Looking for a simple way to find volunteer activities in your community?  Check out All for Good — a search engine to help you give back in your community.  With a database of more than 150,00 opportunities, you can search for activities based on your location or interests.  Then you get a listing that includes brief descriptions of the volunteer needs along with corresponding links to  organizations’ website where you can connect directly to coordinate your time and talent.  The site is free and receives volunteer listings from nonprofits and companies that help connect people to service events.  We think this one-stop access to volunteer opportunities is All for Good and good for all!

© YesKidzCan!, 2011

There are actually media outlets that offer inspirational, good news.  Last month, we started a series that we will continue over the next few months where we will highlight these bright spots that help us make a difference in our world.  Here are two more media outlets that use their power for good:

USA Today Kindness provides a welcome place in the media for positive news stories that uplift and inspire.  by sharing unique stories about giving and providing tips and resources for filling your life with acts of kindness.  In addition, USA Today has build a community called the Kindness Forum that lets readers connect with other readers and share ideas and generate discussions around making a difference in the world. The Forum encourages readers to elaborate on how they are making an impact, offer advice, or seek new ways or tools to get involved.

More than a website, Cool People Care encourages a caring way of life in a quirky and fun way without losing the seriousness and importance of many of their features.  For example, the site offers “5 Minutes of Caring” which is actually a 99 word article that shares one thing you can do to make the world a better place.  If you have more time, you can dig into “More Time on Your Hands” which are longer essays on how ordinary individuals made a meaningful difference.

Look for more good news outlets next month!

© YesKidzCan!, 2011

School volunteer activities are right around the corner!  To help you get prepared for this busy back-to-school time, we’d like to tell you about VolunteerSpot, a great resource that has a time-saving and sanity-saving online coordination tool for organizing all your volunteer efforts. VolunteerSpot’s free online sign-up sheets make parent participation at school, sports events, and in the community a snap!  No more passing around clipboard sign-up sheets or putting up with reply-all emails or phone tag just to help out.

With VolunteerSpot, ANYONE can launch a free sign-up calendar, and invite people to help in minutes. Parents choose their spots (when to help and what to bring) through a link in an email invitation or a button on your website or online group page. The best part is, once signed up, VolunteerSpot sends automated confirmation and reminder emails to keep everyone on track.

And now, volunteers and parents who are invited to your activities can sign up from their smartphones — no apps to install!  When volunteers receive your invitation (via email, Facebook, etc.) and click the link from their iPhone or Android device, they will be automatically directed to sign up pages specially designed to fit their phones.

VolunteerSpots tools are great not only for scheduling classroom volunteers, but also for parents who help with school carnivals and book fairs, parent-teacher conferences, soccer snacks, walk-a-thons, concessions stands, Scout campouts, and more!

Whether you are a room parent, coach, or committee chair in charge, one way to show our kids how much we enjoy volunteering at school is to make it as easy and fun for ourselves as possible. VolunteerSpot  helps parents do just that!

© YesKidzCan!, 2011

We’ve found a new website that combines three activities kids enjoy doing:  design, competition, and doing good.  It’s called Contest Cause, and it offers an easy way for you and your kids to start a fundraising effort around your favorite cause.  Basically, the site provides an online platform for creating and selling t-shirts for causes, and there are four simple steps:   First, register and start a t-shirt design contest on the site for your cause, and invite everyone to participate; second, using the site’s graphics (or upload your own!), create a t-shirt design for the chosen cause; third, invite your friends to get involved and vote; and fourth, raise funds by selling the winning shirt.  One-third of all sales go directly to your cause.  The lighthearted tone and simplicity of this website’s concept is refreshing.  As they like to say, “Be a Do-Gooder, and Look Good Doing it!”

The Athanas and Goldman families were having difficulties locating fun and easy volunteer opportunities to pursue with their kids in the Los Angeles area.  So, they started their own organization, 4GOOD  with the mission of helping other families give back as families.

The first 4GOOD event was for the Friends and Helpers Organization , which supports abused women and their kids. The Athanas and Goldman families brought their kids to the event to help stuff backpacks with donated school items.  “Not only did it feel great to get out there and do something to help, the truly amazing part was to watch our kids having fun while making a real difference.  It was exactly why we started 4GOOD,” says Erika Athanas. 

By participating in events created or identified by 4GOOD, parents can show their children the values of kindness, compassion, tolerance, community responsibility, and good citizenship while spending time together.  Research shows that children whose parents set the example of giving back and provide volunteer opportunities are two times more likely to volunteer as adults than children who are not exposed. 

Currently, 4GOOD’s focus is in Southern California, but their hope is to open chapters nationwide with the goal of having families continue to lead by example so kids grow up wanting to continue giving back  – 4GOOD.

Family togetherness is on everyone’s mind with Thanksgiving this month.  One group that makes bringing families together in service that much easier is Doing Good Together.  Doing Good Together is a nonprofit organization that inspires and helps families volunteer.  In addition, it provides tools and support to schools, businesses, and community and faith groups to help them effectively engage families in service.  As they say, whether you have five minutes or five hours to give, whether you have an infant or a teen, whether you are doing well or working hard to get by – your family has a contribution to make. They have resources that can help you or your organization: 

• Offer ideas for family service projects;
• Present a workshop for families, teachers, community leaders, or employees on simple ways to weave service into our hectic lives; or
• Create family volunteer events like Family Service Night (a volunteer evening event with 5 to 10 “stations” that offer a simple, hands-on service project for families (such as stuffing birthday bags for kids in need to creating blankets for kids who are sick and more). Doing Good Together makes the volunteer process accessible and easy so families can participate together.  Isn’t that what it’s all about this Thanksgiving?

At YesKidzCan, we’re all about inspiring children to get involved and give back. And, we know that involved kids often have involved parents. That’s why during this busy back-to-school time, we’d like to tell you about VolunteerSpot, a great resource that has a time-saving and sanity-saving online coordination tool for organizing all your volunteer efforts. VolunteerSpot’s free online sign-up sheets make parent participation at school, sports events, and in the community a snap!  No more passing around clipboard sign-up sheets or putting up with reply-all emails or phone tag just to help out.

With VolunteerSpot, ANYONE can launch a free sign-up calendar, and invite people to help in minutes. Parents choose their spots (when to help and what to bring) through a link in an email invitation or a button on your website or online group page. The best part is, once signed up, VolunteerSpot sends automated confirmation and reminder emails to keep everyone on track. It’s great not only for scheduling classroom volunteers, but also for parents who help with school carnivals and book fairs, parent-teacher conferences, soccer snacks, walk-a-thons, concessions stands, Scout campouts, and more!

Whether you are a room parent, coach, or committee chair in charge, one way to show our kids how much we enjoy volunteering at school is to make it as easy and fun for ourselves as possible. VolunteerSpot  helps parents do just that!  Also, for a chance to win $100 in classroom supplies for your favorite teacher from Class Wish, register before October 1, 2010 and use the promo code ‘TeachersSave.’

© YesKidzCan!, 2010