Volunteer Activities for a 13 Year Old?

We have "junior members" where I work, basically it's kids who have an interest in EMS. I would also suggest a food bank, soup kitchen, animal shelter, local homeless shelter. If you can call your city/county juvenille officer and see what they suggest.

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Ok so this may be a PA thing but...

When I was her age it was a big deal at church but my friends and I would go around and rake other peoples yards (our neighbors in walking distance) We would also volunteer to wash their windows on the outside. We weren't allowed to accept tips and if they tried to give us something we asked that they donate it instead.

You probably wouldn't want her to do it alone, but if she has some friends (and chances are they also need a lesson in humility) it may be a fun task for them. If you know of neighbors who are in need and older, she is also old enough to clean their house. As much as I hated it that same youth program would let us visit the shutins and we would help them with little things like sweeping the floors or washing dishes. It was an eye opener for me to see that they had had these wonderful lives and because of some illness they could no longer take care of themselves.

Hope it helps.
R.

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You could contact Interfaith of The Woodlands to see what volunteer opportunities may be available to someone her age. They have a lot of community based activities including running a food pantry, a thrift shop and providing services to the elderly. If she's not able to actually go and volunteer for them she could always lead a food drive in your neighborhood to collect food for their food pantry. http://www.woodlandsinterfaith.org/

Perhaps something that is of special interest to her might help her be more engaged in the work. If she likes animals, I'm sure local shelters might be able to use some help.

Good Luck,
K.

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This is a great idea. Have your daughter keep track of all of her volunteer hours. My daughter loves volunteering. My daughter won the Presidential volunteer award each year since 5th grade!

Nursing homes sometimes will allow young people to go and visit, call bingo games or read. Call ahead and ask what type of help they need.

Also she could lead a group of other students in collecting games and books for the local children's hospitals.

One year they made activity bags for slightly older patients at the childrens hospital. They had word searches, cross word puzzles, mazes,pencils, jokes all geared towards the teen aged patients. They took 100 of these bags.

If she can find a scout group, sometimes she can volunteer to help their troops with projects.

She also tutored elementary children on weekends at the neighborhood library. She posted a note and told her past teachers at her old elementary school.

In the summer she volunteered 3 to 4 weeks(40 hours a week) at the local summer camp held at her old elementary school.

Some food pantries will allow kids her age to help load and unload donated food. You could also ask Churches in your community what type of service opportunities are available.

If you have charity thrift stores in the area, they will sometimes allow kids her age to help sort the goods that are donated.

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See if your local hospital has a youth volunteer program. I work at MD Anderson Cancer Center, and we've got a big volunteer program, for kids, too. This might be too far for you to travel, though.

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You've gotten some good ideas already, but I just wanted to share an experience I had as a kid...
My grandpa is a retired pastor and he had a ministry going to the nursing home once a week to sing old hymns, read from the Bible, and just visit the residents. Whenever my brother or I would visit my grandparents, he always took us along on these trips to the nursing home. At times, it was very uncomfortable to be there...funny smells, elderly folks who were quite unresponsive, etc. But the more I went, the more I discovered that these people were once young like me, and most of them had minds that were still sharp as a tack! Their faces would light up when I came in with my grandpa, and if I played a song on the piano, or just gave them a hug, it made all the difference in the world to them.
Experiences like that have shaped the way I relate to certain groups of people I think. I'm so glad you are encouraging your daughter to do some kind of volunteer service, but I would advise you to not make it seem like a punishment, rather a learning experience that the 2 of you could do together. Use every opportunity to teach your daughter the importance of whatever work you are doing, whether it be petting dogs at the shelter, helping run a food pantry, or just hugging old folks at a nursing home.

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I know that Libraries of Love needs help typing labels for book spines, and organizing books to be sent to Africa. The organization collects used books and then takes them to Africa. They build shelves, and set up libraries in schools. It's a neat program. They are located in Austin. Let me know if you need more info.

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