Volunteering: Helping Others to Help Find Yourself

Written with a full heart by Rose.

In High School, I spent countless hours participating in the KEY Club at my school. This organization, sponsored by Kiwanis International, was a way for teenagers to be involved with giving back and helping in their communities. The organization also provided amazing leadership opportunities, and I served in leadership roles at both the club and state level. Coupled with my involvement in Girl Scouting and my church, many of my teenage years were spent volunteering to help in my community. Even in college, I loved helping to plan the philanthropy events with my sorority. Volunteering with my sorority sisters after a devastating flood in southern West Virginia helped guide me to the insurance industry - where I spent the first twenty years of my career.

As I grew into adulthood, though, I found I was spending less and less time giving back to my community. Its hard to diagnose why. Part of it was trying to discover who "adult Rose" was going to be. Another factor was working full time at a Fortune 100 company left little time for anything else. And eventually I added motherhood to the list of things pulling me away.

But by the time my daughter had entered grade school, I realized something was missing. Its part of what lead me on my journey to #findmytime. And it made me acknowledge that to appreciate the life I had, I needed to give back to others.

Raising Grateful Kids & Adults

Every child reaches a point where parents (and perhaps extended family) accuse the child of being spoiled. Whether this is a serious accusation, or just playful banter, it can make you step back as a parent and ask, "Am I actually raising a spoiled child?" We had certainly worked hard to teach our children politeness, but saying "Thank you" and being thankful are two very different things.

In 2016, my kids were ages 1 and 5. I hated my job. I was up to my eyeballs in my MBA coursework. And I was growing resentful of others who seemed to have it all put together. My religious upbringing began gnawing at me that if I wanted to get it together, going to church wasn't a bad place to start. That fall, I began getting up on Sundays and going through - what felt like - the painful process of dragging small children to church. Luckily, my daughter was old enough to go to Sunday school - buying me 30 minutes to concentrate on the Priest's message, with only a baby on my lap.

As the weeks drew closer to November, and Thanksgiving, our church began advertising adopting a less-fortunate family to purchase the supplies for their Thanksgiving meal. When it was mentioned again one week, I whispered to my daughter, "should we do that?" and she vigorously shook her head up and down. When mass had ended, we headed to the back of the gathering area and took the list for a family of four that seemed to mirror our own.

Immediately, we drove to Target and shopped for the items on the list. My daughter had lots of questions: "Why can't this family buy their own food?" "How did they become less fortunate?" and the one I loved the most, "Is there anything else we can do?" She also loved being in charge of the shopping list (as any 5 year old would!) and getting to pick the brand or flavor of the item. As soon as we were done shopping, we took all the groceries back to the church where my daughter was so proud to have been helping this family.

When we got in the car to go home, I asked my daughter: "Did you like that? Getting to help other people?" and she declared, "I LOVED it." And I realized I had loved it, too. That in just an hour or so, all of the stresses and frustrations I had with my own life had been alleviated. Focusing on a family who had much larger stresses helped put mine in perspective. It made us all more grateful that day.

Thanksgiving Month

Later that afternoon, while the kids were napping, I began to map out what we now consider "Thanksgiving Month" in our household. Instead of merely giving Thanks on the holiday, we would find ways to volunteer and give back. And I thought, "This is a great way for us to truly prepare for the upcoming holiday season."

But I'm not going to lie - finding volunteer activities where you can involve small children was not easy. We had to get inventive. Here are the activities we did in those early days:

• Operation Shoebox - While in Hobby Lobby, I saw a big display for Operation Shoebox which is operated by the religious organization, Samaritan's Purse. The premise is to fill a shoebox with toys for poor children around the world. You can use your own shoebox, or the plastic boxes available for purchase online and at stores. They also provide you with lists of suggested items to go in the shoebox, and where to drop them off. When the boxes are dropped off, you are given tags so you can track where your boxes are delivered to around the world - which kept the kids very engaged, and presented opportunities to discuss what life is like in different parts of the world.

• Toy Donations: Our kids have always been so blessed by our big families to be gifted with many, many toys. Often they would outgrow their toys and they would still be in almost perfect condition. Donating toys can be difficult, as not many places can take used toys for liability reasons. But we began working with our kids each November to clean out their playroom and we would donate the toys to our local Goodwill. The toys could then be sold at a discount to families who couldn't afford to purchase them at full price. It was also a good way for our kids to make their hearts open and aware to how lucky they are at Christmastime for all the gifts they receive.

