June 23, 2021 • 25 mins
Tune into this episode for practical tips for engaging children in volunteerism and ways to practice empathy-building, which are also helpful for nonprofits. Family volunteerism is so impactful, and Sarah Aadland has joined us today to tell us why.
Sarah Aadland, MPP is striving to make family volunteering a meaningful habit for her three animal-loving, social-justice-seeking, mud-pie-making kiddos. As Director of Doing Good Together's Big-Hearted Families™ Program, she creates resources for families that want to develop a kindness practice at home. For her own family and for participants in the Big-Hearted Families Membership Circle, Sarah has watched family volunteering create empowered kids, more connected families, and stronger communities.
Sarah Aadland, MPP is striving to make family volunteering a meaningful habit for her three animal-loving, social-justice-seeking, mud-pie-making kiddos. As Director of Doing Good Together's Big-Hearted Families™ Program, she creates resources for families that want to develop a kindness practice at home. For her own family and for participants in the Big-Hearted Families Membership Circle, Sarah has watched family volunteering create empowered kids, more connected families, and stronger communities.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Hello, friends, Welcome to readFinding Volunteerism, a podcast by hands on
Twin Cities. I'm Tracy Nielsen,the executive director of hands On Twin Cities,
and I'm your host. I'm particularlythrilled about today's episode because it helps
(00:37):
answer a question that our team fieldsall the time. How should I approach
volunteerism with my kids? And wheredo I find these opportunities? Such great
questions for busy parents who want tospend time with their kids while still contributing
to their community. Volunteering as afamily is an ideal activity and the benefits
are enormous, but there can bea lot of questions, barriers, and
(00:59):
just things that can seem prohibitive.So I was really excited when our partner,
Sarah at Doing Good Together agreed tojoin me for a conversation all about
volunteering with children of all ages.Sarah Adland is a program director for Doing
Good Together. She creates and curatesthe Bighearted Families Toolkit I'm Doing Good Together
dot org, a collection of resourcesfor families who want to teach kindness and
(01:22):
generosity at home. I know you'reas excited as I am to learn from
Sarah, so let's dive in.Hi, Sarah, thank you so much
for being with us today to kickthings off. Can you give us a
little overview of who you are andwhat Doing Good Together is? Absolutely,
Tracy, It's great to be heretoday. I am Sarah Adland. I'm
(01:47):
one of the directors at Doing GoodTogether. We're a Minneapolis based nonprofit,
but we have a natched national reach. Our mission is to help families raise
kids who care and contribute. That'sthe sill tagline. What we do is
provide tools and resources so that littlelessons in generosity are as easy to share
(02:07):
as possible, from the time kidsare very little all the way up through
middle grade in high school level awesome. So let's just start at the very
beginning. You know, families arebusier than ever these days. Why should
they volunteer? Can you share withus some of the benefits of volunteerism.
The research around this area is growingso quickly and it's so overwhelmingly positive.
(02:32):
The impact that volunteering with your familyhas on your kids is really incredible because
it makes them It boosts that selfesteem, so it makes them feel like
they can be part of the problemsthey see in the world. Which will
serve them well their whole life.It boosts academic success, it boosts obviously
(02:53):
social and emotional growth. They findmaking friends easier. All of these these
little social benefits come from taking thetime to volunteer with your family, noticing
need, responding to it. Thoseare skills that'll suber your whole life.
They strengthen the family. Volunteering togetheras a family strengthens those bonds. Families
(03:15):
get to share their values with theirkids. Parents get to share their values
with their kids while making super funmemories. Some of these volunteer experiences our
things families will talk about for yearsto come, and although while they're making
a real, meaningful, measurable differencein their communities, if it's done right,
all families, all kids recognize busywork when they see it and don't
(03:36):
want to just do stuff that doesn'thave meanings. So if you pick a
really good, meaningful volunteer effort,your kids are going to carry that forever
for generations to come. In fact, kids who volunteer with their families are
twice as likely to volunteer as adults, so it really does have an impact
all the way through. Wow,So we think of volunteers as kind of
(04:00):
like these individual actions. But Inoticed on your website that you don't just
talk about volunteering per se, butyou talk about raising engage citizens. Tell
us more about this expanse of view. Yeah, that's so right. We
love volunteer opportunities. In fact,doing it together got our start with these
volunteer listings. We offer them inmultiple cities around the country now and it
(04:25):
helps families find these, you know, once a month or once every two
months, however often you want todo it, these volunteer opportunities with your
kids, and these are great.These are the memory makers you're going to
talk about forever. But a lothappens in a month or two months,
a lot of family time happens,and these are opportunities to develop habits and
rituals that teach generosity in your everydaylife. Those are the activities that are
(04:49):
going to really build up the fabricof your child as a generous, giving,
engage citizen. Somebody that notices problemsin their community and wants to be
part of the solution, recognizes theyhave the ability to be part of the
solution. These are lessons we canteach all the time in fact by doing
(05:10):
good together. We talk often aboutkind of the four pillars of a kindness
practice. The first one is thatonce in a while volunteer opportunity that you
can find in our newsletter and ourlistings. That is, you know,
serving at a food bank, orrepackaging rice and beans at the food bank,
something like that. Those happen oncein a while. But the second
(05:31):
pillar is this idea of habits,forming rituals and habits of kindness into your
everyday family life. There are manyexamples of them, but reading bighearted books
before bedtime, having a mindful momentin the morning at breakfast to talk about
how you're feeling and just take afew moments to breathe and calm, get
(05:51):
calm before your day. There areall kinds of different things you can do
that we've the sort of sense ofcalm and connection into your everyday life.
