Community Service/Giving

[SunflowerMama]

Does anyone do any community service as a daycare or volunteer time as a group?

I'm thinking about starting a calendar with 1 or 2 events per month that families could choose to participate in. Just little ways to help around the community...Community Clean Up, nursing home help, serving meals, drives, etc. I think it would be a great lesson for the kids and we'd be helping out in the community.

Does anyone do anything like this? Where do you find out about upcoming events or do you just do things on your own? Do families participate?

Any info would be great!! Thanks!!

[kendallina]

The only thing the preschool did was do a park clean-up when we noticed there was trash everywhere. We just did it with the kids and had them wear gloves and carry bags to put stuff in. It was great- a great lesson for the kids and it was great to get our park cleaned up! I think doing more for the community would be great! What ages do you have?

[melskids]

We recently collected donations for the neighboring towns who have been devestated by hurricane Irene.

We have also collected things for a local animal shelter that is struggling, and money for a local well known and loved family who's father had cancer.

We are going to "adopt" a soldier soon too.

When I worked at a nursing home years ago..the residents would LOVE it when kids came in to sing or hand out little crafts they made.

I think its a great lesson for kids, and a wonderful way to give back.

[SunflowerMama]

The only thing the preschool did was do a park clean-up when we noticed there was trash everywhere. We just did it with the kids and had them wear gloves and carry bags to put stuff in. It was great- a great lesson for the kids and it was great to get our park cleaned up! I think doing more for the community would be great! What ages do you have?

I would love a trash clean-up so just need to find a super dirty park so it makes it worth our while to schedule it.

Most of my kids are 3 - 5. I think I'm definitely going to schedule helping to serve a meal around Thanksgiving at a local shelter. My own girls are 4.5 so I definitely think they are old enough to help and hopefully not be too scared by the experience.

[SunflowerMama]

We recently collected donations for the neighboring towns who have been devestated by hurricane Irene.

We have also collected things for a local animal shelter that is struggling, and money for a local well known and loved family who's father had cancer.

We are going to "adopt" a soldier soon too.

When I worked at a nursing home years ago..the residents would LOVE it when kids came in to sing or hand out little crafts they made.

I think its a great lesson for kids, and a wonderful way to give back.

Great ideas! We recently collected school supplies for low income families but I love the idea of collecting for a local animal shelter.

I also love the nursing home idea! I think maybe we'll do little crafts/snacks for Halloween and then go to a local nursing home on a Saturday to pass out the crafts to the residents.

[kitkat]

I don't do any community service with dcks. However, with my own, we are doing the 12 months of giving for my parents as their Christmas present. Usually we adopt a child during Christmas. This year I decided we would try to do some sort of project each month to help more people. So far we have: baked cookies for the people at church, donated baby items to a pregnancy shelter, donated food to the food pantry, donated books to the book store at the library, donated to the domestic abuse shelter, and made cards for an assisted living residence. We are doing everything annonymously, but I take pictures each month to make a calendar for Christmas. I guess it's a mix of random acts of kindness and community service. My kids are almost 7, 3, and 6 months. The almost 7 year old totally gets it, but my 3 (will be 3 tomorrow) really doesn't understand what we are doing or why. That's fine b/c she's a talker and would totally blow the whole project :: I try to find things that my 7 year old can relate to.

Even if you baked cookies for the senior center, I think the kids would love it and get something out of it, especially if they can help deliver the goodies. You could also do a collection of whatever and have the families bring the items in and you and the kids make the delivery. It's a great learning experience!

[SunflowerMama]

I don't do any community service with dcks. However, with my own, we are doing the 12 months of giving for my parents as their Christmas present. Usually we adopt a child during Christmas. This year I decided we would try to do some sort of project each month to help more people. So far we have: baked cookies for the people at church, donated baby items to a pregnancy shelter, donated food to the food pantry, donated books to the book store at the library, donated to the domestic abuse shelter, and made cards for an assisted living residence. We are doing everything annonymously, but I take pictures each month to make a calendar for Christmas. I guess it's a mix of random acts of kindness and community service. My kids are almost 7, 3, and 6 months. The almost 7 year old totally gets it, but my 3 (will be 3 tomorrow) really doesn't understand what we are doing or why. That's fine b/c she's a talker and would totally blow the whole project :: I try to find things that my 7 year old can relate to.

Even if you baked cookies for the senior center, I think the kids would love it and get something out of it, especially if they can help deliver the goodies. You could also do a collection of whatever and have the families bring the items in and you and the kids make the delivery. It's a great learning experience!

I love that you do most of the things annonymously! That's awesome and all great ideas!

[AnneCordelia]

We always do a park clean-up on Earth Day but that's it with the daycare.

My family volunteers at a soup kitchen once a month.

[nannyde]

We do a "socks for tots" program where we donate socks to the head starts.

The parents and my friends bring in bags of new white socks in toddler sizes to school aged and we donate them.

Years ago I asked a Head Start teacher what she would most like for her kids. It was in the winter here so it was cold.

She said SOCKS.

So we take all sock donations and give them once a year before Christmas. We try to get enough to give two six packs to each kid in the classroom.

[melissa ann]

Fridays we have neighborhood walk. We carry one (or 2) bags for trash, one for recyclable, one for keepers(tabs for Ronald McDonald's houe, neat rocks, money, ususally just change, feathers etc)
The kids really love it.

[Sugar Magnolia]

We don't "go" anywhere, we do our stuff in-house. We adopted two soldiers in the past. The kids LOVE to color pictures for them and collect candy to send them. My last soldier just came home, my first soldier is a friend and he re-deployed to...that place that starts with an "A"....but I am too emotionally involved to send him stuff this time from the kids, I just do it privately now. We also make posters for the VFW on Vets Day and Memorial Day. We did St. Judes trike-a-thon in the past, as well as a parade for Cystic Fibrosis. It may sound opportunistic, but when we do stuff like this, I take pictures and send to the local paper---free advertising

[Blackcat31]

We have a Christmas party each year but we do not exchange gifts. We adopt a charity and donate to them. One year we collected supplies for the animal shelter, made care packages for the soldiers, made an entire meal for Christmas dinner for a needy family, filled backpacks for needy school kids, collected hats and mittens and donated coats for our local church coat drive.

[Pammie]

We do baking for the Ronald McDonald House once/month.

I tie in the service aspect of the activity with other content goals for the month so it's always a morning of cross-content learning. I note on our monthly calendar what day that we'll be baking, and often some of my families will drop off additional baked goods those days too.

The children know that the goodies that they make/bake go to families that have sick children at the hospital - but the kids don't actually GO to drop off the donations - dh takes them for us on his way to work:-)