What About Community Service?

Like many home school families, we believe that community service and volunteer work is important.

My husband and I want our boys see us volunteering for leadership roles as well as serving under others. (Hubby may have taken this a little too far, as he is on the board of at least 5 separate organizations.) We want them to know that a community works together, and if we just sit at home and take care of ourselves, our community suffers. God put us here to do his work, whether that is in church or somewhere else. We get to be a light by serving others.

I volunteer with the woman’s ministry at church. I occasionally volunteer with our local home school group when a need is presented. And, I volunteer to organize certain field trips for families in our home school group. Due to the roles I serve, the boys don’t often get to help me, but they do see that we value serving.

My husband frequently gets to recruit the boys to help him. When Hubby is running an event, he has the boys assist clients and help to run errands, fetch water bottles, etc. to help the event run smoothly. The boys do real work on those days. And they come home tired, but feeling so pleased with themselves because the work was good.

Quite a few years ago, a group of home school families got together to deliver one Meals on Wheels route a week. One mama organizes the group. She has it set up so that 6 to 8 families share a route. They all rotate weeks delivering meals on Friday mornings.

Our family was able to join up with this group about 5 years ago. This is a community service that the boys look forward to every time. They love feeling useful. The MOW clients, usually senior citizens, adore seeing them. I love that we get to serve a need in our community, and that we get to “be the face” of home schoolers to those who might think that home schoolers are unsocialized hermits. {smile}

Do you volunteer? Do your kids?
What does community service mean to your family?