Why would a busy, often overwhelmed and always tired mom of three start a kids kindness nonprofit? Because she saw the need for young kids, like her own, to get out of their home-school-activities bubble and experience the needs within the community in a hands-on, tangible, kid-friendly way.
As parents, we can have the best of intentions of deep dinnertime conversations with our kids about community causes, or car rides where we attempt to solve the injustices of the world. And so we talk and talk at our kids. Without experiencing new situations, different neighborhoods and hearing stories from those doing the work, we're often like the adults Charlie Brown - just a bunch of wah-waah-wah noise.
With so many nonprofits in need of volunteers and kids natural enthusiasm for projects, Tucson Family Volunteers finds kid-friendly solutions to often large, complex societal problems like homelessness or food insecurity. We do this through collaborations with nonprofits where fun, intentional and meaningful give-back projects are created for kids to easily accomplish in 60-90 minutes.
Did you know that the 5-13 age range is often excluded from a nonprofit’s in-house volunteer opportunities? Tucson Family Volunteers takes the guess work out of finding places to volunteer with kids.
How We Work to Craft a Generous Generation
How do you explain that there are kids as young as 10 who live on the street? Or that families, who move across the world to escape war, have to live in a hotel until they can find a place of their own? Stuff like this doesn't easily make sense to kids. (And sometimes not even to us all-knowing adults!)
At Tucson Family Volunteers, every in-person family volunteer project starts with a kid-friendly presentation by the partnering nonprofit. We invite their executive director or staff to attend our projects and speak with the Kid Volunteers about the problem they are working to solve and why this particular volunteer project matters. Before, during and after each volunteer project, families are connected to the nonprofit they are volunteering for and ways to continue the conversation at home.
Our goal is that kids walk away from every volunteer project with an open mind and kinder heart, knowing that the bag they stuffed or the kindness card they wrote makes a difference.
Why Crafting Kindness Requires Generous Donations
Our goal is to change the world, one Kid Volunteer at a time. And doing this requires community support of time, talent and treasure. Many of our nonprofit collaborators look to Tucson Family Volunteers to supply an army of kind volunteers. We also create and coordinate the give-back project, purchase supplies and provide snacks to keep volunteers energized.
All of our volunteer projects are offered to families at a low cost registration fee of $15 or are free. It costs $18.85 for each Kid Volunteer to participate in a 90 minute, in-person volunteer project.
Two ways you can help us craft kindness
Become an in-person Project Leader and help us provide more volunteer projects to more kids on more weekends! Curious what's involved? Reach out today.
Consider making a generous donation! Funding will enable us to expand our family volunteer programming. The average in-person family volunteer project costs approximately $276.
As a mom with too many commitments, adding "volunteering" to the weekend To Do list is literally one more thing to schedule. However, the positive effects of giving back and exposing young kids to the realities within our community is worth the time and coordination.
Together, we can craft a kinder community and a generously kind generation of Kid Volunteers, who will see a need and work to solve it. How KIND is that?!