Empowerment Starts with a Mission
Most kids love to be helpful. Most kids love to see that they can make a difference. This doesn’t really change as we grow up, but whether or not we receive empowering support as children can really impact our ability to achieve these two wonderful, yet simple, things in life. I truly believe that every group of children in every setting ought to get the chance to feel empowered by doing a community service project. (I also believe that every vacation ought to contain at least one such project, even if it’s just bringing a trash bag to the beach with you to collect what others have left behind.)
That being said, if you don’t have practice supporting and encouraging kids by making their crazy wild flights of fancy into something tangible, you might be overwhelmed at my proposal.
Never fear!
As my above soapbox probably indicates, I’m brimming with ideas. But to tell you the truth, it’s the KIDS who will have the best ideas, and they will get so much more out of their project if they have chosen the steps they take. Of course, they have less experience with this than you do, so a little guidance to start them off is useful.
For example:
The Service Club at my library started last summer and I let them pick what issue they faced and what project to do to alleviate the issue. They chose helping the victims of a bad storm that had passed through our area, and they decided to hold a bake sale to earn money that would then be used to by food and supplies for the distribution centers. Long way around? Yes. Worth it because the kids gained invaluable lessons? Absolutely. They learned that a bake sale is fun to put on and earns quite a bit of money in a short period of time. They learned that they probably should do a food drive if they wanted to donate food again, because even though they earned a lot, it didn’t buy as much food as they had hoped to donate. I wish I could have brought them someone whom it helped to tell their story, but didn’t get to.
This winter they decided to help the pandas and the polar bears. I inwardly groaned because I could tell they were picking these animals 70% because they’re cute and fuzzy and 30% because they’re endangered and part of the ecological balance of the world. I didn’t try to deter them because I could see their enthusiasm, and who am I to tell someone not to follow a dream?? This time, they tried a yard sale, which required a lot of work and made next to no money. Thankfully, their spreading the word about the cause inspired a few kids to donate some allowance money to the group, and they were able to make a nice-sized donation to the organizations they chose. The debrief on this one was EXTREMELY useful and important because they were able to learn so very much from their experience.