Animal Shelters

As I mentioned above, I first involved my daughter in community service for somewhat selfish reasons. She has far too many toys, and I feared that birthday parties full of gifts would contribute to the amazing amount of clutter in my house, as well as feed the spoiled child I was trying to avoid creating. For her first birthday party with friends, I asked that guests not bring presents. My daughter is a huge cat fan, so I contacted a local animal shelter and asked what they needed for their cats. In lieu of presents, guests brought an item from the shelter’s wish list and my daughter’s present was that she could deliver the donation and spend some time with the cats in the cattery. Of course, leaving there without a cat was tricky, but well worth it. The shelter also sent her a formal thank you and a certificate, which she cherished.  Generally volunteers at animal shelters must be at least 16 years old, but children of any age can enjoy being part of a donation drive.

Below are a couple of animal shelters that may be interested in this kind of support, but you can also contact your local town shelter.

Little Shelter Animal Rescue and Adoption Center
33 Warner Road, Huntington
631-368-8770

North Shore Animal League 
25 Davis Avenue, Port Washington
516-883-7575

Penny Drives

Penny drives are another way that small children can be part of a fund-raiser. One that we’ve done involved my daughter’s book club. We decided to read Greg Mortenson’s Listen to the Wind, a picture book companion to his adult text Three Cups of Tea. The book describes Mortenson’s trip to Pakistan to build schools and explains how children can get involved in this important work.  My daughter talked about helping “Dr. Greg” with everyone she met.  Prior to the meeting, I registered our group and downloaded photos of the children who lived in the area, stickers for our collection cans and tons of additional information. At the meeting when we read the book, all of the participants came with change from their piggy banks, which we pooled together. My daughter and I then got a chance to use the penny arcade at TD Bank, which is always fun, and turn our coins into a check we could send to Pennies for Peace. This is not a Long Island– based organization, but you could certainly do a penny drive for any other charity you’d like to support.

Pennies for Peace
c/o Central Asia InstitutePO
Box 7209
Bozeman, MT
877-585-7841 

Clothing Donations

For another birthday party, we asked that party guests bring any old clothes that they would like to donate. This gave all of our guests, and us, an opportunity to do some spring cleaning.  My daughter chose Big Brothers Big Sisters of Long Island as the charity she wanted to support. She was thrilled to help pack up the ten garbage bags of items collected and leave them out for the van to pick up.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Long Island 
Call 631-234-0000 to schedule a pick-up

Donate Your Hair

This last suggestion takes some time, since it requires waiting for your hair to grow, but it is a very rewarding experience. For my daughter’s first haircut, she decided that she wanted to donate her hair through Locks of Love. One of her cousins had donated her hair a few months prior and my daughter had been intrigued by the idea that she could help someone in this way. I was so inspired by her willingness to donate her beloved hair that I also donated my hair that year.  Three years later, our hair has almost grown back to its original length and we are contemplating our next donation.  Any salon can do the cut and some advertise that they work specifically with Locks of Love and will send your donation for you.  A few weeks after we sent out our long ponytails, we received personalized postcards thanking us for our donation.

Locks of Love
888-896-158
info@locksoflove.org

There are so many ways to get children involved in community service.  Hopefully the above examples sparked an idea for how you can make community service something your children love to do.  Here is a link to a list of charities on Long Island. The most effective way to get children involved is to let them decide which charity they’d like to support, so that they are working towards something they believe in.  With this incredible list, your family is bound to find something everyone can get excited about.