Families Giving Back

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Caring for Animals

• Adopt a homeless pet from the humane society.
• Call an animal shelter and find out what donations they need. Collect treats, food, first aid supplies, toys, cat litter, towels, and soft blankets for the homeless animals.
• Make a birdbath from a plastic dish and put it in your yard or on the windowsill. Keep it filled with water.
• Maintain water bowls during cold months for both migrating and local birds. Make birdseed available as well.
• Notify authorities immediately about pets left in hot cars. You may save a life.
• Talk to younger children about why catching wild creatures like frogs and turtles is not a good idea. Remind them that wild animals need to stay wild and free.
• Offer to wash your dog or a neighbor.s dog.
• Make nutritional treats for dogs and cats, and give them to neighbors for their pets. Make extra for animal shelters.
• Hold a fundraiser and donate the proceeds to an animal shelter or wildlife fund
• Adopt. a lion, tiger, whale, or other animal. Many zoos, aquariums, and animal sea habitats have adoption programs. In exchange for financial support, you get a photo and biography of your new adoptee.

Child Abuse Prevention Center

Dressers, Diapers sizes N, 4, 5, & 6, Sheet Sets, Couches, Playpens, Strollers, Washers, Dryers, High Chairs, Room Dividers, Dining Sets, Pillows, Canned & Dry Food.

• Phone: (714)373-1600 • Address: 7221 Garden Grove Blvd., Unit K, Garden Grove, CA 92841 • email • website •

Daycare/Preschool Wish List

Many preschools have a wish list of things they need. Contact one to find out what items you may be able to donate. Ideas include: toys, books, dress-up clothes, furniture, outdoor equipment, etc.

Donating Stuffed Animals and Books

There is a group of young girls in New York that started a project that they have been doing for 8 years. It is a great thing to start locally because it is a hands on way for kids to give back. Below is how you can do this by having your kids and some of their friends get together once or twice a year to get the animals and books ready to donate.

Raise money among friends and in your community to pay for shipping if you want to send overseas and to pay for supplies to restore the stuffed animals. You may be able to get craft stores to donate some items.

Kids can help by donating their animals and books or by contributing some of their allowance to help raise money. They can also assist with restoring the animals.

Give them a lift by washing them and putting fresh buttons or ribbons on them. You can wrap the books in tissue paper and a ribbon to make it more fun.

Donate to other countries, give to a local hospital or organization that helps underprivileged kids, Research organizations that could benefit from this and then commit to doing it each year at the same time. I would encourage you to do this after the holidays when people tend to forget about giving. Another thought is to put together a package with a book and stuffed animal for Easter.

F.A.C.E.S. Inc Family Assessment Counseling & Education Services Inc

F.A.C.E.S. needs volunteers to help at the front desk to answer phones, add data into our database and outreach to other agencies. This administrative asst position is volunteer and we need help m-f from 9 to 4 pm

• Phone: 714.879.9616 • Address: 505 E. Commonwealth Ave Ste 200 Fullerton CA 92832 • email • website •

Giving Back in Our Neighborhoods

by Help Others.org: Acts of Kindness

Kindness in Communities/Neighborhoods

• Deliver fresh-baked cookies to city workers.
• Collect goods for a food bank.
• Offer a couple of hours of baby-sitting to parents.
• Volunteer at an agency that needs help.
• Donate time at a senior center.
• Give blood.
• Stop by a nursing home, and visit a resident with no family nearby.
• Leave a treat or handmade note of thanks for a delivery person or mail carrier.
• Clean graffiti from neighborhood walls and buildings.
• Have a clean-up party in the park.
• Give toys to the children at the shelter or safe house.
• Write something nice about your waitperson on the back of the bill.
• Send a gift anonymously to a friend.
• Organize a clothing drive for a shelter.
• Buy books for a day care or school.
• Slip a $20 bill to a person who you know is having financial difficulty.
• Collaborate with friends to bake cakes and pies, and arrange with a soup kitchen to deliver the desserts for Thanksgiving dinner.
• Roll an elderly neighbor.s garbage cans back up the driveway at the end of trash pick-up day.
• Purchase a copy of a book about kindness, put a smile card in the middle, and pass it on.
• Pay the toll for the person behind you.
• Shovel your neighbor.s driveway or mow their lawn.
• Stop to help someone on the side of the road with car trouble.
• If a friend or a neighbor is moving, offer to bring food.
• After loading your groceries into the car, return your shopping cart.
• Donate blood.
• Collect personal care items, new underwear, and socks for homeless shelters and safe houses.

