- Babysit for a single mom
- Teach compassion with a Family Giving Box
- Write a Family Mission Statement
- Bake cookies for your local fire dept.
- Pick up trash at local park as a family field trip
- Create snack packs for Ronald McDonald residents
- Welcome a new family to the neighborhood with a dessert and introduction
- Pray for the poor of the world
- Color a Smile-print coloring page to be given to lift someone in need up
- Make a baby care kit for a baby in need
- Take time each week to unplug as a family
- Donate your time or treasure to the Make a Wish Foundation
- Appreciate your church staff in some small, tangible way
- Do yard work for an elderly neighbor
- Make a Life Book for a child in Foster Care
- Read You Were Made to Make A Difference as a family
- Volunteer to cuddle babies at the hospital (older kids/teens are often allowed also)
- Read Christmas Jars as family
- Save loose change in a jar and give to a needy family at Christmas
- Take a family volunteering vacation
- Stop and say thank you to grocery clerks, waitresses. Ask them how they are doing.
- Become a monthly sponsor to help pregnant girls in Kenya
- Make a birthday cake for an underpriviledged child
- Serve at home: make each other’s beds, clean up someone else’s mess
- Write thank you notes to people who serve you: postman, yard guy, doctor, etc
- Sponsor a child monthly (cannot recommend enough)
- Make relief kits for disaster relief victims
- Sew a sleeping bag for someone in need (easy pattern)
- Volunteer at a non-profit
- Make up some Hygiene Bags to pass out to local homeless people
- Take your family on a tour of Red Cross
- Put a monthly date on the calendar for a Family Service Night
- Take a meal to a new family
- Create a card for Habitat for Humanity new home owner
- Encourage your older children to be a Mother’s Helper to a mom with young kids
- Fill a backpack to help give a homeless person a lift up
- Make birthday cards and deliver them to a local nursing home monthly
- Donate books to Africa
- Take your kids to a local Food Pantry with canned goods to donate
- Deliver food for Meals on Wheels
- Pray as a family on a regular basis for the people in your life.
- Donate your hair to Locks of Love.
- Give blood. (Take your kids with you and explain the importance).
- Donate nice toys to cancer ward at a Children’s Hospital
- Buy a mosquito net and help prevent malaria
- Randomly celebrate each other with a special treat, meal, time
- Donate school supplies to a classroom in need
- Compliment and thank the teachers in your life
- Buy a soccer ball for a child in poverty
- Give a used bike to a homeless person
- Donate coloring books/crayons to hospital emergency rooms
- Host a 40 hour famine in your home (fast something!)
- Give clothes to a family in need (call your church/school to find one)
- Read to a special needs child
- Only drink water for 2 weeks, give proceeds for clean water
- Buy a goat for a family in extreme poverty
- Give a donation in someone’s name to an organization you believe in
- Send your used shoes to Reuse-a-Shoe
- Become Certified Respite Caregivers to give Foster Family’s a babysitting
- Decorate a Christmas tree at an elderly person’s house
- Hold a collection drive: makeup, lotions, etc for women at a shelter
- Find a Food Bank near you to volunteer
- Deliver popcicles to children at a homeless shelter
- Offer your pet for therapy to the elderly
- Decorate nursing home rooms of residents with homemade art
- Have regular “family nights” with games, ice cream, time together
- Visit the NICU with treats for the doctors and anxious parents
- Write to unsponsored children
- Read to patients at a local hospital
- Plan a family missions trip
- Bake cookies, host a bake sale and donate money to the poor or a cause
- Volunteer at a local animal shelter
- Plant a garden and share the produce
- Hold a drive for lightly-used stuffed animals for police stations SAFE program
- Write letters to servicemen
- Give a micro loan and change a family in a third world country
- Smile. At everyone.
- Make care packages for children in the hospital
- Instead of a birthday gifts, ask for donations for a charity or food for a food pantry
- Shop fair trade
- Offer to decorate hospital hallways during the holidays
- Ask your city about volunteering to remove graffiti
- Host a Lemon-AID stand and donate proceeds Blood Water
- Make no-sew fleece blankets for Hospice
- Collect pencils for African children
- Send a care package to our military
- Read the Bible together as a family every day
- Collect shoes for Shoes for Kids (started by an 11 year old girl)
- Let kids choose a charity to donate to for one of their Christmas gifts
- Become a foster family
- Pay for someone’s drink in Starbuck’s drive-thru. Make sure your kids enjoy the act of kindness.
