When I was younger, I was very involved in volunteer work. In high school, I worked with a group of students that visited patients in hospitals, nursing homes, and raised money for cancer research, among other things. I continued this tradition of service in college, spending time tutoring kids from a local youth group, working on home repairs at a local Habitat for Humanity house and participating and leading Habitat for Humanity Collegiate Challenge service trips to Meridian, Mississippi and Covington, Louisiana.
There is truly nothing that can describe the feeling of service, especially in a setting where you get to meet the families that you are helping and work alongside them building their new homes! As a young lawyer, I was always mindful of pro bono opportunities and ensured that it always made up a certain percentage of my work hours each year.
Once I stopped working outside of the home in order to raise my son, I completely stopped volunteering for anything. Given, in the early days of motherhood, there is absolutely no time to do anything of the sort! But as the years have gone on, I have felt that part of my life calling to me.
Now that my son is in nursery school, there have been opportunities to get involved with donations to the community (food drives, holiday toy donations) and I’ve been introducing him to the concept of helping others. I love that he “gets it” in his own age appropriate way and I think it is important for the concept of helping to be instilled at a tender age.
I think it is time for me to get back to volunteering, though. I have time to donate and am in the process of finding a local charity where I can help out during the hours my son is in school. I’m aiming for a few hours a month and to build on that as my schedule allows. I have to say, it feels great to be back on the road to giving back again!
Have you been able to volunteer your time since becoming a mother? How do you teach your children to give back to the community?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Allison Charleston, an attorney gone stay-at-home mom in New York City.
Photo credit to FirstBaptistNashville http://www.flickr.com/photos/firstbaptistnashville/2657971489/. This photo has a creative commons attribute license.
Really Interesting topic and I agree if your able to give back to your community its a good thing to do, if we all helped just one person each our world would be a better place for us all.. :))
That is such a great way to put it! I totally agree.
I have been going through a similar thought process recently Allison. Although I still work full time, and my daughter is only 22 months. When the opportunity arises, I have done breast-cancer walks/fundraisers around the park, while pushing the baby in the stroller :-). I have been thinking of finding things that I could do with my son (he’s 5 now, and I think it would be a good way for him to learn the importance of volunteering). I’ll let you know what I can find, maybe we can both bring our boys and can “officially” meet (we are practically neighbors, afterall :)! )
That would be so great! I’ve been looking into local opportunities, I will keep you posted. Would love to meet you and your little cutie!
I does feel so good when you give back!! I think it’s so important for us to teach our children about this as well. I did a big toys for tots collection at work and had my son come with me to drop it off. Explained to him how some children don’t have all that he does. I did end up having to buy him a toy after we were done because 3 yrs old is a bit young to see a ton of toys and be ok with not getting and since he was a trooper he got a batman!! I think my kids are young to still understand but I think if they are always around giving back then it will just be what’s normal to them.
I’m so with you Sarah! The more we make it part of the everyday then it will just be part of the kids’ lives forever!
I think it’s great that you raised such an important topic. I confess that I haven’t dedicated a lot of my time to serving the needs of others, especially since the kids came along. The last time I went out into the field was back in 2006 when I taught English to secondary school children in a small town/village in China. I really want to teach my kids the importance of giving, and when the older one turns four or five, I’m thinking we can adopt a child through a world aid organization, as a different kind of ‘birthday gift’.
That is such a great idea. I’m going to keep that in the memory bank for next year’s birthday.
Great topic! I look forward to involving the kids when we’re in Laos with local organizations that have book programs in rural villages to promote learning and literacy. They are 2yo and love to read so it will be a natural activity for them to participate in. I can’t wait!
That sounds like such a great opportunity! I must say, the writers and readers of WMB have been a major inspiration for me to get back in the game of giving back!
Reblogged this on and commented:
Asking the question, how do you teach children to give back to the community? Via worldmomsblog.com
Hi Alison!
I do a lot of explaining! I am aware that my children could easily think that everyone in the world has similar lives to them in general. I raise awareness to my daughters that there are people who don’t have the necessities to survive that we have and that it is important to help them. And, I have her think about what if it was our family in a situation where we needed something, so she can think about how that might feel and understand the importance of helping others.
Through World Moms Blog’s advocacy with Shot@Life and the GAVI Alliance for life-saving vaccines for children in developing nations, I’ve hosted 2 parties at my house this year. My older daughter wound up attending one of them because she was too excited to go to bed that night. I explain to her what I’m doing and why. And just today, as we were leaving her school, she said while pointing at the food collection basket in her preschool, “Mom, we need to buy some food for the people who don’t have any.” So, I took advantage of that opportunity and we went straight to the grocery store and bought baby food that she will put in the basket tomorrow.”
Conversations and modeling the behavior must go hand-in-hand!
Great post, Alison! And there are always opportunities to volunteer through World Moms Blog’s advocacy for Shot@Life and GAVI. I find volunteering for these organizations very rewarding!
Jen 🙂
Our boys are aware they are luckier than many others in the world, but I haven’t yet taken them out to volunteer as such – great idea Allison, I am inspired!