Any Volunteers?

I really want to teach my boys the importance of volunteering and to giving back to the community we live in. We may not be currently able to financial help other, but we can always give our time and of ourselves to others.

Before school even let out Jordan has inquired about working at a nature center we frequent. This was a choice he made totally on his own. After learning that he was much to young to get paid, but was more than welcome to apply for a volunteer position. Jordan has spent every other Sunday throughout his summer vacation volunteering at one of our metro parks nature centers. He loves it and doesn't realize that he being a huge help to the center. He does it because he loves the animals and sharing his knowledge about the animals there. He has learn a lot of cool facts about both animals within the center and in near by areas.

Both of the younger boys still have a few more years until the will be able to volunteer at the nature center. In order to show them that they are able to help out regardless of what their age we started looking for opportunity near our home. We had talked about going to a senior living center and spending time there. They really like the idea of using those really cool sticks and picking up garbage off the side of road. We checked into helping distribute food at our local pantry, unfortunately we were turned away due to the being too young to uphold the privacy policy. The pantry had suggested we call the fire department and maybe they could lead us in a direction of something we could do as a family. We were connected to a guy from the DPW, whom we met up with Monday morning. The boys got excited thinking "Yes! we're picking up garbage with those garbage stabbing thingies!"; they were close, we were handed garbage bags but also 3 pairs of gardening gloves. We were set up with pulling weeds from the flowerbeds in front of our village offices. Although it was not their first choice as to what they would have liked to do, it was a job that needed done. The 3 of us (Jordan was camping, therefore missing out on our fun) got right to work. It took us just over an hour to fill up two garbage bags with weeds. I was proud of my boys for following through and helping with the weeding, and the teamwork they used to accomplish it. They were also proud of themselves for making the plants look so much better.