The third pillar is really reading togetheras a practice as a family book club,
having these conversations about challenging issues viathe platform of books and doing it
(06:13):
together offers a lot of different booklists on everything from homelessness to literacy to
hunger and nature, so check thoseout. And then the fourth one is
reflection and this idea that you arealways going to be having conversations with your
kids about these well, whatever iscoming up, whatever headline they may have
(06:33):
overheard in the news, whatever isconcerning them at school, about a bully
or something that's going on. It'seasy when you're busy and you're in the
middle of making dinner and trying toget out the door to brush those conversations
aside. But having the wherewithal tostop and have those conversations with your kids
when they arise naturally is really animportant part of raising kind and empowered kids.
(06:58):
So it sounds like this big andsmall can be really impactful. How
do families really get started? Ifthey're like, hey, you know they're
listening to you talk right now,and they're like, that sounds amazing.
Where do you begin in this journey? Doing good Together? Dot Org is
our website, and you will findpossibly an overwhelming number of tools there.
(07:23):
We have a free newsletter and afree volunteer listing for I think we're up
to twelve ten or twelve cities aroundthe country right now, So find your
city and get on that newsletter andwe'll start giving you those those once in
a while volunteer opportunities as well asconnecting you with our news letters connect you
with these big ideas. They're topical. So the last one was about boredom.
(07:44):
How do we how do we useboredom to its best effect with our
kids? And I'm sure nobody's experiencingboredom going the pandemic, right, Yeah,
nobody's had that whiny kid and thought, I have no more ideas.
It's been a year and I'm out. So we help you. We give
you more ideas. So that newsletteris a great place to start. We
actually offer on our website this wholekit, the Bighearted Family's Toolkit that offers
(08:09):
project ideas and reflection tools and principles. So the best way to use the
site, I think, is tocome at it with a sense of what
your family already likes to do together. If your nature lovers, go to
the Heal the Earth section and digthrough that collection and find a project that
speaks to you. We've got funnature scavenger hunts and fun different way of
bird seed cookies, different ways toget kids engaged in nature, and every
(08:33):
project on our site also has conversationstarters and book recommendations. So you want
to. Maybe you're interested in thefood shelf. Find books about hunger and
poverty that are totally age appropriate andinspire your kid to want to give back.
Absolutely, some of us might be. We get calls often in hands
on twin cities. You know,I have a two year old, I
have a three year old. Someorganizations, you know they have certain age
(08:58):
restrictions. Is there such a thingas too young to volunteer? One of
my favorite volunteering moments as a parentwas when my son, my youngest,
was an infant and for Valentine's Day, we volunteered at a memory care center
and back when we could go inand hug people, he got passed around.
All these older folks got to cuddlethis baby and told these beautiful stories
(09:20):
about their memories of their babies.And he doesn't remember it, but it
was very moving for me and gotus into some more senior care volunteering opportunities.
So no, there's no age istoo young. We actually hear these
questions all the time too, andthat's part of the reason we gather these
newsletters and these listings, because itdoes connect people with opportunities for all ages,
(09:46):
toddlers and babies won't probably understand orremember it as much, although it
will be part of the fabric ofhow they grow up, so it's still
impactful. But really that two,three, four preschool age is when they
start to be aware, Oh Ican color this page and I can give
it to somebody and look they smile. That makes them happy, and that
happiness that I'm sharing with them makesme feel happy. So at that age
(10:09):
you can really do a lot.And I know a lot of families have
kids at multiple age groups. Sowhen you're working with your third grader,
yeah, bring the five year oldalong, bring the three year old along.
You can do You can do thingswith multiple age groups. You just
need to scale it a little bit. Absolutely. So you've already touched on
a few examples, but can yougive us a variety of different sort of
(10:31):
project examples for different age groups.Yeah. Actually, I was kind of
brainstorming before we talked, because ifyou're whatever you're interested in, I really
think it has to start with whatyour family is interested in dealing with,
or what your kid is concerned about. Kids will hear words on the news
like climate crisis and get scared andreally worry about that. So maybe you
(10:52):
want to address that worry with action. That always feels better, So sign
up for one of the local parkcleanups. Those are always fun and often
will allow multiple age groups to participate. And once you've participated in cleaning up
the Mississippi River or wherever you wereable to do that, then you pack
your backpack when you go to thepark and always have a pair of gardening
(11:15):
gloves and a plastic bag in there. And now you're in charge of picking
up your own park. Whenever yougo, you clean that up, and
you can be reading these There's somany great environmentalist books out there. I
just got the We Are water Keepers. I forget the name of the title.
