work is gorgeous). This year, she's going to help with baking holiday cookie. The other thing she's great at is decorating wrpping paper. We wrap things in plain white or brown paper and let her go to otwn. We always have the most unique gift on the table :-)

As for volunteering, I agree with the assisted living/nursing home idea. We go once a month with the local mom's club and the residents are THRILLED to have kids around. A food bank would also be a great idea, as long as it wasn't a busy ay volunteerwise for them (since other volunteers might be driven crazy by a boisterous child). I remember when I was a kid, my mom would volunteer at the zoo and have me come along to help. She would be a docent and I was her docent-in-training. I think we started when I was 8 or 9. I felt *very* grown up to be teaching people things about animals and she got to teach me about the value of giving of my time. Smart cookie, my mom.

[dregina]

Shrinky-dinks are really fun, and can be used to make pretty mobiles, suncatchers, key-chains, or necklaces. You can get blank (clear) shrinky dinky film at most craft stores, and it's nice because laid back kids can freehand it, but for those kids who need a little more structure to feel confident, they can lay the film over a picture and trace it. On the down-side, markers, scissors and ovens are involved, so it's not something they can do without constant supervision.

[Jane Plane]

I wouldn't take small kids into a foodshelf or breakfast program at all, I don't think there's a need to feel guilty on that count. I think it's borderline disrespectful to the other volunteers and to the people you are helping to have kids there who are too young to understand what is happening and/or too young to help without assistance, simply to give the children an experience of helping.

The suggestion of grocery shopping with your kids for food shelf donations or toy donations is a great idea, as is a visit to a nursing home.

Once they are old enough to be self-sufficient, then I think including the child in the decision of what way to help others is the best idea. There is so much need, in so many different ways, and the idea for lifelong service to others to to find the way to help others that is personally inspiring, not the way that your parents told you to.

My oldest does a lot of card decoration this time of year, and the younger is beginning to join in, too. I fear it's going to be A Very Pokemon Christmas (now with extra two year-old circles!) for most of our relatives.

[Kristin]

We did painted picture frames last year and gift tags. The gift tags worked out great, she added the stickers and decorations and I punched the holes. I plan to do them again this year but I've upted the anti and bought fancy paper punches.

[Eva]

I'd say anything with helping the elderly and animals would be a good bet for volunteer work for the kid set.

[hedra]

Some reiteration here, short on time, sorry!

Ornaments for the tree - beaded, glued, painted, whatever. And actually, the LESS perfect they are, the more they seem to be valued later - nobody can remember which of the 'perfectly painted' wooden ornaments was made by whom, but we all know that the blotchy rocking horse (that I was so disappointed in at the time) was me, and the really roughly hand-stitched stocking ornament was my little sister. Likewise with some of the bead-and-pipecleaner stars and snowflakes. Christmas trees are perfect for kid art things - also possibly can be used as gifts for the visit to the assisted care facility.

As for charitable activities, we have done a few, and continue on a regular basis.

1) Make the food donation in person, with the kids. We're not quite to the sorting at the food bank level (the older would be fine, but I'd need babysitting for the three year olds), but anything that makes it concrete helps.

2) For the outdoorsy types and/or if you'd like to (or can) include a longer trip, see if there are any conservation projects near you (such as Nature Conservancy) - a half-day of digging holes and planting things in a reforestation project can be really fun. They may even coordinate rides. There are also farm projects - one of the urban cooperatives not too far from us does sort/box activities for donations of perishable foods to shelters.

3) If you're going to support something financially, have them 'pay' for part of it with chore money. My kids pay their public radio memberships from chores at my mom's house.

4) Support overseas troops with letters, gift cards, and home-made decorations (etc.), or support families of injured military, etc., etc. There are many programs, you can either call the nearest base, or just check a Charity Navigator site.

5) I think the 'look up the opportunities online or by phone' thing is a great place to start if you're floundering for ideas.

6) Or, start from what your kids already care about - If you have a few ideas of what kinds of things excite them, interest them, or worry/concern them, it makes it easier to move forward on. My kids are terribly worried about people in the military, in part because two of their cousins are headed in (one enlisted, another planning to do so), and they have relatives who were in the first Gulf War. So, things to support military personnel are high on their agendas. When my mom had to take down some trees to make room for an addition on her house, they were so distraught over the tree loss that my mom sought out the Nature Conservancy so she could donate for replacements where they'd do some good, and then arranged for them to help plant them as well. If they care about animals, check out animal welfare organizations. If they care about their grandparents or other elderly, then elder care. If they ask questions and are worried about the homeless people they see, then pursue that. I found it was overwhelming to try to sort out what *I* was worried about (everything), and easier (and less guilt-inducing) to respond to what their own concerns were - plus, there's no pulling teeth on things they already care about. They're already engaged on the topic. It isn't hard to get them engaged on most things, but I've made the wrong call a few times and met unexpected resistance, so ... follow their lead. There's enough out there in the world that needs assistance that it is IMHO okay for you to pick what would resonate with the kids, be meaningful for them, stick in their minds most.

7) Remember that this is life skills training. Consider how you'd have wanted to be introduced to charitable work - an overload of guilt isn't necessarily useful. Feeling engaged, enthusiastic, and needed makes a difference. It can be fun without being somehow less important than something less fun - eventually, they'll be able to cope with the more challenging forms of volunteering, and will earn the additional good feelings that come with those activities as well. The point is getting started and making it workable.

Being able to see what you've done may be especially useful to younger kids - getting a smile in return, or handing over physical goods like food donations, something they can picture, remember, tell stories about. My mom also has a bulletin board for all the projects we help on, whether it's helping renovate the only free-standing birth center in the area, or photos of them giving their chores earnings to an organization, a collection of pictures helps remind them that this is something that we do, and that we value. (A photo album would also work, my mom just likes the big 'post on the wall' stuff.)