Deepening Our Involvement

In subsequent years, the kids were older and new opportunities were available because of their ages. They also began to have areas they were interested in donating their time to: animals, books, homeless children, hungry families, under-privileged schools. As we exposed them to life outside our very privileged community, they had more questions and a strong desire to help others.

Naturally, our involvement spread from just donating our money and our "stuff", to donating our time and talents to different organizations. Here are a few that we now spend November and beyond serving:

• Bernie's Book Bank - This local Chicago organization collects new and gently used books to give to underprivileged children and schools. We began by collecting books for donation. This kids actually asked their friends to bring books - instead of presents - to their birthday parties. For many years, we've collected hundreds of books each year via their birthdays. Now, though, they are both old enough to go and help sort, sticker and pack books at the organizations warehouse.

• Feed My Starving Children: This organization has several packing locations across the United States. By volunteering at one of these sites, you help pack food for children in third-world countries where food supply is low and difficult to find. The organization provides a wonderful explanation at the beginning of each packing session of where your food will be going, and how it can help in many areas of their lives. You divide up into teams and stations, and the organization makes this so much fun. The two-hour time slots fly by, and leave your heart feeling full.

• Project Elf: This local Chicago program is run by Fill A Heart 4 Kids, which has dozens of volunteer opportunities each year. Their focus is supporting kids in the foster system. Project Elf, in particular, helps to make sure foster kids have gifts and food during the winter holidays. It is operated as a "pop-up shop" in Lake Forest, Illinois. You choose how much you want to spend, and your kids get to go shopping for a foster child in their store and create holiday stockings for them. The kids also make holiday cards for the kids, and the volunteer staff are often foster families and kids who have been the recipient of these packages.

• PeaceBrix: This is our newest organization we're working with for the first time in 2023. The kids asked if there was something we could do with our immense amount of legos - so together we searched for what our options are. Together, they are organizing a lego-drive with their friends to donate to PeaceBrix. This organization creates STEM kits with the used legos and then distributes those kits to underfunded schools in Chicagoland.

How Can I Get Started

What's great about volunteering is that it often is just finding the time. Many organizations cater to families who want to give back together. Therefore, you just have to find the organization that speaks to you. Often, donating items on a list is a great place to start and something that is easy to do with younger children. Here are some great places to begin this journey of giving back:

• FeedingAmerica: Volunteering around Thanksgiving always conjures up food. So a great place to start is by donating food to your local food bank. Feeding America provides a way to find your local Food Bank - many of whom have their own websites with current needs listed. You can simply donate food, our organize a food drive. We've done this several times in our neighborhood! We'll text and email out a list of needs for our local Food Bank, and a link to a SignUp Genius for anyone that wants to participate. On a certain day and time, we'll drive around to the participating neighbors and pick up their food donations (we ask them to put the donations in paper bags on their front door step).

• Local Animal Shelters: Kids often want to help animals. So searching for your local shelter or Humane Society is a great place to start. Similar to the local Food Banks, Animal Shelters will post lists of their current needs. Kids love to go to the pet store and purchase these items. We've also done Pet Supply Drives (similar to the Food Drives above) and donated our birthdays to some of our local animal shelters.

• VolunteerMatch: A great website dedicated to helping you find volunteer opportunities in your area is VolunteerMatch. I've used this site with my remote team at work. We'll all find an organization that means something to us, and spend the same 1-2 hours volunteering on the same day. We then all come together for a virtual lunch later to talk about what we did. For example, I wrote letters to recipients of Meals on Wheels in Greenville, SC. It just so happened that before he passed away several years ago - my grandfather had received meals from this organization and I loved the idea of someone receiving my note with their meal.

Filling Your Heart

In a world that feels so full of anger and hate, you can sometimes feel powerless. When combined with all the stress and pressure of being good parents, spouses, friends, employees, managers, etc... it can be a constant cycle of feeling like there is nothing we can do. But helping others can really provide the perspective we need during turbulent times. I hope this can inspire you and your family to give back in some small way. You'll be surprised how good it feels, and that just one small action can snowball into big impacts.