I just got a bunch of thelibrary. There's so many wonderful environmentalist
(11:35):
books. We've got tons of listsin our website. So you read about
it, you're doing it, youcommunity, your volunteer in the community with
those projects. That's one way todeal with the issue of environmentalism. Hunger
is the other issue that we reallyI mean, it's so tangible. Every
kid is hungry multiple times a day, and so to think about another child
(11:56):
being hungry is a scary thought.We love to encourage families to sponsor their
local food self as an ongoing basis. Get a box, you know,
take one of those old Amazon boxes, decorate it up with coloring pages or
you know why you want to helpthe hungry, or your favorite food you'd
like to donate to have the kidsdecorated. And then every time you go
(12:18):
to the grocery store, get oneextra thing, get another favorite box of
cereals and granola bars, and oncea month donate that to your local food
pantry. Bring your child with,let them see where that is, let
them know that hunger isn't the faraway issue. It's right here in our
community, and we can help makea difference. We're responsible for helping make
a difference. And then when youhave older kids, you can have them
(12:39):
do shift work at the food pantry. They'll feel like they're connected. Absolutely,
So talking about the issue of likebringing your kids so that they can
see some of the complex issues withinour community, such as at the food
bank. So you know, parentscome to us, they're like, we
want to be there on Thanksgiving toserve the meal so that our kids can
see the There are others less fortunate, you know, there are some very
(13:03):
complex, systemic inequities within our communitythat need to be addressed as we sort
of unpack that. How do youhave those conversations with you your kids before
going to a food pantry or duringthe experience. That's exactly right. We
emphasize before, during, and afteras an crucial piece of reflection. Before
(13:24):
it's always really helpful to let kidsknow what they're going to see, giving
them a little bit of a senseof not control, but just awareness about
what they're going to notice, andlet them know that it's totally okay to
ask questions, but they should maybepull you aside and ask them quietly so
they don't hurt anybody's feelings. Butquestions are good, and we have to
(13:46):
as parents get over the discomfort thatwe feel because there's a sense that you
want your kid to be happy andhave this beautiful childhood. You also want
them to do good things in theworld and know these things. But those
two ideas conflict. You feel sadwhen you introduce your child to longstanding systemic
problems in our community that I certainlydon't know how to fix, much less
(14:07):
when to put on my child.But the fact is they are going to
notice these problems anyway. Especially whenwe're volunteering. That's part of why we
wanted to do this right, sothey're aware of what's going on in the
world. The biggest tool we haveright now are the amazing picture books.
And I'm saying this even for themiddle grade students. These picture books are
distilling some of these issues down intoways that parents can easily talk about them.
(14:30):
So get go on our site,find your list of picture books about
hunger and homelessness and whatever else you'regoing to tackle. Read a good book
beforehand, and talk about how itwould feel to be in these other people's
shoes, how you can make animpact, and who can make the biggest
impact. Start advocating. We havean advocacy section on our site that has
(14:54):
printiples. You can have your kidfill them out and send them to your
legislator and it gets you thinking aboutthese ideas and then holding the change they're
true policymakers to account for these issues, and that does feel like it makes
a difference too. Absolutely. Imean, learning about how to impact policy,
it's probably something just as important asactually going out and sort of serving
(15:16):
the food and doing those kinds ofthings. So you talked a little bit
about this sort of the preparation weall know that. You know, sometimes
kids might melt down, whether maybethey're a young child or they're a teenager,
if something happens while you're actually outvolunteering, you know, any suggestion
for parents if a tricky question comesup or something. I'm not that anything
(15:41):
ever goes wrong, right, Ohmy gosh. Yeah, I've had all
kinds of hilarious experiences. We deliveredmeals on whales when my kids were very
little, and yeah, you know, the four year old loved it,
but the two year old was meltingdown about halfway through our route, and
it gets tricky. Parents everywhere arepretty good at power through when the work
just has to be done. Butfor the most part, especially because that's
(16:06):
why organizations have age ranges and requirements, so you're not going to probably be
in a position where you're serving ameal at a soup kitchen and can't help
because they don't let very young childrencome to those events, or if they
do, they usually recommend that youbring another adult, So bring your spouse
or bring a friend so that youcan divide and conquer. If one kid
is having a meltdown, you canstill be serving the meal. That's always
(16:29):
a good idea. And the otherthing is kids really respond to responsibility,
and so you know, especially yourteams, that they'll melt down at home
all day long, but they're notgoing to melt down at the event because
they understand that this is something,this is their job, this is something
they're responsible for. These people arerelying on them. The other challenge that
(16:51):
comes up is that the questions,the questions that feel in appropriate at difficult
moments. Letting them know to askthose questions quietly is one too well.
Not shaming them for the questions isanother big one, because their questions usually
come from a place and just earnestness, and we feel embarrassed because we know
it's a step in the wrong direction. But the more we say, oh
(17:11):
god, don't answer that, itgives them a sense that something's wrong with
this thing. They've noticed it,you know, and if it's something about
a specific person, we don't wantto shame that feature that thing they've noticed
that's not okay. So it's betterto just earnestly answer the question. These
are tools we may want to practicethat might be our homework before the event
(17:33):
is looking up good ways to havethose conversations, but they usually do work
themselves out because a lot of thatstuff happens at home after the fact,
and you can say, well,let's learn about this together. Yes.
