How do older children get involved in volunteering, fundraising or campaigning activities? #iwill want to know: chance to win £300 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

We are working with the #iwill campaign to celebrate young people, aged 10-20, who take part in volunteering, fundraising and campaigning. #iwill would love to hear what your child does or what they’d like to do.

To celebrate #iwillWeek 2017 (which which runs between 20-24th November), we want Mumsnetters to celebrate young people who lead social action and their capacity for building communities by bringing others together. The week is all about shining a light on the impact that young people are having, as well as the great work of the 750+ #iwill partners who’ve pledged to create more social action opportunities.

Share your story below and here are some questions to get you thinking!

What do your children do in any of the following areas?

~ Volunteering - do they support environmental projects, older or vulnerable people or other young people themselves?
~ Fundraising - how do they get involved with raising money for local, national or international projects?
~ Campaigning - are they showing their caring side by fighting for something they believe in?

Why do they get involved?
How do you feel about your child getting involved in these kinds of activities?

If they don’t do this sort of thing, why not and do you think they would like to get involved in things like this? (there’s lots of opportunities to get involved here)

Please share your story below - everyone who does will be entered into a prize draw where one person will win two £150 vouchers for the store(s) of choice (from a list) - and you can keep one for yourself and give the other one to your child!

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Standard Insight T and Cs Apply

My daughter gets to help with a lot of fundraising things through school. They often do car washes, small dance shows and other things to help raise money for various charities. She's loves doing it too

My children take lead from us parents. Their Dad swam The Channel several years ago to raise money for an adapted mini bus for their big brother's special needs school. I'm constantly raising money for PTA funds for all 3 schools, for local charities, knitting for Innocent Smoothies #BigKnit to raise money for Age UK, bake sales, World Book Night, adopting a squaddie, etc, etc. Plus one of my best friends runs an overseas Charity (LinkUniversal), so she asked my son to be Ambassador of one of her charity campaigns a couple of years ago and he rose to the challenge. All my children have done charity runs and sponsored this and that, supermarket packing, gardening for the local womens hostel, christmas shoe boxes for the homeless, etc,etc, - it's all character-building stuff and I'm really, REALLY proud of their efforts - long may it continue.

My daughter has started volunteering at our local charity shop. She only works every other Sunday but loves it. The lady who runs the shop sometimes gives her £5 and she's allowed to choose items in the shop at a discount. She even takes in her old clothes to sell there.

My son runs marathons for animal and childrens charities a few times a year.

as part of their local scout groups my children always take part in community projects including making up packages for homeless people and foodbank collections.

at school my children take part in events such as pj days, coloured clothes days for various charities such as children in need.

This year my 16 year old son did NCS, and he fell in love with working!

NCS has four main points: Adventure, Discovery, Social Action, and Graduation!
Firstly, when my son asked me if he could go, being one of four kids I was very worried that it would cost me the Earth, but it was £50, all food included for the three weeks, all the travel covered, and would give my son the start in life I wish I could have had!
He came back from NCS with SO much confidence! The first part, adventure, meant he and all the other teens were staying in tents at a campsite, and they had to complete tasks like making a raft that could cross the river safely, and various other challenges they had to work together at as a team. Dinners round the campfire, new friends, midnight snacks by torchlight, they had the time of their lives.
Then they were reunited with their group in a uni-style environment where they’ll develop life skills like confidence, leadership and communication to boost their CVs, and then they got to go out into their local community and show what they had learned as a group to fundraise for the charity of their choice.
Then of course comes their graduation...I have skipped loads, so much to do for them all, and my son and his friends came back absolutely thrilled with the new mates they had made, knowing their CV would look great with this added to it, and they had the added bonus of raising a lot of money for their local Childrens Hospice, which made me very proud.

Hopefully My son can go again next year as it was a life changing event for him.

My other three children are a Scout, a Beaver and Cub and my husband is a Scout leader. I'm the bad one who cleans n feeds em all! x

Our son volunteers as a junior park ranger. He enjoys it & it gets him out in the fresh air

My eldest only just turned ten - literally! She does however love to get involved at school with fundraising. I think that the younger one who is at brownies does more with brownies that either of them do at school though! I hope that I'm leading by example for them though to get involved as I do lots and lots of fundraising and volunteering. My daughters do regularly tell me that they are proud of me so maybe they will be inspired by the I will week. This is the first I've heard of it!

Mine aren't old enough but to set a good example i take on pro bono work in my free time.

I volunteer with Scouts and have encouraged my children to take part in charity walks, community events like bonfire nights, cleaning up parks and rivers and planting spring bulbs. We also support local events by donating our time. They’re not always keen but understand we are part of a community that needs to work together to be the best it can be.