 

Giving Back to Our Environment

• Practice kindness towards the environment. Participate in beach or park cleanups. Reduce air pollution by carpooling, taking public transportation, biking, or walking. Recycle all aluminum, plastic, and paper materials. Cut down on the energy you use by lowering the heat and turning off lights and unused appliances. Learn more about solar energy. As gifts, give houseplants to teachers, friends, or coworkers. Plant a tree in your neighborhood.

• Beautify public places in your community. Clean graffiti on public walls. Have a clean-up party at a park. Volunteer with your local environmental group to plant a tree. Adopt a beach. Decorate your front porch with art.

Healing Kindness

• Take your children and deliver balloons/stuffed animals, etc. for the sick children. A great way for a mother to teach her children compassion and how important it is to care about others.

• Express kindness to those who are healing. Leave a stuffed animal for a child in a hospital. Plant a tree to commemorate someone coming out of a long illness. Run a race to help fund research for a fatal disease. Tag a cancer patient with a book about a heroic recovery. Volunteer at a hospice for the terminally ill. Listen to a friend who is going through a tough time.

Help the Homeless

• Donate your professional clothes to an organization that helps people get back into the workforce. Give gently worn home furnishings or household appliances to a person or family who might need them or donate them to an organization. Take warm clothes, blankets or food to a homeless person that you often cross paths with. Donate toys and books to a homeless organization. Toys and books are just as important to kids as food and shelter. When shopping, buy a couple extra non-perishable food items and take them to a food drive or pantry. Make an extra serving of dinner and bring it to a homeless person in your neighborhood.

Helping in School/Youth Organizations

by Help Others.org: Acts of Kindness

Kindness in Schools/Youth Organizations

• Ask students to perform a Random Act of Kindness for a stranger and then write an essay describing the experience . how it made them feel and the reaction of the person who received their kindness. (Submit the stories at helpothers.org to be published on the web).
• Send home a note telling parents something their child did well.
• Create a special publication of RAK featuring local kindness stories. These can be broadcast over the school intercom.
• Help serve dinner at local soup kitchen.
• Have your class make and distribute kindness bookmarks.
• Ask student to pick someone who has done something nice for them and write a thank you note.
• Have a food or clothing drive for a shelter.
• Hold a teddy bear drive and donate the bears to police or fire departments for traumatized children or a shelter.
• Make and decorate Halloween/Christmas cookies and deliver them to a children.s home or family shelter.
• With your class, organize an ice cream social, a tea, or a bingo event for residents at an assisted living center. Bake sweets or assemble root beer floats for the residents, and stay and visit.
• Have each student write a positive comment about every student in their class on 3x5 cards or paper. Make a collage with the cards or let them keep it as a reminder.
• Provide time for students to start a kindness journal in which they can keep their own kindness stories, pictures, ideas or feelings about Random Acts of Kindness.
• Ask the students to pick two people who have done something nice for them. Have them write letters of appreciation, explaining how those people have made a difference in their life.
• Meet with senior citizens and record their memories of the community when they were growing up. Compare their likes and dislikes with those of young people today. Compare prices from then to now. This is a good excuse to learn from the elders and also spend time with them.
• Study kind people in history. Then have kids illustrate their kind works and discuss how their chosen path affected the world.
• Adopt another student who needs a friend, checking in periodically to see how things are going.
• Write notes of appreciation and take flowers or goodies for you teacher, custodian, principal, or secretary.)
• Write a note to your mother/father and tell them why they are special.
• Send a letter to some former teachers, letting them know the difference they made in your life.
• Send a gift anonymously to a friend.
• Surprise someone in your house with breakfast in bed.
• Make a birdbath from a plastic dish and put it in your yard or on the windowsill. Keep it filled with water.
• Talk to younger children about why catching wild creatures like frogs and turtles is not a good idea. Remind them that wild animals need to stay wild and free.
• Place a flower in your neighbors. newspaper without them seeing it.

 

Hospital Placemats

Kids can decorate placemats and send them to hospitals to brighten up the meal tray for kids and seniors in the hospital.

 

 

 

Ideas for Kids to Give Back

Shared ideas from parents...

• Visit retirement homes and interact with the elderly residents. Deliver meals to those homebound by illness or injury. Spend time with those that have disabilities. Serve dinner at a homeless shelter. Clean up litter at local parks and beaches. Provide transportation for elderly people to do their errands or drive those with illnesses to doctor's appointments. Read stories to kids in hospitals or orphanages. Older kids can help with tutoring young kids.