Well, I love the integration ofthe reflection tool because I think that's something
that a lot of us. Youknow, you go, you do the
activity, and then you're done,you feel great, But I think taking
(17:53):
the moment to look back on itis equally as important as well. Ohen
for younger kids, you can usethat at home reflection piece even later because
they love to hear the stories aboutwhat they've done. So six months later,
remind them that you had this coolexperience and ask if they've noticed any
and if it's brought anything else tomind. You have these conversations once,
(18:15):
but they come they circle back withkids. I love that. Yes,
so not even just right after,but a few months later, as families
are busy many moving parts. Howdo you like time seems to be some
of the biggest issues that people have. How do you find ways to integrate
this into your life that doesn't feellike impossible or overwhelming? Right the biggest
(18:41):
goal is to not overwhelm yourself,because then you're more likely to wash your
hands of the whole thing. Andyou know, say what we've all said
at one point or another, we'lldo this when they're older. And I've
got to say, my kids arenow fifteen, thirteen, and nine.
We've been at this a long time. I've been doing this since my oldest
was four. Really glad I didn'tsay when, we'll do it when you're
older, because man, that's happeningquickly. So it's good to get started,
(19:06):
even if you're busy, if thisis a value that you have,
and you know, the research saysparents across the country value raising compassionate kids
over raising and we want them tobe successful, we want them to be
happy. But the biggest goal forparents across every demographic is to raise compassionate
kids. Kids are telling us they'reseeing the opposite when in the same pool,
(19:27):
kids are saying their parents want themto be successful and happy and then
compassionate. We need to flip that. We need to live our values so
that they can see that that's whatwe care about. So it deserves time
on our calendar. But we don'twant to get overwhelmed. So really start
where you are, Start with whatyour family already likes to do together.
(19:48):
If you're a family that loves tocook and loves to have family meals together,
maybe that food shelf idea is agood one for you. If your
family is very outdoorsy, maybe thepark's idea is the one for you.
Maybe you have really crafty, artistickids. We'll set up a corner in
your kitchen with your art supplies andlet them know that we're this month we're
(20:10):
writing letters to the elderly. There'san organization called Letters to the Elderly,
and you can write your letters andmake beautiful cards and whenever you have a
little bit of downtime, and that'sthe thing you're doing when you have time,
when you have those two exhausted todo anything. We give yourself a
pass, be gracious, but makeit a priority and find ways to build
(20:30):
it into what you already love todo. Absolutely, absolutely, And as
you mentioned during quarantine, probably kidswho are seeking some of those activities.
Oh yeah, yes, yeah,absolutely. Can you just share you've touched
on it a bit, but alittle bit more about kind of the resources
and workshops that you have available throughdoing good Together and how people can access
(20:52):
those items. Absolutely, so againI'm going to highly recommend you go out
and subscribe to our free monthly volunteerlistings and newsletters. We've got one for
the Twin Cities here, but we'vegot them all over the country and the
newsletter is proving to be an invaluableresource. In addition to that, just
browsing our project pages and our bookpages based on your own family's interests will
(21:17):
give you a great sense of whereyou can start. And it's so full
of conversation starters that whatever issue youwant to start talking about will help guide
you. Because I know these thingscan be challenging, but they're not impossible,
and there's so many wonderful experts workingon how to talk to kids about
these issues. What we'll connect youwith the right thing. We do offer
(21:37):
workshops for ptas and ECFE groups andbusinesses and schools that want to have kind
of a workshop for parents to thinkthrough how they can weave these pieces into
their everyday life, so that you'llfind on our website. Also reach out
I am at Sarah as they areah at doing Good Together dot org.
(21:57):
Send me an email. I'm happyto help you get started. I love
hearing from families that want that areon the beginning of their journey in this
because there's so much energy there andit's fun to give you the right tools
to get started well. Your passionobviously comes through for the work that you're
doing, and we're really just fortunateto have a resource like doing good together
in our community. We point toyou all the time when families come to
(22:22):
us and are looking for ways toengage their their children, So we're very
fortunate for that. As a lastquestion, just anything else that you feel
like our listeners need to know relatedto volunteering as a family or engaging youth
in volunteerism. I think I wouldlove families to know that the reflection piece
(22:44):
in the service piece. It canfeel awkward to start, It can feel
forced or like you're trying to givethem their spoonful of medicine, because this
is the good thing we're supposed todo. But push through that awkwardness or
that contrived feeling in the beginning,and this really will become a part of
the nature of how you live asa family, and it will feel natural,
(23:07):
and it will feel joyful, andyou'll have all these wonderful memories to
draw from and some humorous memories todraw from as you try and stumble and
make a difference in your community.It feels good to do good. Oh
I love that. That seems likea perfect way to close things out.
Sarah, thank you so much forjoining us. I think that families and
(23:30):
listeners hopefully learned a lot. Iknow I did, and we just really
appreciate you taking the time to bewith us today. Thanks so much for
all you do too, and thanksfor having us us. Wasn't that fantastic?
Huge thanks to Sarah for sharing thisinformation with all of us. Sarah
(23:52):
talked about a bunch of resources thatare available on the Doing Good Together website
doing Good Together dot org, includingtool kids, articles, project examples,
and conversation starters. So many waysto mindfully inspire kindness and engagement in your
child. Also, if you're lookingfor opportunities to volunteer with kiddos, you
can, of course head on overto hands on twin cities dot org and
(24:15):
do a tailored search by age.Let's sit back and imagine what would be
possible for this world if all kidsgrew up valuing empathy, kindness, and
social responsibility. That idea fills mewith hope and optimism and I hope it
does for you too. Thank youso much for listening. For more information
(24:37):
about Hands on Twin Cities and tofollow us on social media, head to
our website. Redefining Volunteerism is aproduction of Matriarch Digital Media executive producer Twila
Day and producer and editor Beth Gibbs, and special thanks to Sarah Edwards,
Grace McAvoy and Ella Cochrane. Fromsome great people, Let's get out there
(24:57):
and be the change. Together wecan build a more equitable and thriving community.
