Service projects are awesome Christmas traditions for family. Holiday volunteering and doing community service is great for helping kids focus on helping others and giving back during the holidays. Check out our ideas for family volunteer projects, winter community service ideas, and ways volunteer with kids — even when stuck at home or if you’re wondering what are some holiday activities to do with family of all ages!
Family Service Projects Ideas For Holidays or Any Time!
Looking for ideas for service projects for your family during the holidays / Christmas holiday volunteering, or service projects for youth groups, service projects for cub scouts or girl scouts, volunteer opportunities for teens, or co-op or ideas for school service projects? Here are great ideas for holiday service projects for families and help your kids give back!
How do you serve your community during the holidays?
Service projects ideas for youth, service projects for schools, and service projects for families include:
- Create a food drive
- Walk dogs at a shelter
- Write letters to deployed soldiers
- Send holiday cards to local nursing homes
- Give coffee shop gift cards to nurses at local hospitals
- Take gift goodie bags to parents of newborns in ICU at the hospital
- Bake cookies for the local police and fire station (or offer to sponsor a meal and have it delivered for them)
- Adopt a family or grandparent for holiday gifts
- Donate socks to a local shelter
- Stock Little Libraries throughout your community
- Donate and sorting food at a local food bank or food pantry
- Rake leaves / shovel snow for elderly neighbors
- Deliver meals for homebound
- Build houses for those in need (or deliver water and snacks for those doing it!)
- Create a community garden
- Implement a recycling program at home, school, church, or even your community
(Don’t miss our full list of holiday community service ideas below!)
Service projects for youth and families (and even service projects from home/ virtual holiday community service ideas) are an important part of teaching your kids how to give back and create a lifelong interest in volunteering and serving the community.
Teach your kids early how to do something to get involved and the importance of community service projects for family! (Yes, there are many places to volunteer with kids and volunteer holidays for families ideas!)
TIP: Search holiday volunteer opportunities near me or Christmas community service ideas near me to see what comes up!
Before we get to our holiday season volunteering ideas and family service project ideas, let’s start with:
What are service projects?
Service learning projects are volunteer actions, performed by individuals or a group, that benefit others and helps kids learn how to give back to their community. Let’s take a closer look at service learning projects examples.
(Don’t miss our full list of 19 community service ideas later in the post. KEEP SCROLLING!)
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What are some volunteer ideas?
Service Projects From Home
Volunteering this holiday season can even be done from home!
- Create Christmas cards and send them to nursing home residents (write: For any friend in the address)
- Write a letter to a soldier
- Decorate kindness rocks to leave around (or on your neighbor’s porch) the next time you’re out
- Ship an Amazon care package to a local animal shelter (check their website for current needs)
- Write thank you notes for doctors and nurses working in a local hospital
- Do a coat or sock drive right from your house using social media, texting, or Zoom to get friends or family involved
- Send a shoebox of items to a child in need
- Make an easy (NO SEW!) quilt and donate it to a nursing home, children’s hospital, or shelter
What are the benefits of community service?
Kids service projects, community service and volunteering for teens:
- Help build self-esteem.
- Improve confidence.
- Give a sense of purpose.
- Spread love and kindness.
- Create a sense of community.
- Teach empathy.
- Help to eliminate stress.
- Create a network of like-minded people.
- Improve skills (and help to develop new ones!).
- Help to understand social responsibility.
- Make you happier!
MORE HOLIDAY IDEAS & CHRISTMAS ACTIVITIES FOR FAMILY:
39 Charlie Brown Christmas Activities and Lessons for Kids
Christmas Traditions For Family and 13 Christmas Around the World Lesson Plans
Hanukkah Story and 17 Lessons to Help Kids Learn Hanukkah Traditions
What is Kwanzaa? Meaning and Traditions for Kids
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What Is Winter Solstice? Science Behind Solstice and Lesson Plans, Traditions, Activities
10 Elf on Shelf Alternatives That Won’t Make You Insane
Let Go of Holiday Stress with 10 Tips from the Frozen Movie
12 Unique New Year Countdown Ideas for Kids (That You Probably Never Thought Of)
42 Unique Ideas: Christmas Gifts for Mom Guide [UPDATED]
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Volunteering for Kids: The Giving Manger
If you’re looking for a way to get your family involved in multiple community service projects for kids counting down to Christmas, you may enjoy The Giving Manger.
