Developing Community Spirit In Children

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While many adults are familiar with the importance of community service, not all children are. In a world of materialism and gotta have it, the youth of America don’t always recognize the fact that there are people who are in need of help. Developing a strong sense of community service in your children will provide them with a broader understanding of the world and their place in it.

Still, it is often difficult to determine just how to include community service in your child’s life. There are several factors to consider.

  1. The child age
  2. The child’s maturity level
  3. The child’s abilities.

Taking these things in to account, you can begin to look for community service opportunities that may be ideal for your children.

One idea is to have children work in a soup kitchen. Younger children often find this to be both rewarding and a bit scary. It offers you the opportunity to demonstrate the differences in social classes and the real need for assistance in our country. Other ideas include helping out with local toy drives, visiting senior citizens, and even donating clothing.

Remember that in order for children to develop, we must first show them the way. Encourage your children to participate in community service opportunities and show them that it is not necessary to donate money to help those in need. Sometimes time and caring are all that is needed.

Introducing your child to community service is a lesson that will serve them well into adulthood.

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Ideas for community service projects

Getting involved in community service is a perfect way to apply your time, talents energy and resources to a good cause. There are countless ways where you can serve your local community and many rewarding things you can do to enrich the lives of your family, friends, neighbors and other community neighbors.

If you are looking to start your next community service project, here are some ideas to get you going:

1. Repair an abandoned park.

A public park should be a place to be enjoyed by young and old alike. But if left in a state of disrepair, it can become a gathering place for criminal elements. Get a local business to replace old playground equipment. Lay down fresh grass and plant new trees or trim existing ones. Making a park come to life can be lots of fun.

2. Organize a food drive.

Nothing serves the community better than helping families and individuals who routinely go hungry because of poverty. Collect food at schools, businesses and churches to get your friends and neighbors in a giving spirit.

3. Join a neighborhood watch program.

Keeping our neighborhoods safe should not be sole responsibility of law enforcement. An effective neighborhood watch program can be a powerful crime deterrent. As part of the program, organize neighborhood self-defense classes and also tutor everyone on how to properly respond to a crime or emergency.

4. Clean up public areas. 

A good way to make a positive contribution to your community is to keep it looking clean. Spend time on the weekends cleaning up litter along the highway or in the park. A cleaning project such as this can also be done as a school or church activity.

5. Remove Graffiti.

Wash off or paint over graffiti from buildings and highway overpasses. Not only does it improve the appearance of your community, it sends a message to graffiti artists that they are not welcome to vandalize property there.

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When Working with Volunteers

Community service projects ought to attract volunteers. Because without those important hands the whole effort will be futile. Any transition requires the expert and able hands of volunteers. Be it getting the organization to function, or going for short or long term projects. Volunteers are very much needed for community service.

Working with volunteers is all about making it an enjoyable experience. There are good ways to do and also not so good ways as well. When recruiting volunteers be specific as what you expect from the volunteer. In your advertisements mention clearly the purpose of the volunteering programme or community service program. Often volunteers find themselves at the wrong places because of a lack of information on the volunteering role.

Before beginning to get the volunteers to try their hands at their tasks, a formal induction session is necessary. Try to get volunteers who have a lot of ideas on how to improve the whole thing. Get opinionated and motivated volunteers who are passionate about what they are doing. Work with them to try to understand the policies that should be implemented. Try to get all these things in the induction programme. As with any other programme, even a programme with volunteers needs discipline and a certain regimen. No exercise or accomplishment is complete without proper planning and execution.

Some volunteers might be novices and will find it difficult to cope up with the demands of volunteering. Therefore a training session might help. Before hiring volunteers try to understand their level of skill in what they do. While doing so, get to note the pain points and improvement areas. Try to develop a skill-gap training session that will better the skills of the volunteer. After all, volunteering is not just about helping people help themselves, it is helping people effectively too.

Communication, motivation, and direction are integral to any volunteering initiative. Sound communication about priorities and responsibilities is as important as the initiative itself.

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Hollywood Beautification Team

Hollywood Beautification Team is a community service organization with teams of volunteers engaged in improving the quality of life of people. The team of volunteers does such activities that benefit the lives of people. Currently the location of operation is Los Angeles. The team educates people, and also gives them knowledge and skills to improve their living conditions. What started off as a small enterprise has now grown into a large and well-respected community service organization.

The Team visits schools and assesses the infrastructure. If the school facilities are found wanting, it builds up a team of volunteers and pools in funds to start helping the school help itself. More often than not the school will be faced with lack of funds. Some schools might reluctantly admit it, some schools might not. But the final sufferers are the little children who go to study in such schools.

The Team also looks into urban problems. It improves living conditions in under-privileged neighborhoods. If an area is faced with a problem of trained and paid personnel to fix civic problem, the Hollywood Beautification Team steps in to the help. This is core community service. Indeed, they are real examples of how community service should be done.

By conducting educational discourses and events that educate the youth on important issues, the Hollywood Beautification Team makes sure that youth awareness is high. Most teenage and youth problems come from the lack of sound education about the issue. Some youth might not have the required professional training to get a job. The Hollywood Beautification Team designs vocational or professional training to be imparted to such youth.

Over one hundred schools are being taken care of by this Team. The team has hired hundreds of youth to conduct its beautification exercises across the cities. A signature beautification exercise being the illustrating of walls with beautiful murals. Apart from this, go-green activities such as planting trees are regularly done by the team of volunteers.

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Can young working people take up community service?

Anyone can contribute to the society as long as there is a will to do so and a yearning to create a positive change to the society. Social service, community service, volunteerism are different words, but more or less have the same meaning. An individual might not be needed to do a great deal of community service. Just that little bit that can create a positive change to the society.

The corporate world has a big role to play in community service. Young professionals who are busy building their lives can also think of building the lives of helpless people. There could be time constraints. People employed in certain sectors could find it difficult to devote a huge chunk of time in community service. But time doing volunteering work is a truly uplifting time. It could do wonders to morale and character.

Professionals in the corporate world are fighting for time for their personal lives. In this kind of scenario, it is difficult to imagine anyone thinking about becoming volunteers. But what is personal life? Is it spending time with near and dear ones? How about spending time with helpless people? Would it not be more liberating and enriching?

There is also the sentiment that one man’s problem is his own creation. People shy away from helping others help themselves. There is nothing wrong in that. That is how the ecosystem works. A revolution is attitudes is now awaited from people as much as their embracing of volunteerism and community service.

The irony with life is that it does not treat everyone equally. You could call it the balance sheet of past karmas or whatever. But that’s the sad reality. So if you really believe in karma, you could increase your good karma by helping others with social service. If you believe in concepts like heaven, then community service is the sure shot ticket to that part of the woods.

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