Hello, friends, Welcome to readFinding Volunteerism, a podcast by hands on
Twin Cities. I'm Tracy Nielsen,the executive director of hands On Twin Cities,
and I'm your host. I'm particularlythrilled about today's episode because it helps
(00:37):
answer a question that our team fieldsall the time. How should I approach
volunteerism with my kids? And wheredo I find these opportunities? Such great
questions for busy parents who want tospend time with their kids while still contributing
to their community. Volunteering as afamily is an ideal activity and the benefits
are enormous, but there can bea lot of questions, barriers, and
(00:59):
just things that can seem prohibitive.So I was really excited when our partner,
Sarah at Doing Good Together agreed tojoin me for a conversation all about
volunteering with children of all ages.Sarah Adland is a program director for Doing
Good Together. She creates and curatesthe Bighearted Families Toolkit I'm Doing Good Together
dot org, a collection of resourcesfor families who want to teach kindness and
(01:22):
generosity at home. I know you'reas excited as I am to learn from
Sarah, so let's dive in.Hi, Sarah, thank you so much
for being with us today to kickthings off. Can you give us a
little overview of who you are andwhat Doing Good Together is? Absolutely,
Tracy, It's great to be heretoday. I am Sarah Adland. I'm
(01:47):
one of the directors at Doing GoodTogether. We're a Minneapolis based nonprofit,
but we have a natched national reach. Our mission is to help families raise
kids who care and contribute. That'sthe sill tagline. What we do is
provide tools and resources so that littlelessons in generosity are as easy to share
(02:07):
as possible, from the time kidsare very little all the way up through
middle grade in high school level awesome. So let's just start at the very
beginning. You know, families arebusier than ever these days. Why should
they volunteer? Can you share withus some of the benefits of volunteerism.
The research around this area is growingso quickly and it's so overwhelmingly positive.
(02:32):
The impact that volunteering with your familyhas on your kids is really incredible because
it makes them It boosts that selfesteem, so it makes them feel like
they can be part of the problemsthey see in the world. Which will
serve them well their whole life.It boosts academic success, it boosts obviously
(02:53):
social and emotional growth. They findmaking friends easier. All of these these
little social benefits come from taking thetime to volunteer with your family, noticing
need, responding to it. Thoseare skills that'll suber your whole life.
They strengthen the family. Volunteering togetheras a family strengthens those bonds. Families
(03:15):
get to share their values with theirkids. Parents get to share their values
with their kids while making super funmemories. Some of these volunteer experiences our
things families will talk about for yearsto come, and although while they're making
a real, meaningful, measurable differencein their communities, if it's done right,
all families, all kids recognize busywork when they see it and don't
(03:36):
want to just do stuff that doesn'thave meanings. So if you pick a
really good, meaningful volunteer effort,your kids are going to carry that forever
for generations to come. In fact, kids who volunteer with their families are
twice as likely to volunteer as adults, so it really does have an impact
all the way through. Wow,So we think of volunteers as kind of
(04:00):
like these individual actions. But Inoticed on your website that you don't just
talk about volunteering per se, butyou talk about raising engage citizens. Tell
us more about this expanse of view. Yeah, that's so right. We
love volunteer opportunities. In fact,doing it together got our start with these
volunteer listings. We offer them inmultiple cities around the country now and it
(04:25):
helps families find these, you know, once a month or once every two
months, however often you want todo it, these volunteer opportunities with your
kids, and these are great.These are the memory makers you're going to
talk about forever. But a lothappens in a month or two months,
a lot of family time happens,and these are opportunities to develop habits and
rituals that teach generosity in your everydaylife. Those are the activities that are
(04:49):
going to really build up the fabricof your child as a generous, giving,
engage citizen. Somebody that notices problemsin their community and wants to be
part of the solution, recognizes theyhave the ability to be part of the
solution. These are lessons we canteach all the time in fact by doing
(05:10):
good together. We talk often aboutkind of the four pillars of a kindness
practice. The first one is thatonce in a while volunteer opportunity that you
can find in our newsletter and ourlistings. That is, you know,
serving at a food bank, orrepackaging rice and beans at the food bank,
something like that. Those happen oncein a while. But the second
(05:31):
pillar is this idea of habits,forming rituals and habits of kindness into your
everyday family life. There are manyexamples of them, but reading bighearted books
before bedtime, having a mindful momentin the morning at breakfast to talk about
how you're feeling and just take afew moments to breathe and calm, get
(05:51):
calm before your day. There areall kinds of different things you can do
that we've the sort of sense ofcalm and connection into your everyday life.
