5 Fun Ways to Encourage Kids to Volunteer

Volunteering is a great learning experience for children. Of course, it’s not always easy to get a child to understand that giving is better than receiving. But with a little perseverance and a positive attitude, they will begin to understand the true concept of volunteerism, and this can reward them for the rest of their life.

Today, Mighty Mommy has 5 fun ways you can incorporate volunteerism into your family’s lifestyle.

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Tip #1: Volunteering Encourages a Lifelong Service Ethic

By getting your children involved in volunteer opportunities at a young age, you create a lasting influence about the importance of giving well into adulthood. I grew up with parents who were school teachers. I can remember back as early as kindergarten going with my mother and siblings to low income housing neighborhoods and helping to start vegetable gardens with families who had next to nothing. I believe that my parents’ guidance in focusing on community service at such a young age is the main reason I volunteer with several non-profit agencies today, and I include my own kids when opportunities present themselves.

Targeting children ages 10 and under will likely solidify and ground the value of giving within a child’s emerging self-concept. So if volunteerism is important to you and your family, start presenting your kids with age-appropriate opportunities as early as possible.

Tip #2: Make it Interesting, Fun, and Age-Appropriate

As our children enter middle and high school, community service hours are required to meet certain goals such as National Honor Society and, in some schools, even graduation. For students who have never participated in any organized volunteerism programs, giving of their time can feel like a chore, rather than an act of true kindness.

If we get our kids involved in volunteerism as early as elementary or middle school, it’s important to provide them with opportunities that they will enjoy rather than consider daunting. So look for things that your child can relate to. If they enjoy using their hands, perhaps they could volunteer for cleaning work or landscaping help. If they play a musical instrument, perhaps there are opportunities at your local performing arts center. If they love animals, they could volunteer at your local animal shelter. My daughter, age 7, loves to paint and draw. She makes whimsical placemats that we donate to our local Meals on Wheels organization so that the housebound folks who receive their weekly meals will have something fun and colorful to look at when they eat their meals. To take this one step further, some of my older children have volunteered to deliver the meals, and my daughter has gone with them to introduce herself to these folks as the artist. It was a proud and inspiring experience for her.

For some children, the idea of helping the less fortunate seems to come naturally, but others require a little help to truly understand the concept. The main thing to remember is that we are dealing with kids here, not adults, so be patient with them in finding a niche that works.

Tip #3: Ideas to Get Started

Here are a few ideas to get you started looking for that perfect volunteering opportunity. Remember that you don’t have to volunteer at a major facility or organization. There are hundreds of smaller, more focused volunteer opportunities available no matter where you live.

• Community Volunteering – Check out your local museums and libraries for child volunteer programs. You can also search for local food pantries to help stock, prepare, and/or serve the food to the needy. Or, you could seek out local retirement facilities where your child could visit the elderly and help out around the facility. (My kids visit a local nursing home once a week and they love it!) Older people have time on their hands to listen to younger people, while we parents don’t always have that kind of extra time.

• Volunteering to Help Animals – Does your child love animals? If so, there are many opportunities out there. Give a call to your local Humane Society. They are usually excited to bring in volunteers who can help with the animals or simply provide some temporary companionship. You may also think about calling your local Wildlife Foundation for information on their volunteer programs.

• Sponsor Someone Special – There are programs available to let you sponsor a family, a soldier, or another child who is in need of help in some way. This will not take a lot of time, but can bring so much joy and happiness to the lives of everyone involved. Our school has a pen pal program for students to write to soldiers overseas. My brother serves in the U.S. Army overseas, and he often tells me about how much happiness those letters bring to him and his troops.

• Join Child Volunteer Organizations – Organizations such as 4-H, The Boy Scouts of America, and Kiwanis Key Club always encourage their members to volunteer in the community. Many of them will also help foster beneficial, ethical values that can remain with your child for life. For parents who do not have the time available to help their kids to the fullest, these organizations are a blessing.

• Check out for specific opportunities for teenagers in your area.

Tip #4:  Voluntourism

The concept of voluntourism has gotten a lot of traction lately. This idea may seem really out of the box for some, but it has certainly caught on. Basically, the definition of voluntourism is that instead of going the traditional vacation route wherein you and the family enjoy some fun in the sun at some fabulous destination, you spend your vacation time helping others.

Last year, good family friends of ours decided to spend their vacation overseas helping some very deprived villages in Africa. Granted, this is expensive and must be the right fit for a family, but it’s also a tremendous opportunity to expose your children to the bigger world.   is a unique organization that offers families the opportunity to not only experience new places, but to work together in the service of others. This family travel adventure combines exciting activities, from horseback riding to safaris to jungle hikes, with the opportunity to connect with and give back to the very communities visited. Each private journey is expertly designed with children in mind and is fully customizable to meet all of your family’s travel needs and preferences.

Tip #5: Mix it Up

Kids who volunteer, gain valuable life skills including responsibility, punctuality, reliability, and the ability to work in a team. The wonderful thing about teaching your kids the value of volunteering is that you can incorporate it into your own family’s lifestyle in a way that works for you. There are no rules, but there are plenty of opportunities to get your kids excited about the tremendous benefits of giving back rather than just receiving. We have so many advantages in finding ways to volunteer, especially with all the social media avenues available to our kids.   My family has found some wonderful seasonal opportunities that way.

For example, this past holiday season we learned about a program in our community that was looking for students to bake and decorate gingerbread houses for a local shelter.  My 16-year-old son and I arrived at 9am and drove a mother and her son to the grocery store and shopped for all the items we needed to make and decorate a gingerbread house. Six hours later, the gingerbread house was baked and all jazzed up with gumdrops and M & Ms. The smiles on everyone’s faces lasted far longer than the house. It turned out to be one of the best holiday seasons we’ve ever had because my son realized how fortunate he is to have a warm home, food on the table, and the peace of mind that he won’t have to worry about moving from shelter to shelter like some other children. 

These opportunities are all around us, so if we can be creative and get our kids involved in them as a way of life, we can make a positive impact on the larger world.

Do you have any family-friendly volunteer opportunities you are involved with in your community? Please share in the comment section or post your ideas on the page. You can also connect with me on Twitter or e-mail me at

Check back next week for more parenting tips. Don’t forget to check out my family-friendly boards at .