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.

Methods

Everyone can probably give a billion ideas for methods of getting kids to understand the process of a project (and to not lose steam if it takes a while).  American Girl Magazine put out an interesting quiz/project starter for girls, which is a great starting point for your own project starter if you have a mixed-gender group.  My methods are lined out below, but feel free to comment yours:

Categories: give the kids the option of 5 or 6 categories of issues they might like to focus on (human rights, the environment, poverty, health, animals, etc.)  I like to put these on those white label stickers so that they can stick them onto a rating chart and you can see how their minds work about choosing issues.

Project directions: then give the kids as many options as you can think of for projects that you can stand behind (which don’t need to be specifically related to the issues so that they’re adaptable).  Let the kids know that if some of your project ideas inspire them to create their own project, you will review it with them when they’ve finished brainstorming. I also like for these to be on those label stickers.

Timeline: this one’s important–they need a visual representation of how long this will take and milestones to show that they’ve gotten somewhere in the meantime.  Kids’ attention spans (especially the 4-7 age range) are very short.  A kindergartner can sit still for about 12 minutes, for instance.  Long-term attention is almost beyond them without visual cues.

Project: projects that kids under 10 do should take no more than two days to complete (once you’ve gotten down to the action part, such as a bake sale).  Their attention spans really can’t take much more, and you want their enthusiasm really high so that the debrief helps them build on their own experiences.  If they have far-flung dreams, they can establish small projects throughout a longer timeline, which will keep their attentions contained.

Debrief: must always happen after any project or big experience.  This allows processing time and integration of ideas and emotions.  It allows kids to figure out where to take their enthusiasm next, and gives them more of a sense of where they are within the group and their impact on the wider world.  It also gives you a chance to see where some areas of social or character improvement might be needed.

Ha ha–and you thought I was out of ideas, didn’t you?  I have about 10 projects saved as drafts, and have yet to complete them fully, but fear not…they are coming!  If you liked this post and would like to do a project with kids which has a specific theme or goal in mind (mathematics, a particular badge, a word of the month), feel free to comment and I’ll work up a unit outline!