The third pillar is really reading togetheras a practice as a family book club,
having these conversations about challenging issues viathe platform of books and doing it
(06:13):
together offers a lot of different booklists on everything from homelessness to literacy to
hunger and nature, so check thoseout. And then the fourth one is
reflection and this idea that you arealways going to be having conversations with your
kids about these well, whatever iscoming up, whatever headline they may have
(06:33):
overheard in the news, whatever isconcerning them at school, about a bully
or something that's going on. It'seasy when you're busy and you're in the
middle of making dinner and trying toget out the door to brush those conversations
aside. But having the wherewithal tostop and have those conversations with your kids
when they arise naturally is really animportant part of raising kind and empowered kids.
(06:58):
So it sounds like this big andsmall can be really impactful. How
do families really get started? Ifthey're like, hey, you know they're
listening to you talk right now,and they're like, that sounds amazing.
Where do you begin in this journey? Doing good Together? Dot Org is
our website, and you will findpossibly an overwhelming number of tools there.
(07:23):
We have a free newsletter and afree volunteer listing for I think we're up
to twelve ten or twelve cities aroundthe country right now, So find your
city and get on that newsletter andwe'll start giving you those those once in
a while volunteer opportunities as well asconnecting you with our news letters connect you
with these big ideas. They're topical. So the last one was about boredom.
(07:44):
How do we how do we useboredom to its best effect with our
kids? And I'm sure nobody's experiencingboredom going the pandemic, right, Yeah,
nobody's had that whiny kid and thought, I have no more ideas.
It's been a year and I'm out. So we help you. We give
you more ideas. So that newsletteris a great place to start. We
actually offer on our website this wholekit, the Bighearted Family's Toolkit that offers
(08:09):
project ideas and reflection tools and principles. So the best way to use the
site, I think, is tocome at it with a sense of what
your family already likes to do together. If your nature lovers, go to
the Heal the Earth section and digthrough that collection and find a project that
speaks to you. We've got funnature scavenger hunts and fun different way of
bird seed cookies, different ways toget kids engaged in nature, and every
(08:33):
project on our site also has conversationstarters and book recommendations. So you want
to. Maybe you're interested in thefood shelf. Find books about hunger and
poverty that are totally age appropriate andinspire your kid to want to give back.
Absolutely, some of us might be. We get calls often in hands
on twin cities. You know,I have a two year old, I
have a three year old. Someorganizations, you know they have certain age
(08:58):
restrictions. Is there such a thingas too young to volunteer? One of
my favorite volunteering moments as a parentwas when my son, my youngest,
was an infant and for Valentine's Day, we volunteered at a memory care center
and back when we could go inand hug people, he got passed around.
All these older folks got to cuddlethis baby and told these beautiful stories
(09:20):
about their memories of their babies.And he doesn't remember it, but it
was very moving for me and gotus into some more senior care volunteering opportunities.
So no, there's no age istoo young. We actually hear these
questions all the time too, andthat's part of the reason we gather these
newsletters and these listings, because itdoes connect people with opportunities for all ages,
(09:46):
toddlers and babies won't probably understand orremember it as much, although it
will be part of the fabric ofhow they grow up, so it's still
impactful. But really that two,three, four preschool age is when they
start to be aware, Oh Ican color this page and I can give
it to somebody and look they smile. That makes them happy, and that
happiness that I'm sharing with them makesme feel happy. So at that age
(10:09):
you can really do a lot.And I know a lot of families have
kids at multiple age groups. Sowhen you're working with your third grader,
yeah, bring the five year oldalong, bring the three year old along.
You can do You can do thingswith multiple age groups. You just
need to scale it a little bit. Absolutely. So you've already touched on
a few examples, but can yougive us a variety of different sort of
(10:31):
project examples for different age groups.Yeah. Actually, I was kind of
brainstorming before we talked, because ifyou're whatever you're interested in, I really
think it has to start with whatyour family is interested in dealing with,
or what your kid is concerned about. Kids will hear words on the news
like climate crisis and get scared andreally worry about that. So maybe you
(10:52):
want to address that worry with action. That always feels better, So sign
up for one of the local parkcleanups. Those are always fun and often
will allow multiple age groups to participate. And once you've participated in cleaning up
the Mississippi River or wherever you wereable to do that, then you pack
your backpack when you go to thepark and always have a pair of gardening
(11:15):
gloves and a plastic bag in there. And now you're in charge of picking
up your own park. Whenever yougo, you clean that up, and
you can be reading these There's somany great environmentalist books out there. I
just got the We Are water Keepers. I forget the name of the title.
