- Donate to Holiday Food Drives During the holiday season, many businesses, grocery stores, schools, and community centers organize food drives to collect unopened, non-perishable canned and boxed foods for local food banks. Even buying a few extra items during your next shopping trip can make a difference in someone else's life.
- Serving by Feeding. Volunteer work is a wonderful vehicle by which members of a community can lend a helping hand to individuals in need. Having an opportunity to give back and make a difference in someone's life is a deed with immeasurable benefits to all parties involved.
Educational and Community-Based Programs
Create Community by Doing Good. Nothing changes a community for the better like volunteering. Whether you're organizing a food or clothing drive, securing the safety of your neighbors or cleaning up your streets, doing good connects you with others in meaningful ways. And it creates and cultivates a community that cares.
Goal
Increase the quality, availability, and effectiveness of educational and community-based programs designed to prevent disease and injury, improve health, and enhance quality of life.
Overview
Educational and community-based programs play a key role in:
- Preventing disease and injury
- Improving health
- Enhancing quality of life
Health status and related health behaviors are determined by influences at multiple levels: personal, organizational/institutional, environmental, and policy. Because significant and dynamic interrelationships exist among these different levels of health determinants, educational and community-based programs are most likely to succeed in improving health and wellness when they address influences at all levels and in a variety of environments/settings.
Why Are Educational and Community-Based Programs Important?
Educational and community-based programs and strategies played an important role in reaching Healthy People 2010 objectives. Over the next several years, they will continue to contribute to the improvement of health outcomes in the United States.
Educational and community-based programs and strategies are designed to reach people outside of traditional health care settings. These settings may include:
- Schools
- Worksites
- Health care facilities
- Communities
Each setting provides opportunities to reach people using existing social structures. This maximizes impact and reduces the time and resources necessary for program development. People often have high levels of contact with these settings, both directly and indirectly. Programs that combine multiple—if not all 4—settings can have a greater impact than programs using only 1 setting. While populations reached will sometimes overlap, people who are not accessible in 1 setting may be in another.1
Using nontraditional settings can help encourage informal information sharing within communities through peer social interaction. Reaching out to people in different settings also allows for greater tailoring of health information and education.
Educational and community-based programs encourage and enhance health and wellness by educating communities on topics such as:
- Injury and violence prevention
- Unintended pregnancy
- Tobacco use
- Nutrition
- Obesity prevention
Understanding Educational and Community-Based Programs
Health and quality of life rely on many community systems and factors, not simply on a well-functioning health and medical care system. Making changes within existing systems, such as improving school health programs and policies, can effectively improve the health of many in the community.
For a community to improve its health, its members must often change aspects of the physical, social, organizational, and even political environments in order to eliminate or reduce factors that contribute to health problems or to introduce new elements that promote better health. Changes might include:
- Instituting new programs, policies, and practices
- Changing aspects of the physical or organizational infrastructure
- Changing community attitudes, beliefs, or social norms2
In cases where community health promotion activities are initiated by a health department or organization, organizers have a responsibility to engage the community. Realizing the vision of healthy people in healthy communities is possible only if the community, in its full cultural, social, and economic diversity, is an authentic partner in changing the conditions for health.2
Emerging Issues in Educational and Community-Based Programs
Three emerging public health issues in the area of educational and community-based programs have been identified.
Adopting a Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child approach to reduce dropout rates.
The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model expands on the 8 elements of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Coordinated School Health (CSH) approach and is combined with the whole child framework. CDC and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) developed this expanded model—in collaboration with key leaders from the fields of health, public health, education, and school health—to strengthen a unified and collaborative approach designed to improve learning and health in our Nation's schools.
Establishing an evidence base for community health and education policy interventions to determine their impact and effectiveness.
3 reasons you should advertise on facebook. Increasing the number and skill level of community health and other auxiliary public health workers to support the achievement of healthier communities.
These issues are important to the field of public health and warrant further research, analysis, and monitoring to fully understand their effects on educational and community-based programs.