• Make an appointment with the hospital wing of nursing home in our neighborhood. Bring over brownies or cookies for the residents.We walked around and smiled and offered them to everyone. They were so happy! We were both amazed what joy a little effort like that can bring. The residents' twinkling eyes and gentle pats and kind words made us feel so great.

• We are part of the organization called Community of Friends. Volunteers meet every Saturday at the Farmers Market. The volunteers make bouquets and then deliver them accompanied with greeting cards handmade by local school children.

• Holidays: Every year our school decorates a huge box and places it in our center check in area. We encourage all of our parents to donate gently used and new clothing and toys. Then we set up a "store" for our parents in need to shop at a specific private time. There is no limit on what they can shop for. Once our parents have shopped, then we send the remaining items to the shelter for abused women and their families.

• My 15 year old daughter and I volunteered to help 28 families have a happy holiday. My daughter did most of the computer work and I made the calls to talk to the parents and find out what the kids wanted. These are families that don't qualify for Unity but need help. Each family got a food basket, presents for the kids, and a pointsetta plant. Most families were very touched when they came to pick up the presents.

• On Christmas morning, our family and friends, made breakfasts, packed them in bags, and went downtown to pass them out. The first year we made 15 breakfasts, this year we made 40. There are many people without anywhere to go on Christmas. It feels good to share some of the true spirit of Christmas with others. I want our kids to grow up knowing that Christmas is about giving to others and the gift God gave to us. We plan to make this an annual tradition!

• Get children excited about kindness. Have a child deliver a hand-made card to your neighbor. Gather up kids in your neighborhood and take 'em to a local orphanage or shelter to deliver some balloons and cookies. Ask a child to share or give one of his/her toys. Bake brownies with a youngster and have them pass it on to the mail-man or janitor, with a thank-you note. Suggest some kindness ideas to a school teacher. Spread the word!

 

Lend a Hand to Other Parents

Baby sit. Deliver a cooked meal for the entire family. Let their children spend the day with you or have an "overnight" with your children. Run an errand for them. Give them a night out on the town (meal, movie, etc.). Volunteer to pick the children up from school. Offer help with homework or tutor a child that is having trouble at school. Take a parent out to dinner at their favorite place.

Locks of Love

Locks of Love is a non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children suffering from long-term medical hair loss. Donations of locks at least 10 inches long are accepted on an ongoing basis.

• Phone: 888-896-1588 • website •

Music Concerts

Kids can go individually or with a few members of their school band or choir to senior centers, children's or elderly units of a hospital, or even to group homes for kids and put on a "mini-concert". Music has the ability to bring such joy to those listening to it, especially in a live performance. Children get a sense of pride being able to perform, and residents have such an appreciation for the show.

Pajama Program

The Pajama Program, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, provides new, warm pajamas and books to needy children in the United States and around the world, many who are waiting and hoping to be adopted. These are youngsters who may not know the comforts of a mother or father to tuck them into a cozy bed and read them a bedtime story. It is based in New York with chapters throughout the USA.

• Phone: (212) 716-9757 • email • website •

Random Acts of Kindness

The foundation inspires people to practice kindness and to "pass it on" to others. They provide free education and community ideas, guidance and other resources to kindness participants on the site.

• website •

Reach Out to the Homebound

• Reach out to the homebound -- seniors, ill or incapacitate children or caregivers committed to caring for their family members at home. Connect them to communication resources like radio, TV or Internet so they can stay connected to the world at large. Find a good-news story in the media and email them regularly. Tag them with an inspiring book. Offer to bring them books from the library. Share 'smile stories'. Help them take care of their pets. Convince a beautician or barber to make a house-call. Buy them nice stationary so they write appreciative notes to those they are grateful for.

STANDUP FOR KIDS

We are in need of monetary donations that will be used to keep our programs operating throughout the year. We are in need of gift cards for food stores, clothing stores and fast food restaurants.

We have a need for volunteer leaders to work in Fundraising, Marketing and Program Support areas

• Phone: 9493574298 • Address: PO Box 14398 • email • website •

Suitcases for Kids

Most foster care children carry their belongings in a black garbage bag as they move from home to home. Each child averages 7 moves while in foster care. Can you help? Large backpacks are acceptable if you do not have any suitcases to donate. Ask your neighbors, your grannies and your friends. Please help a child who is less fortunate than you. Visit website to find out how to get involved.