I just got a bunch of thelibrary. There's so many wonderful environmentalist
(11:35):
books. We've got tons of listsin our website. So you read about
it, you're doing it, youcommunity, your volunteer in the community with
those projects. That's one way todeal with the issue of environmentalism. Hunger
is the other issue that we reallyI mean, it's so tangible. Every
kid is hungry multiple times a day, and so to think about another child
(11:56):
being hungry is a scary thought.We love to encourage families to sponsor their
local food self as an ongoing basis. Get a box, you know,
take one of those old Amazon boxes, decorate it up with coloring pages or
you know why you want to helpthe hungry, or your favorite food you'd
like to donate to have the kidsdecorated. And then every time you go
(12:18):
to the grocery store, get oneextra thing, get another favorite box of
cereals and granola bars, and oncea month donate that to your local food
pantry. Bring your child with,let them see where that is, let
them know that hunger isn't the faraway issue. It's right here in our
community, and we can help makea difference. We're responsible for helping make
a difference. And then when youhave older kids, you can have them
(12:39):
do shift work at the food pantry. They'll feel like they're connected. Absolutely,
So talking about the issue of likebringing your kids so that they can
see some of the complex issues withinour community, such as at the food
bank. So you know, parentscome to us, they're like, we
want to be there on Thanksgiving toserve the meal so that our kids can
see the There are others less fortunate, you know, there are some very
(13:03):
complex, systemic inequities within our communitythat need to be addressed as we sort
of unpack that. How do youhave those conversations with you your kids before
going to a food pantry or duringthe experience. That's exactly right. We
emphasize before, during, and afteras an crucial piece of reflection. Before
(13:24):
it's always really helpful to let kidsknow what they're going to see, giving
them a little bit of a senseof not control, but just awareness about
what they're going to notice, andlet them know that it's totally okay to
ask questions, but they should maybepull you aside and ask them quietly so
they don't hurt anybody's feelings. Butquestions are good, and we have to
(13:46):
as parents get over the discomfort thatwe feel because there's a sense that you
want your kid to be happy andhave this beautiful childhood. You also want
them to do good things in theworld and know these things. But those
two ideas conflict. You feel sadwhen you introduce your child to longstanding systemic
problems in our community that I certainlydon't know how to fix, much less
(14:07):
when to put on my child.But the fact is they are going to
notice these problems anyway. Especially whenwe're volunteering. That's part of why we
wanted to do this right, sothey're aware of what's going on in the
world. The biggest tool we haveright now are the amazing picture books.
And I'm saying this even for themiddle grade students. These picture books are
distilling some of these issues down intoways that parents can easily talk about them.
(14:30):
So get go on our site,find your list of picture books about
hunger and homelessness and whatever else you'regoing to tackle. Read a good book
beforehand, and talk about how itwould feel to be in these other people's
shoes, how you can make animpact, and who can make the biggest
impact. Start advocating. We havean advocacy section on our site that has
(14:54):
printiples. You can have your kidfill them out and send them to your
legislator and it gets you thinking aboutthese ideas and then holding the change they're
true policymakers to account for these issues, and that does feel like it makes
a difference too. Absolutely. Imean, learning about how to impact policy,
it's probably something just as important asactually going out and sort of serving
(15:16):
the food and doing those kinds ofthings. So you talked a little bit
about this sort of the preparation weall know that. You know, sometimes
kids might melt down, whether maybethey're a young child or they're a teenager,
if something happens while you're actually outvolunteering, you know, any suggestion
for parents if a tricky question comesup or something. I'm not that anything
(15:41):
ever goes wrong, right, Ohmy gosh. Yeah, I've had all
kinds of hilarious experiences. We deliveredmeals on whales when my kids were very
little, and yeah, you know, the four year old loved it,
but the two year old was meltingdown about halfway through our route, and
it gets tricky. Parents everywhere arepretty good at power through when the work
just has to be done. Butfor the most part, especially because that's
(16:06):
why organizations have age ranges and requirements, so you're not going to probably be
in a position where you're serving ameal at a soup kitchen and can't help
because they don't let very young childrencome to those events, or if they
do, they usually recommend that youbring another adult, So bring your spouse
or bring a friend so that youcan divide and conquer. If one kid
is having a meltdown, you canstill be serving the meal. That's always
(16:29):
a good idea. And the otherthing is kids really respond to responsibility,
and so you know, especially yourteams, that they'll melt down at home
all day long, but they're notgoing to melt down at the event because
they understand that this is something,this is their job, this is something
they're responsible for. These people arerelying on them. The other challenge that
(16:51):
comes up is that the questions,the questions that feel in appropriate at difficult
moments. Letting them know to askthose questions quietly is one too well.
Not shaming them for the questions isanother big one, because their questions usually
come from a place and just earnestness, and we feel embarrassed because we know
it's a step in the wrong direction. But the more we say, oh
(17:11):
god, don't answer that, itgives them a sense that something's wrong with
this thing. They've noticed it,you know, and if it's something about
a specific person, we don't wantto shame that feature that thing they've noticed
that's not okay. So it's betterto just earnestly answer the question. These
are tools we may want to practicethat might be our homework before the event
(17:33):
is looking up good ways to havethose conversations, but they usually do work
themselves out because a lot of thatstuff happens at home after the fact,
and you can say, well,let's learn about this together. Yes.
Well, I love the integration ofthe reflection tool because I think that's something
that a lot of us. Youknow, you go, you do the
activity, and then you're done,you feel great, But I think taking
(17:53):
the moment to look back on itis equally as important as well. Ohen
for younger kids, you can usethat at home reflection piece even later because
they love to hear the stories aboutwhat they've done. So six months later,
remind them that you had this coolexperience and ask if they've noticed any
and if it's brought anything else tomind. You have these conversations once,
(18:15):
but they come they circle back withkids. I love that. Yes,
so not even just right after,but a few months later, as families
are busy many moving parts. Howdo you like time seems to be some
of the biggest issues that people have. How do you find ways to integrate
this into your life that doesn't feellike impossible or overwhelming? Right the biggest
(18:41):
goal is to not overwhelm yourself,because then you're more likely to wash your
hands of the whole thing. Andyou know, say what we've all said
at one point or another, we'lldo this when they're older. And I've
got to say, my kids arenow fifteen, thirteen, and nine.
