Teaching kids charity? Skip the soup kitchen trip!
Some seemingly obvious moves to create charitable children have surprisingly little effect. And some can actually backfire, according to Joel Berg, executive director of New York City Coalition Against Hunger.
(Read more: How to give without giving headaches)
Take soup kitchens. A family outing to serve meals to your needy neighbors, especially around a holiday like Thanksgiving when many people are planning elaborate meals, seems like it ought to go a long way toward teaching charity.
Guess again, Berg says.
"The 7-year-old is making more work for the agencies," he said. "They're too young to move stuff around, and they can't really be around anything hot, or knives. The time it would take to instruct them is more than it would take for an adult."
That's not the only problem.
This is a small part of an article found at http://www.cnbc.com/id/101113066
What does this mean to US in Ionia County?
I hope you take a minute to follow that link because it is filled with some great information about teaching kids to care and impact their community. As a mother of 5 (3 of which are now adults) teaching my kids to get involved and give back was important to me. That's why I agreed to help WION Radio start the County-wide Food Drive 5 years ago and part of the reason we made the move 2 years ago to push back this annual event to the weekend before Thanksgiving instead of Thanksgiving Weekend.
- Thanksgiving Weekend is a time when many who do not regularly volunteer decide to give back. If you do so great! But we wanted to give people the opportunity to volunteer a different weekend in the year.
- National Family Volunteer has quickly grown to one the largest National Days of Service in the US partly due to the desire of adult volunteers to engage their children in giving back to their community.
- The County-wide Food Drive has relied on volunteers of all ages including local Boy Scouts, Ionia Kids Club, Ionia County CERT, and many other volunteer groups to sort and handle the donations received.
Put this all together and you have the reason we moved from Thanksgiving Weekend to National Family Volunteer Day!
The County-wide Food Drive wraps on November 23rd in honor of National Family Volunteer Day! Like with any good service project, the work starts long before that!
Beginning on October 26th for "Make a
Difference Day" families, groups, and businesses will begin to hold
Mini-Drives throughout Ionia County. Several schools usually get involved
with this event often offering prizes to the classroom or grade that collects
the most donations. Youth can get involved by holding a
"Mini-Bag" drive among their friends and family with a simple
template that can be download from our Food Drive website. Donations are
collected through November 22nd. You can learn more about conducting a
mini-drive by attending the Mini-Drive Workshop on October 21st at the Ionia
ISD from 4-7pm or visiting our Food Drive Website
That is when the real work begins!
Volunteers (yes it could be YOU!) gather to count, sort, and organize all
the donations as they come in to the Ionia ISD from 9am to 6pm on Nov. 22nd.
More volunteers will take donated funds to go shopping for the most
needed items. Volunteers will work till 8pm making final arrangements for
the big distribution day on National Family Volunteer day!
For the final event...volunteers of all ages
will staff the Distribution Day Site to help up to 10 local food pantries
collect and box up their share of the donations. Volunteers will arrive
at 8am where they will be treated to
breakfast goodies, given instructions, and assigned a job. Food Pantries
will arrive at 9am to get registered and begin the distribution process!
If all goes well, Volunteers will be finished and cleaned up by noon
leaving you the rest of the day to spend with your FAMILY!
Or contact the Community Food Network to learn how YOU CAN Make a Difference in YOUR Community!
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