The Family Quilt

When your kids start saying, “Mom, I’m bored!” this summer, talk about how you can serve your community as a family. What are their hobbies, and how could they use them to serve others? Here are a few ideas to consider.

• Visit a retirement home. Help the residents make a craft, read to them, sing for them, play an instrument, play a game, or just sit and chat with them. Contact the nursing home’s activity director or another staff member to ask what other activities you could help with and whether it’s OK to bring craft items or baked goods with you.

• Make cookies or a care package for an elderly neighbor who lives alone, or invite him or her over for dinner.

• Grab some trash bags and gloves and clean up a park, vacant lot, or nature area.

• Contact your local food bank and find out if they need help sorting food, packing boxes, or distributing food.

• Sign up with Meals on Wheels.

• Make simple care packages containing soap, a toothbrush, and other items and hand them out to homeless people.

• Volunteer at a soup kitchen. If there are age restrictions for working in the kitchen, see if the kids can help in the dining area by serving drinks or helping clear tables.

What projects do you like to do as a family? Please share your other ideas in the comments!

Chemo Angels is a program that matches up volunteer “angels” with people who have cancer and are undergoing chemotherapy. Angels provide support and encouragement to their assigned patients by sending regular notes, cards, and small gifts.

Angel volunteers must be 25 or older, but this project could work for a family by having children help write letters, choose gifts, and make drawings and crafts to send. An alternative is to be a Card Angel and send additional cards of encouragement to someone who already has a Chemo Angel. It’s an event worth celebrating when patients finish their treatment and graduate from the Chemo Angels program. However, something to keep in mind if you make this a family project is that not all patients will win their battle with cancer.

A sister program run by the same organization is Senior Angels, which works the same way but matches up angels with lonely senior citizens who are homebound or in a nursing home or convalescent hospital. It is a long-term commitment but could be a great way to develop a long-distance relationship with an elderly person who could use some encouragement and support.

If you already know a friend or relative who is facing health problems or is lonely and hurting, sending notes, cards, and small gifts might be a good way to provide support and encouragement even if you do not live nearby or in addition to in-person visits from your family.