- Help your kids starts a neighborhood or school Bible Study with their peers
- Volunteer to plant flowers for your school/church flowerbeds
- Make a Care Bag for a child in need
- Adopt a child
- Welcome home a hero at the airport
- Complain less
- Start a Kindness Club with your family
- Let your light shine!
- Look for opportunities to be the difference in someone’s life
- Host a virtual food drive
- Start a KidzRap on your street!
- Purchase gifts through families fundraising for adoption.
- Make a quilt for NICU familes
- Pay the toll for the car behind you
- Invite friends to Vacation Bible School
- Help keep families together
- Take someone flowers from your garden
- Participate in Operation Christmas Child
What did I miss? Leave your ideas in the comments and I’ll add them!
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Hold a virtual food drive! I just started one on my blog
great idea! do you have a link so we can see how it works?
Certainly! I would love to share the link! It’s http://www.onlyabreath.com/hearts-against-hunger
Thank you! I’m going to print out this list!
Love This!!! My husband had just gotten back from a mission trip to Hackleburg AL to help with tornado clean up and our kids were so inspired to help out too…so, we finagled a stand and raised over $200 for hackleburghelpinghands.com…At A Lemonade Stand run by a 7 and 9 year old!!!! So, now we feel like God has told us to go big and see what He can do…this weekend we finished baking over 100 doz cookies to sell at a local 4th of July fest..100 doz cookies! I can’t say that I’ll ever bake a cookie again, but my momentary discomfort is nothing compared to what these people effected by the tornadoes have gone through!
I’m printing your list because I don’t want to stop with a lemonade stand—I want to grow giving, compassionate kids who know that there are greater needs out there then the next big toy!
God tells you nothing….if you hear a voice you should try seroquel….poor poor sheeple!!
I will pray for you my friend.
While I don’t agree with exactly how this person said it, I must agree that actions speak louder than words, no matter who those words are directed at. Instead of sitting home and spending a half hour praying, you could be out spending volunteer time at a soup kitchen, or at an animal shelter, or almost anywhere better than just sitting at home praying. I am not sure if there is a god, but I believe that if there were, that deity would prefer action over words. How would you feel if you were in charge of everything and instead of people doing great things on their own, they just depended on you to do all the amazing things? Wouldn’t you feel stressed, a little high-strung, etc? So let’s just suppose that god is real and that instead of praying for that god to solve our problems and other people’s problems, we take an active role and solve those problems ourselves. Let’s practice true activism regardless of creed, nationality, or race, and just help humanity out together!
For a person who is not sure if there is a god, you claim a pretty sure ‘belief’ of how that entity would think and behave. Further, as someone who doesn’t pray, you seem to have somehow figured out that prayer has only one unique nature (as a one-way communication from humans to God). You also presume to know that people only pray for God to solve humanity’s problems, a sophomoric notion, at best. Finally, you project human emotions on your imaginary god, such as ‘stressed-out and high-strung. Has it ever remotely occurred to you that you just might have strayed beyond your area of knowledge? Does reducing this topic to your limited level of understanding somehow make you feel qualified to comment authoritatively? If so, in what other areas do you express a de facto understanding?
Amen!
You are inspiring!
we are on the same wavelength about drinking water to give water. I decided, as the Lord led me last week, to drink only water when we go out to eat as a family and then donate the money at the end of the year (the money that I would have spent on iced tea at the restaurant) to Charity: Water. I have a page in my journal where I’m keeping track of how many “restaurant waters” I rack up so I know how much to give to Charity: Water at the end of the year. I figure $2 per drink, so we’re on our way. Also, this summer my family and I are living in an apartment complex populated mostly by college students. There are a LOT of aluminum cans left out by the pool and volleyball court each day (beer cans, Coke cans, etc.), so my family and I collect these cans (and dig plenty out of the garbage cause we’re just like that) in order to turn in for recycling and get cash in exchange. We get money that we’ll use to buy groceries for a church’s food bank at the end of the summer. In less than 4 weeks, we’ve collected almost 50 pounds!
That’s so awesome! Dumpster divin kinda weirds me out though! Lol
Kristen,
I just found your site and am so inspired! One thing we really enjoy doing with our kids is reading chapter books in PJ’s with a big bowl of popcorn–an alternative to movie nights! We try to select Newbery Award Winners and spend a lot of time discussing, making inferences, and predicting the events of the next several pages. How about #101: Make it through that book you’ve been dying to share with your kids…? Great list–thanks for compiling and sharing!
