Today is the the start of #DoGoodWeek! How do you teach your children to give back to others and #DoGood in your local community? We’ve teamed up with Do Good. Live Well to share some positive stories about families giving back and doing good. I think the more we “do good” the easier it is for us ALL to live well together. It’s easy to live in a “mini-bubble” of privilege, but by taking a step outside your normal zone, there are so many fun ways to show your children the countless opportunities available to help your neighbors. What are some interesting projects you’ve done with your children or friends to help others?
Finding a local food bank is a great way to volunteer. You can donate perishables, like Milk, which people don’t usually remember to donate and is seriously needed. As a family, you can offer time to serve food too. Last year, we visited our local Milk bank with the kids so they could learn about the crisis facing hungry families who need Milk since most food banks only offer non-perishable pantry items.
Monthly Volunteering for a local Food Bank
We’ve found that doing good together as a family is an easy and amazing way to make “giving back” part of our normal routine and instill that #DoGood mentality.
Over the last few years, once per month, I’ve led a team with my family that packs up donated food from our Chester County Food Bank to go into backpacks for children in Kindergarten and 1st & 2nd grade in our very own local school district who are in need. Did you know that 1 in 5 children in America suffer from hunger???
I love seeing Kenzie and Kyle’s enthusiasm to pack the food into backpacks, plus it’s this provides a special opportunity for us to have that conversation about how important it is to give back. I think by working together as a family is fantastic – we all have fun collaborating together as a team. Even more importantly,this is a DIRECT way to help my own kids realize the harsh stats about child hunger in America as they see it impacts children in their own schools too.
As you can see we’ve been doing this over the years! The kids looking older in this photo! We started doing this project when Kenzie was 6 in Kindergarten and she just turned 11.
Share Positive News & Everything that’s Good #DoGoodWeek
Join Do Good. Live Well. starting this Sunday, Nov. 13 and pledge to use your social media channels to celebrate everything that’s good in the world for ONE WEEK using the hashtag #DoGoodWeek!
Donate Donate Donate
And if you don’t have extra time to arrange a special volunteer moment with your kiddos, setting up a donation bin in your house is a great way to make giving back part of the daily routine — and it prevents items from ending up in a dumpster! As they say, “your trash is someone else’s treasure!”
We truly try to make donating extra products, food, and anything we aren’t using a weekly activity in our house. We keep a spare box always available to collect our gently used and no longer needed items. The kids know they can put extra toys or clothes that no longer fit in the box too! I can either drop items off at our local goodwill or I can easily schedule an online pick up at our own front door by the Red Cross or Purple Heart to collect our items. I do this 2x per month and it’s now a habit for all of us!
Do you have any other special projects you do as a family to give back? Giving back makes us always feel GOOD as we know that we’re helping others less fortunate. In a crazy world, just the little moments of time or items we can donate, really do make a difference.
Be sure to visit DoGoodWeek.org to check out all kinds of positive and inspiraitonal stories being shared from 11/13-11/19 in support of #DoGoodWeek
Note: This post is sponsored by United Healthcare. All opinions expressed are my own