[ACJ]

I would strongly suggest asking your kids about how they want to want help others. They will have plenty of ideas, I can assure you. As a volunteer coordinator, my least favourite task was dealing with mothers who were trying to get their kids to learn how to help by dragging them down to the local food bank. It is a waste of everyone's time. However, families that arrived with Mums and Dads following their 6 year old and his bag of food were fabulous. Even the littlest know that people and animals and the world need help. The only downside is they may have an idea that we may not enjoy so much - my friend's 5 year old asked if they could bring the man from under the overpass home for dinner. Awkward, but a great conversation about how to help him and other people who live outside.

[Pamela]

Here's a great idea that I got from someone else's blog (sorry that I don't remember who). Get yourself an advent calendar that hangs on the wall and has pockets for each day. Write an act of kindness for each day and add a piece of candy for each child. The acts could be as simple as "Make your siblings bed" or "clear the table for your family" to pick up ten pieces of trash at your favorite park, drop some canned goods off at the soup kitchen, visit an elderly neighbor, clean someones snow/leaves, take dinner to a family member - you get the idea. At dinner, share as a family what each of you did. Then save the paper scraps. On Christmas day, before opening gifts review all the things that you did to help others. Make sure mom and dad participate too! Too often we think we have to "go somewhere" to make a difference. Your home, neighbors, friends, parks, and family all have needs too.
One other note. I worked at a homeless shelter and soup kitchen for four years. All year long we struggled to find volunteers and then were inundated with them from 11/1-12/25. If you really want to make a difference, remember January-October too.

[Lisa V]

Our school volunteers constantly- kindergarten through 8th graders. Here is just a handful of things we have done.

Play bingo at nursing or veterans homes
Stock shelves at the food bank
Clean cages, bath dogs at the humane society
Weed community garden
Mark storm drains
Help at a daycare center
Beaver or deer wrap trees
Restore computers for low income kids

There are a ton more, but I'm tired.

[Anne]

One year my step-daughter and I made wrapping paper. We took several rolls of plain brown paper and used different things to decorate them: we used our hands dipped din green or red paint on one, stamps made from sponges in the shape of Christmas trees and stars again in the red and green paint also did the stars in sliver and good paint. Just unrolled the paper in the garage and got good and messy and had a lot of fun.

[Debbie]

My kids really love making Christmas food gifts for their teachers such as these...
http://www.kids-cooking-activities.com/Christmas-food-gifts.html

Also some easy sewing projects like pillowcases, pillows and other ideas you can find here...
http://www.kids-sewing-projects.com/kids-sewing-projects.html
With a little sewing and a variety of material you can make some fun things.

[Margaret]

One fun volunteer project that we've done is adopting a family through a social service agency and we're doing it again this year. My daughter loves it. We always ask if there's a family with a child near her age. We pick out the gifts together, and you get the fun of wrapping as well!

For handmade gifts, we've done simple photo albums--not the digital kind, but collecting photos and writing captions underneath them--I'd let my daughter come up with the captions. We've gotten unfinished storage boxes from craft stores that we would paint. For my sister, who has a job that's paper heavy, we've bought plain manila folders and decorated them. For my grandmother, who had lost her her sight, we would record a bunch of Christmas stories on to a tape, changing the stories each year, and send it to her. She would listen to it on Christmas. After she died, I found out that each year she would listen to all the previous tapes and then the new one.

[Susan]

My girls, ages 6 and 3, have decorated aprons for their grandparents; decorated glass jars with glued on tissue paper and glitter to make candle holders; made snowman pins with those wooden ice cream spoons, a piece of felt for a scarf and googlie eyes; made jingle bell animal necklaces for Grandma with those giant jingle bells; and colored plain envelopes and 1/2 sheets of paper to give as stationary. Children also love to decorate pillowcases with images that they think the gift recipient will like. (Just make sure you use fabric markers and have your child wear a protective smock of some kind!)

As far as volunteering, our church collects food each month for a local shelter. We've had the kids pick out food to donate. Several families then take the food each month over to the food pantry and help unload it. Even the smallest child could go along for the ride!

This website, called Volunteer Family, http://www.thevolunteerfamily.org/About/Default.aspx allows you to search for places requesting volunteers near you. I was surprised how many there were in our area.

Hope that helps!

[CarolinaDivina]

Go to a retirement home or to a children's hospital and read aloud to them - your child will enjoy being read to and when the child is old enough to read, he/she can read aloud a few stories too

[RCW]

Since our daughter was 10 months old she has 'volunteered' at an adult day care therapy center. We go as a family about every other week (though we try for every week) for an hour or so. I usually prepare some sort of treat to share. Before she could walk the participants would hold her and talk with her. Now that she can play we bring a ball some weeks and they kick it around together or just explore the garden area together. We like exposing our child to a variety of people and the participants (most suffering from severe depression) at the day care care seem joyful to be embraced and loved by a nonjudgemental little person. Last week I took my daughter along with me to a 'reform' school of sorts for troubled teenage boys. I have volunteered there for the past two months and the connections I have been struggling to make over these months were made by my 2 year old in about 30 seconds. Seems she went directly to the biggest teenager with the most tatoos and held up her arms for him to pick her up. He gladly did and so did the other kids. Boys I didn't even know had teeth were smiling from ear to ear! Again, the lack of judgement and acceptance made the boys not feel so 'bad' - at least for a while. We believe our child/ren will develop empathy and compassion through volunteerism and plan to make it a priority in scheduled activities.