When teaching children about compassion, few activities are as rewarding as volunteering together as a family. Parents often find that volunteering helps teach values such as empathy, gratitude and responsibility. Not to mention, family volunteering helps foster emotional and social development, while also promoting healthy family and community connections. Working as family helps children feel valued as they acquire new skills, learn about life, and discover how their actions can can impact others.
The Busy Family’s Guide to Volunteering gives parents endless volunteering ideas. Take a look at these 10 family-friendly volunteer ideas you can try today!
If your family likes the outdoors:
- Start a community garden
- Take dogs at an animal shelter for walks
If your family wants to work from home:
- Sew, knit, or crochet for the needy
- Invite someone who is alone to a meal, especially at holiday time
If your family likes sports:
- Volunteer to help with Special Olympics
- Assist coaches for school sports
If your family enjoys driving:
- Take nursing home residents or isolated seniors to visit their friends or drive friends to visit them
- Deliver food from a food pantry to the homebound
If your family wants to create random acts of kindness:
- Provide free babysitting to a struggling family in your neighborhood
- Rake, mow, shovel snow, or garden for a neighbor or elderly friend
Author(s)Jenny Friedman
Ashleigh Craven
Ashleigh Craven has a decade and a half of diverse category experience from agency communications to athletic apparel to automotive to education, developing and executing communication strategies in both traditional and social media. She has supported national product launches and corporate events for the likes of Soffe, Buick, Chevrolet, Wake Forest University , Kaplan, and others. She has an BA from the University of Michigan in English and Communication Studies and an MA from Wake Forest University, where she focused her studies on argumentation and presidential rhetoric and speechwriting. She served as director of marketing for Gryphon House from 2017- 2020.