References
1Gamm L, Castillo G, Williams L. Education and community-based programs in rural areas: A literature review. In: Rural Healthy People 2010: A companion document to Healthy People 2010, Volume 3. Gamm L, Hutchison L, editors. College Station, TX: The Texas A&M University System Health Science Center, School of Rural Public Health, Southwest Rural Health Research Center; 2004. p.167-86. Available from: http://www.srph.tamhsc.edu/centers/rhp2010/Volume_3/Vol3Ch4LR.pdf [PDF - 81 KB]
Idea To Life: Community Through Food Stamps
2Institute of Medicine. The future of the public's health in the 21st century. Washington: National Academies Press; 2003.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to purchase through my links, at no cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Read the full disclosure here.Feeding the hungry, donating presents to the poor, and performing errands for the elderly are all examples of community service projects for kids.
Kids working together, learn to solve problems and make decisions and successfully contribute to their community. They connect local concerns with global issues and gain an awareness of others. All this will serve them now and years later as they transition out of school and into the adult world!
Install dmg file. Let's discuss how a child can volunteer.
What are service project examples?
- Plant trees or wildflowers.
- Plant produce and donate the harvest to a local food bank.
- Plant seeds. Sell the flowers or plants and donate the proceeds to a local organization in need.
- Pick up litter at a park.
- Put on a play at your school, a fair or festival about local environmental or human needs issues.
- Collect items for a time capsule.
- Make treats for a local senior home.
- Improve school grounds.
- Develop and maintain a recycling program at school.
- Collect food, warm clothing, toys, or personal care items for the needy. Deliver to shelters. Remember shelters are in need of supplies all year long!
- Hold a Teddy Bear and Friends (Stuffed Animals) Drive.
- Donate the collected animals to a Homeless Shelter for new arrivals. Also…check with your local police station or fire station. Many are happy to take Teddy and Friends; a teddy bear can be a comfort to children in times of distress.
- Collect unused make-up, perfume and other cosmetics for a center for abused women.
- Make centerpieces, holiday cards, birthday cards, and notes for assisted living facilities, children's hospital wards, or meals on wheels.
- Donate old eyeglasses to an organization or place that recycles them for the needy.
- Collect old stuffed animals and dolls, clean them up, repair and then donate them.
- Collect old clothes and donate them for a dress-up area at a daycare or family shelter.
- Make a holiday basket for someone in need or crisis.
- Write letters to servicemen/women.
- Put together a care package for servicemen/women.
- Form a litter patrol on school or park ground.
- In December contact a tree farm or nursery about donating a Christmas tree to a needy family, shelter or nursing home.
- Make bookmarks and leave them in a basket on the library counter for other students to take one when they check out books.
- Establish a pen pal project with senior citizens in a nursing home; children in a local hospital, or children in another country.
- Hold a used book sale after school, or on an evening or Saturday at the school or the local library. Publicize the event to the school and the local community. Donate collected funds to a worthy cause.
- Have a book drive to collect new and excellent condition used books for children who do not have access to many books (poverty or disaster areas in the U.S., other countries, a local Head Start or homeless shelter).
You can also visit the 'First Book' websitefor ideas for book-related community service activities such as 'Speed Read'…
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Put Together Care Packages for the Children's Hospital
Suggested items to include:
- Board books
- Pop-up books
- I Spy/Look-A-Likes
- Wheres Waldo books
- Talking books
- Spanish books
- Vinyl books (new or gently used only)
- Small Plush animals (brand new only)
- Chapstick (variety of flavors)
- Clear plastic shoebox-size containers for craft storage and organization
- Decks of playing cards – regular
- Gift cards for special event planning (Michael's, Target, Toys R Us, Blockbuster, and grocery stores for food activities)
- Haircare items (brushes, big tooth combs, No More Tangles, ponytail holders, hair clips)
- Nail polish (individually wrapped & new)
- Nail stickers
- Rattles (plastic only)
27. Alex's Lemonade Stand: Fighting Childhood Cancer One Cup at a Time
This is something to share with parents, childcare providers, and educators!
Alex passed away from cancer at the age of eight–however, share her vision and give children the opportunity to engage in hosting an Alex's Lemonade Stand event.
This is a project that kids, parents, and educators can register on their own and receive resources and materials for the event. The Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation has raised over $50 million dollars since Alex's initial stand– much of this money comes from kids who hold stands in her honor.
Community Service Ideas for Animals and Animal Shelters
28. Donate Needed Items to Animal Shelters and Organizations
Collect and donate items on animal organizations' wish lists: Example: Paper towels, dried dog food, milk substitute, portable cages, blankets and towels, cleansers, and food bowls.
