If you are old enough to read this page, you are old enough to
volunteer! But maybe it doesn't feel that way. Maybe you wanted to
volunteer to help animals, for instance, but every animal shelter
you call says, "Sorry, you must be 18 to volunteer here." So
frustrating!
Animal shelters are bound by liability and risk to not allow
people under 16, and sometimes even 18, to have contact with
animals. That's really frustrating for people who really want to
help dogs, cats, horses and other abandoned animals at their
local shelters, but find that they are too young.
The same is true for other organizations, like hospitals,
senior homes, homeless shelters and other organizations - most
won't allow anyone under 16, even 18, to volunteer, because
their insurance company won't allow such, or because they don't
have things for children or young teens to do, or they don't
have adequate supervision in place to keep young people safe.
Lucky for you, there ARE things you can do to volunteer, no
matter your age!
But before I begin this list, a warning: volunteering isn't
about volunteers being entertained. The purpose of volunteering
is to serve something or someone else, and there are rules to
follow. The priority is the mission of the organization, not the
volunteer's wants and desires. There are times when volunteering
activities are going to be boring. There are times when
volunteering activities require you to do something - watch a
video, listen to someone talk - that bore you. If you don't have
the maturity to do these things, without complaint, volunteering
might not be for you. You need to be at a level of maturity
where you understand that you have to wait until a more
appropriate time, perhaps after you finish an activity, for
eating, drinking, playing on a phone, etc. if they want to
volunteer.
Want to support your local animal shelters? Call your
local humane societies, ASPCA chapters and animal shelters, and
ask if your family and friends could:
- Make appropriate food treats for dogs and cats at your home
and drop them off at the shelter. You can find a variety of
recipes to make treats for dogs and cats online. As you make
these treats, talk together with your family and friends about
the importance of appropriate nutrition for pets, the
importance of having pets spayed and neutered, how adopting a
dog, cat, bird, rabbit, or any pet means caring for that pet
for the life of the pet (not just until you don't want to
anymore), the challenges faced by animal shelters, etc.
- Make appropriate bedding at your home for dogs and cats and
drop them off at the shelter. You could use scrap materials
gathered from your own home and that of neighbors. There are
lots of suggestions for making your own dog and cat beds
online. If you invite family and friends to help you, then
talk together about the proper care of pets, how adopting a
dog, cat, bird, rabbit, or any pet means caring for that pet
for the life of the pet (not just until you don't want to
anymore), the importance of having pets spayed and neutered,
the challenges faced by animal shelters, etc.
- Organize a dog and cat food and supply drive for the
shelter. If there is a pet food pantry for low-income people,
gather food for the pantry (note that this cannot be leftover,
opened-bags of food; these have to be unopened packages of pet
food). You could organie this drive at the start of summer,
then again just before the holidays, and then again in the
Spring.
- Start educating yourself about the issue you feel strongly
about. Find organizations that are addressing the issue and
visit their web sites, and read them. Subscribe to their email
newsletters, if they have such, and read them. If they have
public events focused on learning about their work (rather
than fundraising events), attend them. Your goal is to become
knowledgeable about the issue.
- If the shelter has an email newsletter, sign up for it. If
they have a Facebook page, "like" it. Then use your status
update on FaceBook,
Instagram or any other online social networking site to talk
about what the shelter is doing. It can be this simple:
Our local animal shelter is looking for volunteers
this Saturday to help at such-and-such event. If you are
interested, call xxx-xxxx.
This week's featured dog up for adoption is...
The shelter's annual fundraising dinner is this weekend.
Here's more information...
- Turn your birthday celebration into a fundraiser for the
shelter. Invite friends to your house and ask in your
invitation that, in lieu of gifts, people make donations to a
nonprofit organization addressing the cause you support.
- Host a party, cookout or reception at your home, invite
your friends (and encourage them to invite their
friends), and show a film or documentary relating to the
importance of spaying or neutering animals - the shelter can
help you find such. In your invitation, note clearly that this
is a fundraiser for a particular organization and that you
will be asking for donations; do NOT wait until the party,
cookout or reception to tell invitees that you have invited
them there in order to ask for donations.
What about if you want to volunteer for an organization other than
an animal shelter? Here are more ideas:
- Pick a day for your family to go through your things and to
pick things to donate to Goodwill. Talk as a family about what
Goodwill does (Goodwill trains people to be able to work;
their stores raise money for their programs, and provide a
training ground for the people they are working with) and why
their work is important. Encourage your friends to do the
same. Talk about the importance of reusing and recycling, to
keep things out of landfills and from being shipped to other
countries as junk.
- Organize a food, clothing or book drive in your
neighborhood or your community of faith. The items should be
donated appropriately (to Goodwill, to the library, to a food
pantry, etc. -- contact the organization for guidelines and
permission BEFORE the drive).
- Make Love Rocks together. Love Rocks are very
simple to make, even for the craft-challenged. In making
them together, as a family or group supervised by an adult,
talk about how the Love
Rocks movement came to be, about safety outdoors, about
personal responsibility, and about every person's power to
influence other people. When you have made several Love Rocks
together, you can distribute them together - not just on one
occasion, but over the course of many months. Choose what
neighbors should get them, and leave them for those neighbors
where they can find them - in a mailbox, on the front porch,
in a flower pot on the front patio, etc. Give one with a tip
to a waiter or food delivery person. Put them on your
teacher's front porch. Put them on a fence post that hikers
walk by. Just don't leave them in natural spaces, like beach
or amid rocks in a state or national park (keep wild areas
wild!).