My sons swimming club are always doing sponsored swims for various charities

If I did any volunteering I just took the children with me, Rarely made an issue out of it and hopefully they began to see it as something that happened rather than a special event

My son who is 15 has volunteered at his local gymnastics club for a few years now and is now a young coach on the coaching programme. this is helping the younger children and encouraging them which he enjoys.

They do a lot of charity fundraising for school and sports club good causes - bag packing, cleaning cars, sponsored events, bake sales, fancy dress days - the lot!

Would love them to get involved in this sort of thing, but dont know where to find the opportunities

We only have young childen, but through our church our kids (1 and 4) go into an older people's home to do regular services and carols. We help out at a soup kitchen, and we go to South Africa each year and help out with aids projects. So far, our four year old likes just doing little jobs about the place, carrying bits and bobs and chatting to people, but we plan to regularly take time out to show love to people who have so much less than us.

My dd 20 started volunteering at a local intigrated SN playscheme when she was 12,which wss on saturday mornings and in school holidays. At 18 she became a paid member of staff.
Ds joined interact at school ( a junior version of Rotary which i think is for 14 to 18) they do various fundraising for different charities. Interact has groups all over the country in and outside of schools. He also volunteered with Scouts.

When our DS was 14 years old, we noted that he was becoming materialistic and wanting expensive branded trainers & clothes because 'everyone else has them'. We did our best to discourage him from developing this trait by taking him and his 16 year old sister to work with a charity on the outskirts of Mexico City working with children, young people and families in slum areas during the summer holidays. Seeing other young people of his own age living in shacks with absolutely nothing, without the access he had to an excellent free education and scraping an existence from day to day had a huge impact on his life from then on. On our return he began motivating other young people to volunteer to serve others and developed an interest in helping others less fortunate than himself.

After University he gained a place on a prestigious graduate training scheme at one of the major UK banks and has continued to put into practice what he learnt that summer. He has used his skills to mentor young people in inner city schools and supports and volunteers as a trustee for a charity providing scholarships for bright young people in the townships in Zimbabwe, who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to study 'A' level courses or attend university. He continues to take other opportunities to volunteer regularly in the UK, lives relatively frugally and is far from being materialistic in his outlook.

As parents we are pleased that we invested the time and money into exposing our teenage children to less fortunate families in another culture and would encourage parents to instil good values and a desire to help others into their children from a young age.

Mine aren't old enough to be volunteering yet, but the way I got into it was to help at the things I had enjoyed myself. So I became a pack helper and then young leader with Brownies, and a Sunday school helper.

DS1 volunteers at his dance school and gives up so much of his time to teach and partner both children and adults. He volunteers there between 3 and 5 days a week. This has also led him to volunteer his time to support tea dances for the elderly, children's holiday clubs and such.

A particularly lovely moment was a couple of years ago when he volunteered at an event for vulnerable adults. He spent a couple of nights before teaching other leaders the basics of ballroom and at the event (which was on his 16th birthday) he spent the day dancing with elderly ladies and dishing out tea and cake) one lady was 99 and hadn't danced since her husband died 20 years before. There wasn't a dry eye when she waltzed with DS.

My DD has done her bronze and silver DofE and had to do volunteering as part of it. She was on the charity committee at school as well

My three eldest DC are 22, 20 & 18. The eldest two took part in the Duke of Edinburgh scheme and there was volunteering involved. At the time, my husband was a cub leader and so they helped him regularly once a week and also for camps. They then continued helping out once they had accrued the required number of hours.

As a family, we often volunteer at our local church, whether it is serving coffee, helping at meals, visiting the elderly etc. My DD2, who is 18, currently volunteers at an after-school club teaching children about Christianity.

When DD1 was 18, she took a gap year between school and university. She worked for about 10 months, saving money and then, along with other members of our church, flew to South Africa for three weeks and volunteered at a local church and with children from a township.

My youngest DD is 11 - she has volunteered at school for different projects and, whenever there is a fundraiser, likes to become involved. Her most recent venture involved making cakes and helping man a cake stall to raise funds.

My daughter had watched children in need a few years ago & seen another girl about her age suffering from cancer. It inspired her to donate her hair to charity that makes wigs.
Last year after her little sister had been diagnosed with an illness she & her friends held a bake sale at school.

My middle (15 year old) son helps out with a little kids drama class each week.

It’s quite hard finding sensible volunteering opportunities for under 18’s. I can understand why as a) DBS and b) they may be more of a hindrance than a help!

As i said above dd volunteered at a SN play scheme from 12, which was their minimum age. They didnt want a dbs until she was 16.