29. Raise Money for Animal Organizations
Raise money for homeless pets or sick, injured, and orphaned wildlife– by collecting coins. Sponsor a walkathon, bowl-athon, read-athon, etc. backed by pledges. Donate to local shelters or animal organizations.
30. Make Nutritional Treats for Pets
Make nutritional treats for dogs and cats, and give them to neighbors for their pets. Make extra for animal shelters.
31. Adopt a Zoo Animal
Adopt an animal like bear, lion, tiger, whale, or another animal. Many zoos, aquariums, and animal sea habitats have adoption programs. In exchange for financial support, you often get a photo and biography of your new adoptee.
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32. Birthday Donations Instead of Presents
Instead of bringing a present to your birthday party, ask your guests to bring a bag of dog food, cat food, treats or pet toys. Bring the supplies to your local animal shelter (make sure to call ahead first and set up a good time!). Some shelters will let older kids walk and feed the dogs/cats, clean out cages and bathe the animals.
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Senior Citizen Service Projects for Kids
This might be what comes to mind when you think of community service ideas for kids. Children can bring so much joy to people at this stage of their life.
33. Pet Therapy
Pet Therapy is a great project for brightening the day of nursing home residents who may not get much company. Set up a visit with your local nursing home and simply take your pets along for the residents to enjoy. It offers them some great company and a cuddly, affectionate cat, dog or another friendly animal to pet.
34. Play Card Games
Idea To Life: Community Through Food Bank
This is a great intergenerational idea. Visit a retirement /assisted living home and have senior citizens teach the kid's card games! Maybe the children can also teach them a game or two!
Ideas: Hearts, Double Solitaire, etc. There is a difference in the games that our senior generation has played compared to the youth of today! Our kids can learn marbles, jacks, hop-scotch, cat-in-the cradle, etc. Bring cookies or some other snacks that the kids have made, would be an extra treat to share!
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35. Collect Old Shoes
Put out notices and containers—and start collecting!!!
Ever thrown out a pair of worn-out athletic shoes? Did you know that IT TAKES ABOUT 1,000 YEARS for those sneakers to biodegrade? Wondering what to do with the ones you've already got? RECYCLE THEM.
Every year, millions of pairs of athletic shoes are thrown away, not only wasting landfill space but wasting tons of reusable material.
Since 1993 Nike has been running a program called Reuse-a-Shoe. So far they've used 24 million pairs of athletic shoes to create sports surfaces. It's part of the 'Let Me Play' campaign, one of Nike's longest-running environmental and community programs.
Worn-out athletic shoes of any brand are collected, processed and recycled into material used in sports surfaces like basketball courts, tennis courts, athletic fields, running tracks and playgrounds for young people around the world.
To keep recycling equipment running smoothly, there are guidelines:
- Athletic shoes only (any brand)
- No shoes containing metal
- No cleats or dress shoes
- No wet or damp shoes
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36. 20 Grains of Rice
Using the internet children can donate 20 grains of rice to the WORLD FOOD HUNGER PROGRAM!
The free rice site offers an English multiple-choice vocabulary test. For each word defined correctly, 20 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations World Food Program to help end hunger. To date–over 66 Billion grains have been donated!!!!
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37. Food Drive
Each year Oct. 16 is World Food Day, however food drives are needed all year long.
Talk with children in your program (or home) about world hunger and consider hosting or donating to a food drive for a food bank in your community. Increase awareness of world hunger and take steps to combat it.
Establish a length of time for the food drive and have the youth in your program make posters to hang around the program site to promote the food drive.•Ask parents to get involved by helping transport the food from your site to the food bank.
Food Drive Example
Students at Wadewitz Elementary in Racine, Wis., collected 1,000 pounds of food last December for the Holy Communion Lutheran Church food pantry. Adding some motivation…when the student body met their goal, the PTA vice president Gretchen Berthiaume and a student volunteer had their heads shaved during a school assembly.___________Looking for a fun way to raise money for your favorite charity? Hold a 'PIE IN THE FACE' competition … whatever class raises the most money gets to throw a pie in the face of the principal, teacher, etc.! The kids will love it! This is a fun ‘Community' idea for the month of April! ‘EARTH DAY'
In Summary
We hope you have enjoyed this list of community service projects for kids of all ages. These ideas are a great way to give back while facilitating children's learning and growth.
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This is only a portion of ideas. Please see all other Community Service Categories…
- Lights on After School (Event on October 18, 2012)
