|
Ideas for involving your class or school:
Organize a bake sale or other fundraiser and give the money to a shelter, or use the money to purchase things that are needed at the shelter.
Donate
admission fees from a school event, or offer discounted admission with the donation of a specified item.
Help
your child’s class at school organize a classroom drive or a school-wide drive collecting hats, socks, mittens and other winter items
to donate to a homeless shelter. Volunteers can help design flyers and posters.
Perhaps you can make poster graphs for each class to hang side by side in the
hall to make a contest out of it, with the winning class getting a lunch-time pizza party (30 kids= about 4 pizzas, 30 paper plates, 30 paper cups, 4 jugs of soda which equals about $35). Think of all the items you would have
to donate and of all the fun the kids would have.
-
Activities
for the host or sponsoring class to enjoy:
-
Contact
Agency or shelter and arrange for pickup and delivery.
-
Establish
specifics: beginning and ending dates, items needed, and teams to be in charge
of specific functions of the drive.
-
Read
books centered on the homeless to further understanding.
-
Design
school flyers and posters; collaborate with teacher to write parent
letters.
-
Make
collection boxes for each class participating.
-
Make
school graph by grade level.
-
Count
items each week and graph.
-
Sort
items into boxes to prepare to give to shelter.
-
Incorporate
public speaking by organizing teams to go to other classrooms and
explain the winter drive.
-
The
teaching of skills can be incorporated into this activity.
This activity can have many
variations. You could have a Christmas in July type theme where you will have
ample time to collect winter wear for the upcoming season.
You could have a old clothes drive, cutting the clothes into quilting
squares and teaching the children how to tie quilts (for older grades), still
incorporating the contest aspect and old clothes are sometimes cheaper than
winter wear. This activity can go
as far as the imagination of the person planning it, with many possibilities.
|