PS: I guess my idea doesn’t really “make a difference,” but it does in the lives of your children! Maybe they can draw a picture of their favorite scene and submit it to #9 on your list
Teach your friends and neighbors to serve others by starting a KidzRAP in your area or host a NeighborzRAP on your street -find everything you need to get going at http://www.kidzrap.com.
Don’t forget single dads (in regards to #1).
Sew a simple quilt for NICU
Offer respite to foster families
Sew a small quilt for kids in Foster Care
I like all of these, but personally I like #4 the best. As the wife of a former firefighter (he recently quit to be able to be home more with our 2 small boys) I have to say that these brave men and women do so much for so little pay. The pay stinks and most if not all firefighters have second jobs just to try and come close to making a decent living. They are gone for holidays, birthdays, Mother’s/Father’s Day, etc. They miss ball games, dance practice, school field trips, you name it. They do and see the most terrible and heartbreaking things. The smallest gestures of kindness from those they serve makes a huge difference!
I love, love, love all of these ideas! What a thoughtful list of doable things! So many of these ideas are simple and easy to do, but end up being pushed to the back of a busy schedule (at least with my family). We are on the trend of slowing down and cutting back and this gives me a, actually 100+, reasons to.
As a fundraising (for an adoption) family, we have tried to purchase our gifts through fundraising families. We have found great and unique gifts to give. I love giving a gift that gives twice!!
Thanks for these wonderful ideas!
Pay the Toll for the car behind you!
I love this list, Kristen! I shared it on FB before I even finished it. These are the things people need to hear. Thank you as always for being an inspiration. Hope you’re feeling better. XOXO
Thank you so much for this list! I am going to print this and see what we can incorporate with our little boys! I think we’ll be coloring pictures first (#9)!
Wow!!! I can tell this took a long time to create!!! Thank you so much for putting this together. It makes it so much easier to “do” something when you have something like this!!
Thank you for sharing these ideas. I too think that my children don’t realize how fortunate we (especially as Americans) are. We also try to participate in Operation Christmas Child through our church. It’s hard for me to have grown up spoiled not to do the same for my kids. We’ll definitely work on some of these items in the list. I want my children to be grateful, thankful givers. It doesn’t come automatically.
Fan.Tastic.
Thank you!!
Thank you for this list!
Share your outgrown clothing (and other home goods) with a family in need. This has been a real blessing for us as others have shared clothing with us. Someone shared some old sheets and curtains, and I used them to make clothing for my girls.
Bring a meal to someone who has been having a hard time lately.
Take someone flowers from your garden.
I was just looking at the Mercy House blog and reading about your first 3 beautiful girls and it became so real to me…I just had to tell you LOOK WHAT GOD DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is amazing, it is beautiful. I have been a follower of your blog for quite a while…before Mercy House at least. I love the vision that GOD gave you and the strength HE has carried you through with. When we are weak (laying in a hospital bed with kidney failure that makes NO sense) HE IS MADE STRONG.
I know you know that.
I just had to stop and spend a minute with you marveling at what God has done. It is amazing.
Help keep families together: http://www.apparentproject.org/
Invite kids to Vacation Bible School.
The school I teach at did a powdered drink mix drive for our military a year ago. Kids brought in individual packages of lemonade, gatorade, or SWEET TEA
. It was something simple and they really enjoyed it.
Wow! What a great list…I’m printing it out and putting it in my kids activity/growth/project binder!
This list is so helpful–thank you for sharing it! I’m going to post a link on my blog so that I can share it and keep it as a great reminder for our family.
http://www.growingamillerfamily.blogspot.com
~Gini
When my kids were growing up we always found something extra to pull together for a family in need … even when we ourselves had little for several years. I wanted my kids to see we had so many blessings that the Lord wanted us to share with someone who has even less. I am so proud of my kids now as adults and parents themselves. Each have continued this tradition with their own families.
Last year one of my daughters was helping (along with a few friends) a family who had lost nearly evrything. Things were tight for her family because of a job loss, but she told me “I just remembered that no matter how strapped we were, you always made sure we helped another family every Christmas. So I know I can still help no matter what.” I was so proud of her and her spirit of giving.
