Get Involved in Your Community!
There are lots of great ways to get involved in your community. Here are just a few ideas to get you started!
CITIZENSHIP
- Advocate for youth issues with governing bodies.
- Organize a Holiday Gift Center – where those who can’t afford to buy gifts for their families can go to get gifts, clothes, toys, household items, food. Contact schools, doctors, and churches to refer needy families.
- Organize a community service class at the fair, where all 4-H’ers are encouraged to make and exhibit items that will later be donated to charities.
- Write a proposal asking that a vacant lot be turned into a playground or garden. Follow up, and offer to help build the playground or plant and care for the garden.
- Write a proclamation for community beautification week. Get the Mayor to sign it. Distribute copies to newspapers, radio stations, organizations, and businesses. Get kids to volunteer.
CULTURAL EDUCATION
- Adopt a new immigrant family – help them connect to the community.
- Make ethnic holiday cookies for shelters, hospitals, or nursing homes.
- Organize a cultural festival to celebrate and share diversity (and food)!
GLOBAL EDUCATION
- Investigate needs, publicize, collect and process items needed for disaster relief.
- Trick or Treat for UNICEF.
INTER-GENERATIONAL PROGRAMMING
- Make monthly visits to a Senior Pal (non-relatives, not living in a nursing home).
- Establish a once-a-week visit and activity time at a nursing home.
- Collect oral histories from the residents of a nursing home, print and share them.
- Help an elderly neighbor – mow, pull weeds, shovel snow, paint, etc.
COMMUNICATION ARTS
- Read or tell stories to preschool children.
- Tutor younger kids to improve their reading & writing skills.
PERFORMING ARTS
- Hold a talent show in your local community.
- Go caroling at the homes of the elderly and shut-ins.
VISUAL ARTS
- Make holiday cards for people in nursing homes, hospitals – year round.
- Make small seasonal decorations for shut-ins, nursing homes, hospitals.
- Design and paint a mural in a public place with permission!
CHILD DEVELOPMENT, CHILD CARE AND BABYSITTING
- Volunteer to help in preschools, after school child care.
- Lead a project for kids in after school programs.
CLOTHING AND TEXTILES
- Recycle discarded clothing into useful items for the needy.
- Make quilts for overseas, homeless.
CONSUMER EDUCATION
- Deliver demonstrations, presentations on consumer issues.
- Organize, promote, and volunteer in food recovery efforts to benefit those in need.
- Organize a neighborhood crime watch.
HOME ENVIRONMENT
- Help shut-ins with needed home maintenance, and renovation.
- Clean up or paint over graffiti.