- Ask a parent to call the local hospital or senior center
and to speak with the volunteering coordinator. Ask her if it
would be okay for you (and your friends!) to make "have a
great day!" cards for all the children in the pediatric unit
or the seniors, how many you should make, and how you would
deliver those to the hospital so that they get to the kids.
Then spend a day with your friends making those cards and
talking about what being in a hospital might be like.
- Volunteer
to support UNICEF. UNICEF's online Volunteer
Center provides activity toolkits and speaker resources
to help you and your family conduct awareness-building and
fundraising activities in your community.
- Call (or ask your parent to call) a local shelter for
families, and ask if you could organize a children's book
drive, so the shelter could have plenty of books for the
children. If they say yes, then get permission at school to
organize a children's book drive, asking people to donate new
or gently-used books. Go through all of the donated books and
make sure they really are children's books. An adult will need
to take the books to the shelter. If you receive books that
aren't for children, donate them to your local library or a
senior center.
- Start a home-based recycling and reuse program, where you
and your family explore how to recycle things currently not
accepted by your community's curbside recycling program. What
about starting a compost pile? How will you reuse grocery
plastic bags? Could you weave your plastic bags together into
one very strong bag that lasts for many years, or any one of a
number of other items (rugs, place mats, mug rests, ponchos,
toys, laptop case, etc. -- anything that can be knitted or
sewn) and sell them, with the money raised going to an
environmental program? There are a number of web sites that
have free patterns for these crafts and many others.
- Look into Adopt a Soldier programs that allow you and your
kids to send letters and items to soldiers. Plenty of info on
the Internet, like Adopt
a Soldier.
You can also contact nonprofits and community programs in your
area to see what opportunities they might have. Call early - don't
wait the week before or even the month before an event:
- Does your neighborhood or city have a community garden?
They may need help in early Spring to prepare the garden for
growing season, or in the late fall to clean up after growing
season.
- Call your local state park and see if they have a
children's program that combines education and volunteering.
- Girl Scouts of the USA
might be an option if you are a girl; troops engage in
community service programs at least once a year.
- Ask a parent if he or she would be willing to volunteer
with Meals on Wheels and to take you along on meal deliveries
if Meals on Wheels allows such (but you will probably have to
stay in the car).
Family Volunteer (volunteering with your
parents) offers even more options for you to volunteer!
If you feel mistreated as a volunteer, here is advice
for volunteers on how to complain.
More advice
Learning to
Give is a nonprofit organization that provides lessons and
resources for teachers of students in kindergarten through high
school to help them understand the importance of philanthropy,
including volunteerism, and civic engagement. Learning to Give
"educates youth about philanthropy, the civil society sector, and
the importance of giving their time, talent and treasure for the
common good (knowledge), equips youth by encouraging philanthropic
behavior and experience (skills), and, empowers youth to take
voluntary citizen action for the common good in their classrooms,
lives and communities (behavior)."
Also see
Finding Community Service and
Volunteering for Teens
Careers Working With Animals
(for the benefit of animals)
Advice for family volunteering -
volunteering by families with children and, related,
advice for teaching children
compassion & understanding instead of pity with regard
to poverty.
How to Find Volunteering
Opportunities, a resource for adults who want to
volunteer
Creating or Holding a Successful
Community Event or Fund Raising Event.
Fund Raising For a Cause or
Organization
How you can advocate for an issue
important to you
Volunteering with
Seniors.
Volunteering To Help After
Major Disasters.
How
to complain about your volunteering experience.
How to Make a Difference
Internationally/Globally/in Another Country Without
Going Abroad
Using Your Business Skills for
Good - Volunteering Your Business Management Skills, to
help people starting or running small businesses / micro
enterprises, to help people building businesses in
high-poverty areas, and to help people entering or re-entering
the work force.
Details on how to quickly fill a community
service obligation from a court or school.
Ideas for Leadership
Volunteering Activities
These are more than just do-it-yourself volunteering - these
are ideas to create or lead a sustainable, lasting benefit to
a community, recruiting others to help and to have a
leadership role as a volunteer. These can also be activities
for the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award
(U.K.), a mitzvah project, or even scholarship consideration.
Ideas for Creating Your Own
Volunteering Activity.
Donating Things Instead of Cash
or Time (In-Kind Contributions)
Group Volunteering for Atheist and
Secular Volunteers
Helping People Address Their
Problems with Plastic
How to mobilize a community to clean up plastic bottles,
plastic bags and other plastic waste from their environment,
and how to reduce their use of such items in the future
Ideas for Funding Your
Volunteering Abroad Trip.
© 2010-2019 by Jayne
Cravens, all rights reserved. No part of this material can
be reproduced in print or in electronic form without express
written permission by Jayne Cravens.
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Suggested books:
Volunteering:
The Ultimate Teen Guide (It Happened to Me)
The
Busy Family's Guide to Volunteering: Doing Good Together
Doing
Good Together: 101 Easy, Meaningful Service Projects for
Families, Schools, and Communities
Engage
Every Parent!: Encouraging Families to Sign On, Show Up, and
Make a Difference
Volunteer
Vacations: Short-Term Adventures That Will Benefit You and
Others
Children
as Volunteers: Preparing for Community Service
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