We've been at this a long time. I've been doing this since my oldest
was four. Really glad I didn'tsay when, we'll do it when you're
older, because man, that's happeningquickly. So it's good to get started,
(19:06):
even if you're busy, if thisis a value that you have,
and you know, the research saysparents across the country value raising compassionate kids
over raising and we want them tobe successful, we want them to be
happy. But the biggest goal forparents across every demographic is to raise compassionate
kids. Kids are telling us they'reseeing the opposite when in the same pool,
(19:27):
kids are saying their parents want themto be successful and happy and then
compassionate. We need to flip that. We need to live our values so
that they can see that that's whatwe care about. So it deserves time
on our calendar. But we don'twant to get overwhelmed. So really start
where you are, Start with whatyour family already likes to do together.
(19:48):
If you're a family that loves tocook and loves to have family meals together,
maybe that food shelf idea is agood one for you. If your
family is very outdoorsy, maybe thepark's idea is the one for you.
Maybe you have really crafty, artistickids. We'll set up a corner in
your kitchen with your art supplies andlet them know that we're this month we're
(20:10):
writing letters to the elderly. There'san organization called Letters to the Elderly,
and you can write your letters andmake beautiful cards and whenever you have a
little bit of downtime, and that'sthe thing you're doing when you have time,
when you have those two exhausted todo anything. We give yourself a
pass, be gracious, but makeit a priority and find ways to build
(20:30):
it into what you already love todo. Absolutely, absolutely, And as
you mentioned during quarantine, probably kidswho are seeking some of those activities.
Oh yeah, yes, yeah,absolutely. Can you just share you've touched
on it a bit, but alittle bit more about kind of the resources
and workshops that you have available throughdoing good Together and how people can access
(20:52):
those items. Absolutely, so againI'm going to highly recommend you go out
and subscribe to our free monthly volunteerlistings and newsletters. We've got one for
the Twin Cities here, but we'vegot them all over the country and the
newsletter is proving to be an invaluableresource. In addition to that, just
browsing our project pages and our bookpages based on your own family's interests will
(21:17):
give you a great sense of whereyou can start. And it's so full
of conversation starters that whatever issue youwant to start talking about will help guide
you. Because I know these thingscan be challenging, but they're not impossible,
and there's so many wonderful experts workingon how to talk to kids about
these issues. What we'll connect youwith the right thing. We do offer
(21:37):
workshops for ptas and ECFE groups andbusinesses and schools that want to have kind
of a workshop for parents to thinkthrough how they can weave these pieces into
their everyday life, so that you'llfind on our website. Also reach out
I am at Sarah as they areah at doing Good Together dot org.
(21:57):
Send me an email. I'm happyto help you get started. I love
hearing from families that want that areon the beginning of their journey in this
because there's so much energy there andit's fun to give you the right tools
to get started well. Your passionobviously comes through for the work that you're
doing, and we're really just fortunateto have a resource like doing good together
in our community. We point toyou all the time when families come to
(22:22):
us and are looking for ways toengage their their children, So we're very
fortunate for that. As a lastquestion, just anything else that you feel
like our listeners need to know relatedto volunteering as a family or engaging youth
in volunteerism. I think I wouldlove families to know that the reflection piece
(22:44):
in the service piece. It canfeel awkward to start, It can feel
forced or like you're trying to givethem their spoonful of medicine, because this
is the good thing we're supposed todo. But push through that awkwardness or
that contrived feeling in the beginning,and this really will become a part of
the nature of how you live asa family, and it will feel natural,
(23:07):
and it will feel joyful, andyou'll have all these wonderful memories to
draw from and some humorous memories todraw from as you try and stumble and
make a difference in your community.It feels good to do good. Oh
I love that. That seems likea perfect way to close things out.
Sarah, thank you so much forjoining us. I think that families and
(23:30):
listeners hopefully learned a lot. Iknow I did, and we just really
appreciate you taking the time to bewith us today. Thanks so much for
all you do too, and thanksfor having us us. Wasn't that fantastic?
Huge thanks to Sarah for sharing thisinformation with all of us. Sarah
(23:52):
talked about a bunch of resources thatare available on the Doing Good Together website
doing Good Together dot org, includingtool kids, articles, project examples,
and conversation starters. So many waysto mindfully inspire kindness and engagement in your
child. Also, if you're lookingfor opportunities to volunteer with kiddos, you
can, of course head on overto hands on twin cities dot org and
(24:15):
do a tailored search by age.Let's sit back and imagine what would be
possible for this world if all kidsgrew up valuing empathy, kindness, and
social responsibility. That idea fills mewith hope and optimism and I hope it
does for you too. Thank youso much for listening. For more information
(24:37):
about Hands on Twin Cities and tofollow us on social media, head to
our website. Redefining Volunteerism is aproduction of Matriarch Digital Media executive producer Twila
Day and producer and editor Beth Gibbs, and special thanks to Sarah Edwards,
Grace McAvoy and Ella Cochrane. Fromsome great people, Let's get out there
(24:57):
and be the change. Together wecan build a more equitable and thriving community.
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