When you think about it the Lord truly owns all was have in our lives, and He expects us to share with our Brothers and Sisters. He expects us to take care of each other, especially children and our elderly. What joy this brings into our own lives.
I LOVE this list! I am sharing it with everyone I know. Thank you for following the inspiration you were given!
Love this! I’ll be sharing this post with others <3
I am glad to have found this list! I am German and recently married my American long time partner, moving to the USA. I got declined at all volunteer positions as my papers arent completely processed. Made me feel a bit helpless what to do with my time. All I did was sending packages to Alabama and care packages to Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan where my BIL has many comrades without families. Thanks so much for this list as i now have more points of contacts to be useful! Paula
This is such a great post, Kristen! I love you and your service-minded family.
(I also like your new family photos in those t-shirts). (Cute!).
I just wanted to thank you for posting this list! It has inspired me to commit to a hear (and hopefully beyond) working my way through the list with my children. You can follow along at my new blog!
I think the writer is a really good person.
But i would add at least one way of make a difference, show the truth.
By the way it’s too much proved what’s going on in this planet, for you see the truth search in Youtube: “Proof! A New World Order Can Emerge”.
Good Site.
This is lovely, some great ideas
James 1:27 in our day
I love this, there are a lot of really inspiring ideas here!
Pay the tab for someone in uniform when you’re at a convenience store or fast food restaurant. You wait until they have had their purchases rung up and then step forward and tell the cashier you’re paying.
Wonderful list! This is a great place to start shifting our focus in homeschool to mission-minded opportunities.
What a great list!! Best thing stumbled upon ever.
share the gospel
ghey
Hi!
Recently, a local quilt shop did a pet food drive. We discovered by calling the local food banks that they desperately want pet food donations! They said in this economy, they had discovered that people would buy food for their pets and go hungry themselves. They also deliver pet foods to shut ins, people that are ill, etc etc.
We were delighted to learn that pet food could be donated, and the organizations that distribute food to people actually have a section on the paperwork asking if recipients needed pet food, what kind, size, etc etc.
So, when you get food ready to donate to the local food bank, you can also help the fur kids of families that are struggling! It may make a difference in the lives of a family that can keep their pet, or a senior citizen that is unable to go to the store for food.
Fantastic list! Thank you for sharing and compiling all these great suggestions!
This article was rather inspiring and I’m so happy to see there are still families out there who want to help better humanity. I linked to this page from the forum on my site, might not provide much extra traffic right now but every set of eyeballs helps lol. Thank you for this article.
Another great thing to do as a family is to Live Below the Line (http://www.livebelowtheline.com.au) – eat on the extreme poverty line, $1.50, for 5 days. As it’s just for food (rather than everything – food, accommodation, healthcare etc), you can do it quite healthily, but it makes you appreciate how much choice we have and how much God has blessed us with.
what a great idea! that’s something i would love to show my kids.
I think your list is pretty wonderful. However, I feel like you put too much emphasis on the importance of religion and god in modern society. While I understand (I was raised in a Christian household) and respect your faith, I myself am an agnostic atheist and believe that actions are more powerful than words. As such, humans should spend time they would spend on potentially ineffective prayer and use that time to perform true unselfish actions. Humanity as a whole should focus on performing great acts because it is right and good and beneficial to humanity, rather than performing such deeds to appease a quite possibly unreal deity. I do not intend to undermine your entire list, as I absolutely love almost all of your suggestions, but what about the elderly that don’t have Christmas trees? Don’t they deserve some company? What about all the people in the world that are not Christians? You wouldn’t like it if someone tried to push their faith on you, would you? Maybe you should, instead of pushing a specific religious mission, try to help people of all faiths (or non-faith) live a more generous and gracious life, regardless of their beliefs. Not all religious people are good, and not all non-religious people are bad, and vice-versa. When you stop looking at the world from an entirely Christian viewpoint, I promise you will feel much more free and alive.
How in the world is this pushing faith on anyone? You can simply click the stumble button again.
I would imagine from your post that you grew up in home of confessing Christian, but one who did not actually live their lives as followers of Christ. Miller (1998) calls these types split personality Christians in which they attend church but do not live any other part of their life as a Christian. It is a particular worldview that he also calls evangelical gnosticism. He states that “never haring the challenge to be consciously Christian in their daily lives, they are conformed to the pattern of this world and have secular minds,” (p. 47). This type of lifestyle is rampant in our culture and causes great confusion as the message being sent is “do what I say and not as I do.” I have seen the effects of this up close and personal as it causes children in these homes and perceptive unbelievers to move further from Christ. One who lives a fully integrated Christian life who allows the character of Jesus to penetrate one’s own character cannot help but to draw people in by their radical acts of love which is not common in today’s society. I could go on and on with references and siting, but, for the sake of brevity, I will not.
