Family Volunteer Day is a great way to move the focus from getting to giving during the holiday season. I love these simple ways to volunteer as a family. Sponsored post.
Every year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Disney and generationOn sponsor a Family Volunteer Day. This year they’re sponsoring this post to raise awareness about the event and to help families see just how easy it is to get involved!
About Family Volunteer Day
What You'll Find on This Page
Family Volunteer Day is a global event created to encourage families to volunteer together – not only during the holiday season, but also all year round. The official event always takes place the Saturday before Thanksgiving. You can search for local service projects on the Family Volunteer Day page, which also features DIY service projects.
Why Volunteer as a Family?
Volunteering is one of my favorite activities for putting everyone in a family on an even playing field. Walk into a nursing home, and the children are at least as effective as adults at spreading good cheer – mostly likely more so! The same is true when you pick up trash in a park, or plan a menu to take to a family for dinner. Volunteering provides powerful family bonding experiences. It helps us be grateful for what we have. Volunteering connects us to our communities, and makes us feel useful and needed.
Simple Ways to Volunteer as a Family
There are so many fun ways to volunteer as a family! Here are a few we’ve tried and recommend:
- Donating food to homeless shelters.
- Cleaning up parks and neighborhoods.
- Collecting toys and creating crafts for children’s hospitals.
- Making cards for the elderly and service members.
- Bringing dinner to someone.
Here are some super simple ways we give back all year round:
- Donate books to local book drives and little free libraries.
- Go through belongings and donate back things we don’t need.
- Buy something extra when we go to the grocery store to add to the local food pantry.
We will have more opportunities as our children age into teenagerhood, but all of the choices I featured above are accessible even to very young children. You can find more family volunteer opportunities here.
See also:
Volunteering as a Family by Making Cards
Our family is in the middle of packing up for a move, so for this year’s family volunteer activity I decided to keep it simple and make cards. My kids have a lot of experience making cards, because we mail them to their many aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents for birthdays. They enjoy making them, and they get pretty creative with a simple pencil and a sheet of paper.
Many elderly people end up in care centers where they are isolated from family and friends. This can feel especially lonely during the holiday season.
I sat the kids down around the table, and we talked about ideas for cards to send to an extended care center. They wound up drawing photos of some fun scenarios, and signing their names. My kids love to draw; this activity added some purpose to a beloved hobby.
What are your favorite ways to volunteer as a family? Comment below, or on my Facebook page. You can also tag me on Instagram.Â
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
This past Veteran’s Day, my daughter and I went to a nursing home and volunteered there and ate lunch with the patients. It was an interesting experience
I love this idea and it’s great that you give examples since it can be hard to find opportunities. We deliver a Thanksgiving meal to the elderly.
It can be especially hard to find opportunities that work well with really young kids. That’s what I love about the card making activity.
My husband and I used to do a lot of volunteering before we moved here. We really need to get our kids involved. My kids love making cards for people. This is a great idea!
Thanks for bringing awareness to this initiative! We also do many of the same things that you do as a family, but I always feel like we should be doing more… I will certainly check out local volunteer opportunities.
Every year we take the kids shopping for Toys for Tots. It’s always so rewarding. I’d love to do more volunteer projects as a family now that my girls are getting older!
That’s a great family tradition!
This is such a lovely idea, I’d love to do it with my children
I’m in charge of J’s Cub Scout’s volunteering activity. I asked around, and the one thing that is standing out in my mind is making cards for the veterans. I’m quite excited about this possibility!
That’s a great activity! I think I’ll add that to our list for later this month or early December.