The Giving Manger comes with a manger, “straw,” a baby Jesus and a booklet.
You count down to Christmas (like an Advent calendar) by performing a kind deed.
Each time a deed is performed, you place a piece of “straw” into the manger, building a bed for baby Jesus.
On Christmas day, you place the baby Jesus!
(I really love this as one of your service learning projects ideas!)
If you’re looking for a version for younger kids, there’s also one called Miracle in a Manger. This can help your little ones understand a holiday service project.
Here’s how it works (from the set):
With our beautifully illustrated book, daily “activity” cards and the sweet angel who brings straw each day for the baby Jesus’ manger, Miracle in a Manger is the December countdown to the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
The Angel Message (activity) cards will consist of a Bible verse that corresponds with the story of the birth of Jesus.
On each card will be a list of activities for your little one to participate in.
If they do one or even all the activities, the next morning when the Angel brings a new message he will also bring a soft strand of hay to place in the manger.
Then on Christmas morning not only will your little one receive their material Christmas presents but the BEST gift of all, the TRUE meaning of Christmas.
The doll that was an Angel is simply transformed into baby Jesus by removing his halo and wings, wrapping him in a blanket and placing him in the manger full of soft straw.
If you want non-religious ideas for youth service projects or family service projects that you can do at the holidays and all year long, try the Sneaky Card Game: Play It Forward.
From the game:
Your mission, should you choose to accept it: become a secret agent of joy, spreading art and intrigue to an unsuspecting public.
Inside each box is an interactive scavenger hunt that will inspire creativity and reward audacity.
Take a selfie with a stranger, create a collaborative doodle, become a flash mob of one.
Complete each objective and then pass the card along to an unwitting accomplice, who now becomes part of the game!
The fun is ever-expanding, but it all starts with you – Play it forward!
OK!
Here are great ideas for service projects for teens all the way down to tots!
Get the whole family involved in giving back!
Service Projects For Kids: What can kids do to give back?
Here are ideas for community service projects.
Although we’ve focused on holiday volunteering, these ideas for service learning projects are great for any time of the year!
These are also good service projects for teens if they need volunteer work to complete credits or for their college application.
ALSO CHECK OUT:
19 Easy Kindness Acts for Kids and 10 Kindness Lessons
19 Holiday Charity Ideas for Kids and Family
Here are good ideas for service projects!
How kids can help during the holidays?
- Collect new children’s books and give to kids at a shelter.
- Have a cookies and craft night for the kids at a shelter.
- Adopt a family from an Angel Tree OR host an angel tree with your group!
- Visit a nursing home and make holiday crafts with the residents.
- Make a freezer meals for an elderly neighbor or someone who is homebound.
- Collect donations for a local animal shelter.
- Spend time with animals at a local shelter.
- Surprise a teacher, Sunday school teacher, or mentor with a coffee or smoothie gift card and a note letting them know why they’re so special to you.
- Have a sock drive for kids in need.
- Donate scarves and mittens to a local shelter.
- Collect new board games to give to kids in need.
- Create holiday cards for kids in a children’s hospital.
- Send books to troops.
- Send a card, gift, or care package to a troop member.
- Offer to rake leaves, shovel snow, or do yard work for an elderly neighbor.
- Create a Little Free Library so everyone, no matter how much or how little money they have, has access to books!
- Make bird feeders for a local park, schools, or your own yards!
- Hand out blessing bags with hand warmers, gloves, socks, snack bars, etc. to give to the homeless community in your area.
- Collect food donations for shelters and soup kitchens. The holidays and cold weather see a spike in people using their resources. And, if they allow kids, sign up to help with meals during the holidays!
Holiday volunteering ideas are only limited by your imagination — even when you’re stuck at home!
We’d love to hear your ideas and add them to our list!
WHAT SERVICE PROJECTS WILL YOU ADD TO YOUR HOLIDAYS?
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