For this week’s Lion’s Heart Blog, I’m here to give you three unique volunteer activities. One of the best parts of volunteering is that it forces me out of my comfort zone and allows me to try out new activities. After trying out the following, I hope you will find the same to be true!
1. Have a clothing drive! Although you may think this is a common idea, let me explain. Grab your Lion’s Heart group or friends and pick one of your houses to be the collection station. Use social media to get the word out to your neighbors. You could even spend time designing flyers and put them in mailboxes around the neighborhood. Think stickers, shapes, glitter anything to add some spice! After two or three days of collecting clothes (multiple days would maximize the number of people donating considering everybody’s busy schedule), make sure to sort the clothes by different sizes. Important: throw out anything stained or very used. Here comes the creative and fun part…start contacting local children shelters to ask if you could create a free clothing store for the kids. Instead of just donating all the collected clothes, think about how awesome it would be to put them all up on hangers and create a miniature store that the kids could shop through. There could even be makeshift dressing rooms and a sign displaying a fun store name. To make the experience even more memorable, the children could use paper bags as shopping carts and decorate them before entering “the store.” Once they have their bags, the children could go through the makeshift clothing store and pick out a few items to keep. Rarely do children living in shelters have the opportunity to go to a clothing store and pick out their own clothes. By using the donated clothes to create a makeshift thrift store, you would be giving them an experience they’d never forget.
2. During the holiday season, get in contact with a children’s hospital to see if you and your Lion’s Heart Group or other peers can go caroling. Dress up in a myriad of festive costumes—anything from Santa to a dreidel— and go from room to room spreading some good old holiday joy. You could even grab a speaker and spend time rehearsing songs to make it even more special. If dietary restrictions allow it, you could pass out treats like candy canes or chocolate Hershey bars. If you want to go one step further, ask around your town to see if anybody has any new or gently used toys to donate. You would be sure to give these children a holiday season they would never forget!
3. For this one, grab your Lion’s Heart Group once again or peers because you guys will be creating a mall…except instead of letting residents buy things, they will be donating. Let me explain—when it comes to donating, people have to drop different donation goods to different locations. But, what about if there was one place where all goods could be dropped off? A one stop donation center if you will. When I first thought of this idea, I had this picture in mind… 15-20 Lion’s Heart members or teens who are passionate about volunteering could gather at a local community park or school gymnasium (with approval). They could pair up in twos or threes to each create their own booth. The booths would essentially be places to donate different goods. One could be a clothing booth, another a baby theme booth, and so on. They could decorate the booths and play some music to make the experience more fun and pleasant. After advertising to the town, local residents could fill up their cars with a bunch of stuff they want to donate. They could then drive to the “donation mall” and go from booth to booth donating all their stuff. A few Lion’s Heart members could even bake treats to hand off to residents after they finish donating.
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