When holidays arrive, they present a wonderful opportunity for parents to allow their children to experience the joy of helping others—and there are plenty of ways you can volunteer in the greater Cleveland area.
During the holiday season, you can help others who don’t have enough food in their cupboards. As a way to introduce the topic, you could read Watercress by Andrea Wang: a Caldecott Medal Winner, Newbery Honor Book, and APALA Award Winner among other awards. In this book, a young girl is embarrassed by her Chinese immigrant parents who stop to cut wild watercress along the side of the road until she learns about her mother’s difficult childhood.
Volunteer Opportunities in the Greater Cleveland Area
Places you could volunteer include the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Here are some times and places where volunteers are still needed. Or, through the Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio, your family could volunteer at a drive-thru mobile pantry, in the repack room, for the senior box delivery program—and you can also commit to helping with the gardening corps from May through September. As another option, you could volunteer to serve holiday meals.
Doing Good Together suggests other ways to volunteer during the holiday season. You could get out all of your art supplies and make homemade holiday cards. You may already know people who could use a pick me up. Or, you could send them to a local nursing home or veterans organization—or you could choose an organization like Love for the Elderly, Cards for Hospitalized Kids, or Color A Smile.
Another idea: making a no-sew fleece blanket that’s so straightforward that even kids can help.
You could also think about a holiday project in a different way, focusing on the new year. You might decide to pick a project each month for 2025. You could volunteer once a month at the same place or choose a different one each time.
Benefits of Volunteering as a Family
Volunteering is good for people!
Points of Light shares ways in which volunteering benefits you as a family. First, you can spend quality time together and create lasting memories. As you work towards a goal, you can spend enjoyable time together, strengthen your bonds as a family, and make a difference in other people’s lives. Plus, allowing your children to experience diverse perspectives helps them to develop empathy for others.
Plus, FeedingAmerica.org has gathered additional benefits discovered through research over the years. These include how, with adolescents, volunteering has been linked to improved grades, increased self-esteem, and reduced drug usage in the years to come. KidsHealth.org points out that the experiences might even point children towards their careers.
Make Giving Back a Habit in Your Family
Volunteering and giving back is a a decision that leads to a lifetime of kindness and generosity, the kinds of traits we try to instill in children here at every Horizon center. Regardless of the time of year, there are always organizations in need of help and even small ways you can make the world around you a better place.
We’re grateful to our partners and the companies and volunteers that donate their time to help us with projects around our facilities. Throughout the year, we have work days where things get accomplished we can’t do on our own. We take a moment to once again say thank you to our volunteers.
We’re also grateful to our generous donors who help Horizon students discover an early love of learning in safe, friendly spaces. With Giving Tuesday on December 3, consider how you might be able to make a difference for a child with a tax-deductible contribution to the Mary Smith Scholarship Fund, with all proceeds going to help offset the cost of Summer Camp for eligible students.
Make a difference however you can this holiday season!