• website •

The Gift of Learning

• Contact the Orange County Public Library to find out how you can help by assisting with activities, organizing materials, and raising money for different programs. Some branches can also use volunteers for storytimes, etc. The Yorba Linda Public Library has Children's Services Volunteer Opportunities for kids in grades 6-12th. Click here for information and application.

 

• The Gift of Books - Never underestimate the power of books to expand minds. Give an inspiring book to a friend in need. Encourage children to do a reading drive for a charity of their choice -- people donate money for every book they read this summer. Subscribe an officemate to your favorite magazine. Leave a good book in a public place with a smile card. Forward an inspiring article to your email addressbook. Instead of going out to a movie, go to a coffee shop with your favorite book. Donate your unused books to your local library.

The Heritage Museum of Orange County

All are welcome to participate; we encourage corporate groups, youth groups, families, and individuals seeking service hours to enjoy the benefits of improving the quality of the Heritage Museum. Volunteer efforts are needed in the following areas:
*Annual Gala and Fundraiser Facilitators
*Program Contributors - Docent Positions for guided school aged tours of the Kellogg house & grounds
*General Office Assistance
*Grounds Work - planters/beds, rose garden, citrus grove, nature center preserve, children's garden
* Internships in Hospitality, and Community Practice available
*Donations of materials and funds go directly to the property

• Phone: 714-540-0404 • Address: 3101 West Harvard Street • email • website •

Tips for Successful Volunteering

Family volunteering is a great way to spend real quality time together, developing strong family bonds, opening channels of communication and sharing experiences that create proud family memories for years to come. Debbie Spaide, founder of FamilyCares,offers the following tips to help you get started and maximize your family's success.

Choose hands-on projects that offer children an opportunity to feel ownership in the giving process.
If Mom buys a toy and Joey drops it in the box at school, the giving ownership is mostly Mom's. But if Joey chooses the gift, wraps it and perhaps even makes a card to go with it, the giving ownership is mostly Joey's.

Ensure success by using projects that are simple and short-term.
Complicated projects that require long-term commitment often run short on enthusiasm with children. Choose projects that require skills your child is capable of managing and that can be accomplished in a short period of time.

Maximize teachable moments by following your child's charitable interests.
The most successful family projects respond to an interest on the part of the child. Listen for clues about issues that concern your child. Watch the news together and ask for his/her opinion on current events. Find easy-to-read stories on social issues such as homelessness, hunger, and aging to share during family meals.

Build self-esteem by creating caring memories to last a lifetime.
Use a scrapbook to keep photos of your caring projects, thank you notes, cute quotes from your children, and your own responses to each project. This memory book will become a wonderful source of esteem development as your child grows older.

Keep the tone fun and rewarding.

Doing charity projects should be an experience your child remembers as uplifting and fun. Tell jokes, give compliments, and laugh often as you work together to help others. Children will remember the "mood" more than the labor.

Join forces with other families who want to volunteer together.
The more the merrier! Charity projects are even more fulfilling when you work on them with your family friends. You can host a "My Family Cares" party with multiple projects for families to work on, or have a "Family Care Day: in your community.

Be a good example of caring behaviors.
Let your children see you volunteering. Talk about ways to help others with adults and in your children's presence. Avoid complaining about your volunteer work. Tell your kids how good it feels to care.

Remember caring is a process, not a product.
It is the thought that counts. Highlight your child's intentions and efforts in charity activities. Try to ignore those times when the final product is less than perfect. If necessary, you can repair the product secretly before delivering it.

Reinforce your child's compassion after each project.
Have an informal family meeting, perhaps over ice cream, to discuss the project, what you learned, what you felt, and what you will do next. Talking about the project will put words to the feelings and give the experience more power.

Volunteer Center Orange County

Volunteer Center Orange County offers a variety of ways to get involved in volunteering. Simply navigate our project database by browsing projects, searching specific details or looking at the project calendar for date specific events.

 

 

 

• Phone: (714) 953-5757 • Address: 1901 E. 4th Street, Suite 100 Santa Ana, CA 92705 • email • website •

Winter Warmth

• As Fall and Winter approaches, the heaters turn on and jackets are zipped up, be mindful of the less fortunate ones. Donate your unused winter-wear to those who might not have a home. Arrange a clothing drive in your neighborhood. Become a 'secret santa' for a family in need. Next time you're on the streets, take some soup or hot chocolate for a homeless person. Clip all the positive news stories you read this season, make a nice album and leave it at your dentist's office. Teach a child about generosity by asking them to donate one of their toys this Christmas.