A true Christian does not discriminate against who he or she helps. Christ did not discriminate as he helped everyone: prostitutes, adulterers, criminals, and ones who murdered his followers (Paul). The suggestions above did not imply that you only help Christians; however, they offered specific examples in a list full of many ideas that one could implement. The preconceived notion that Christians only help other Christians is brought on by the isolated lives that Christians can tend to live; however, just because some Christians tend to live in this manner, does not make it a biblical truth or practice.
Miller, Darrow L. (2001). Discipling nations. Seattle, WA: YWAM Publishing.
#1 and #42 at the same time is not a good idea for single dads.
Such a great list!!!! Thanks for putting it together, how practical!
i’m 20
and even just the first idea struck me as something so simple and do-able.
Amazing list, Definately a good way to use some of my breaks
Came across your blog this morning and it’s a breath of fresh air. what a family you have!! What wonderful things you are teaching your children to open their eyes to what’s important for a family working together making such a positive impact upon the world. This is great! Better than any television episode or any video game. God bless you all and thank you. You’ve made an impact upon me today and I am going to be sharing your list with my friends.
I came across your blog somehow (i’m not really sure how it happened) but I’m so glad it did! What a wonderful example you and your family are! I’ll be following!
donate to project rescue- an organization fighting to prevent and stop sex trafficking.
What a great list of ideas! My kids are still pretty young (just turned 2 & 6 months), but we’re trying to continually evaluate our lives to make sure we’re making a difference where God has planted us. We definitely want to teach that to our children. We’ve volunteered at a local food pantry and participated in some giving projects through our church.
Thanks for sharing a few more ideas that we can add to the list to do now, and some to do when the kids are a bit older!
Willa
As a foster mom of 6 I can agree that it would be fabulous to have some one come over and help me work on LifeBooks!~~!
I love your list! Something I want to learn how to do is to make sleeping mats for the homeless out of used plastic bags. Insects don’t like them, they’re better than sleeping on the ground and they can be washed (but not put in the dryer). Other things we’ve done in the past are shoveling mud off someone’s sidewalk after a flood (even with a group, shoveling mud 6-8 inches deep took 2 hours for just one family), leaving treats on someone’s doorstep – ringing the bell and running away before they see us (from the “Family Night Phantom!”), writing our own book -with illustrations- to send to an orphanage in Africa, cleaning an expectant mother’s house with my kids, fasting one day a month and giving the amount we would have spent on food to be given to needy families, putting people’s names on prayer rolls (prayer does work, you know), and lots of other things over the years. Just look and you’ll find many ways to help others and make their life better, if only for a moment in time. All of these things have been most rewarding to do.
I just have to say, your stuff is awesome too! You sound LDS.
That’s a good thing, a compliment, if you were wondering haha. It’s hard to tell in this world. But I am LDS so I like when people think I might be, haha. And all of us practicing Christian families have way more in common with one another than I think a lot of people would guess. So it’s no wonder! Anyway, you sound awesome and like a faithful Christian and a wonderful Child of God, how’s that?! 
Wow I really really love this list. And the stuff in the comment before mine too! (Comment #59) I shared this on FB and want to get us started on checking off every item tomorrow!
Thank you very much. I subscribed through my Reader and followed on FB too. I’ll be in often!
LOVE LOVE LOVE this!! Thank you! I have saved this post in multiple places so I can refer back to it (stumble, twitter, facebook). Thank you again!
Give money to support orphans in Ethiopia at http://www.futurehopecampaign.org. My friends and I started this movement to help support orphans in Ethiopia. We have been there and have seen the difference we can make.
Awesome list! So inspiring! Thanks for putting it together.
This list is so inspiring and makes me want to do more for my community, friends, and local authorities! I got a small case of the goosebumps while reading this! Some of these things I would probably not have thought of! Thank you!!!
Thank you so much for this great list. I have been trying to think of ways I can help and serve others with my young family… there are so many great ideas we can get started on right away. Thank you
Send your kids to public school (if it’s safe) and love on ALL the children there!!!! And the teachers!