volunteering

With the winter holidays just around the corner many of us are already making gift lists, shopping, planning parties and making travel arrangements to be with family. This is also the time of year when many families could use a little extra help with their holiday celebrations.

At KTD! we've rounded up a (helping) handful of local resources where you and your family can get involved and make a difference this holiday season.

1. Help the Homeless: Catholic Social Services' Helping Holiday project collects funds for their community outreach projects like the Brother Francis Shelter and Clare House. 

2. Feed the Hungry: The citywide Neighborhood GIFT Program, co-sponsored by the Foodbank of Alaska, needs volunteers to deliver meals to homebound individuals in the Anchorage area on Monday, Dec 19 and to do foodstamp outreach at 6 different locations on Tuesday, Dec 20. 

3. Dress an Interviewing Teen: Covenant House Alaska has an immediate need for adult-sized, women and men's business attire. Donate your lightly-used professional clothing at their downtown Anchorage location. 

4. Shop at a Non-Profit Bazaar: Congregation Beth Sholom is hosting the 4th Annual Mitzvah Mall where all the vendors are local not-for-profits and charities selling items from $5-$30. Sunday, December 4, 1-4pm.

5. Give a Gift/Wrap a Gift: AWAIC (Abused Women's Aid in Crisis) has many opportunities for holiday helping this year - donate gifts or gift cards that will go directly to the many women, teens and children that they help, or sign up as an individual or as a group to wrap these gifts.

6. Choose Your Own Charity: The United Way of Anchorage's 2011 Guide to Holiday Giving and Volunteering Opportunities (opens as a PDF) is a comprehensive catalog of ways that your family can help this season by donating items like clothes, food, toys, bus passes and even services.

7. Keep a Homeless Child Warm: The Children in Transition/Homeless program at the Anchorage School District has an immediate need for children's snowpants and snowboots to distribute to the kids in their program. Call their office to find out where to donate: 742-3833.

Write us with more ways to give back and we'll add them to this list. 

I always pray some of the lessons AK Dad and I instill in our children are driven home effectively. Say thank you, we instruct. Be kind. Help someone else, for Pete’s sake. I always thought I’d do really well during the 1940‘s when World War II meant every neighborhood in the United States banded together for a powerful “take care of each other” mantra under the comforting blanket of “We Can Do It!” Perhaps we’ve returned to a socially responsible way of life, or perhaps my Gen X’er heart feels the need to look beyond my own personal needs. Whatever the reason, it’s National Volunteer Week, and people everywhere are gearing up for seven days (and hopefully a lifetime) of service to others and the community in which they live.

Volunteerism as a concept stretches beyond “offering oneself” in hundreds of thousands of ways. No longer limited to serving meals at homeless shelters or packaging items for holiday baskets, volunteerism has become big business, and including the whole family is a crucial part of the service equation.

In Alaska, outdoor service projects are as simple as the annual CityWide Cleanup, now in its 43rd year of making Anchorage beautiful, or as complicated as donating extensive amounts of time to such agencies as Chugach State Parks as a seasonal campground host. The tough part is deciding what project fits a family of diverse ages and stages.

AKontheGO supports family volunteerism with all its might; after all, Moi spent five years as a volunteer Crew Leader for the now enormously-popular Washington Trails Association, and led umpteen fabulous “volunteer vacations” into the wilds of Washington state. Fun? You betcha, especially when moms and dads would bring kids along. For a week we’d work side-by-side, brushing salmonberry, grubbing new trail tread, and getting gloriously dirty together. Helping and having a good time, what’s not to like about that?

Here at home, outdoor volunteerism is everywhere. We mentioned that all-important CityWide Cleanup, happening April 30-May 7. Kids and parents can grab a big orange bag or two, don some gloves and breakup boots, and spend a few hours or all day picking up leavings of other people. Have a contest to see who can collect the most, or give a prize to the family member who finds the weirdest (yet not dangerous) item of the day, and at the end, wash up and go out for ice cream.

Another excellent event with tremendous family volunteerism potential is National Trails Day, held this year on Saturday, June 4. AK Fam usually heads over to the Campbell Creek Science Center off Elmore Road for a morning of planting, cleaning, pruning and general sprucing up of the Center and surrounding trails, followed by a pizza lunch and way-cool door prizes courtesy of REI. An institutional event among outdoor user groups, Trails Day was started in 1993 by the American Hiking Society and has grown to include just about every outdoor agency in the country. Suited for even the tiniest grubber, Trails Day at CCSC means careful planning by staff to ensure the best possible volunteer experience, with gear, safety talks, and tons of fun. Contact the Science Center for information about National Trails Day and your family’s participation at 267-1247.

Live in south Anchorage and want to contribute to your neighborhood parks? A unique partnership has been developed between Trinity church and Huffman Elementary to clean up little-but-lovely Huffman Community Park. Awarded a grant by the Anchorage Park Foundation to clean up and revitalize this oft-used but under-maintained park, Huffman Elementary and Trinity have big plans for two separate occasions. The first, scheduled for Friday, April 29 from 3:30-8 p.m. will be a general clean-up of the park. The second, slated for Saturday, July 30, will involve tearing down old exercise equipment and resurfacing the trail. Kids and parents are welcome to join the fun, meet new people, and help their community park become a safer place to play. Contact Megan Holliday for more information.

Give back, get outside, and feel good about it. That’s volunteerism, and that’s what we do. Join us.

Did you know that it's National Volunteer Week? Kids and families are getting out into their communities to give back all this week and into the weekend. You can do something on your own like baking cookies for the fire station down the street or you can participate in a community-wide project through school or church.

If you need a little guidance and inspiration to get started check out tomorrow's show and in the meantime we've picked six websites that can help get you started:

1. Global Youth Service Day (GYSD.org) - Established in 1988, Global Youth Service Day is the largest service event in the world, and the only day of service dedicated to children and youth. GYSD is celebrated each year in over 100 countries. Check out their Project Map to find some really cool Alaska projects!

2. HandsOnNetwork.org - HandsOn Network inspires, equips and mobilizes people to take action that changes the world. This network, now the largest in the nation, is leading people from impulse to action, turning their ideas for change into impactful projects. Find local action centers or start your own!

3. GenerationOn.org & LearningToGive.org - Partner websites that each focus on mobilizing global youth volunteer efforts. A wealth of information, ideas and guides for student, teachers and parents.

4. TheVolunteerFamily.org & FuturePhilanthropists.org - The vision of these partner organizations is to empower today’s youth with the knowledge, skills, and motivation needed to become caring, thoughtful, and philanthropic adults. Hear from Heather Jack, founder of both these orgs tomorrow on Kids These Days! radio!

5. United Way Volunteer As a Family (LiveUnited.org) - Research shows that volunteering as a family: Helps families learn about social issues and provides a new perspective on the world; Provides positive role models and passes on family values to children; Provides new learning experiences and development of new skills for both children and adults; Provides quality time for the family to spend together; Increases interpersonal communication and the problem-solving abilities of family members; Helps youth decide what they want to do with their life. They are currently recruiting for 1,000,000 volunteer readers ages 13 and up! Sign up today.

6. CrossCulturalSolutions.org - Volunteering abroad in a CCS program can be life-changing for all who experience it, but perhaps this is even more true for families volunteering with young ones who are just starting to form their views of the world. They welcome the opportunity to help your children and teenagers experience other cultures and participate in meaningful volunteer work. Check out the Family Volunteering Abroad section and listen to a KTD! story about a local family's Voluntourism in Malawi!