DON’T BLINK A teen volunteer for Chicago Cares gets close to a kid during a field trip.
Holiday gifts for all of your kids’ teachers? Check. Festive cookies for their class parties? Check. Outfits for the winter pageant? Check. Teaching your kids that this season is a time to reflect on what’s important in life and give back to the community? Umm...
It’s easy for well-meaning families to let volunteer work slip to the bottom of their longer-than-usual to-do lists at this time of year. And even when they make the time, families can run into roadblocks: Liability concerns mean many charities require volunteers to meet minimum-age requirements, even when chaperoned by an adult. But we’ve found some local groups that are happy to put tweens, teens and entire families to work this holiday season—and beyond.
Chicago Cares (312-780-0800) acts as a sort-of clearinghouse of volunteer opportunities, pairing people with community groups, schools, parks and other places that need help. They can steer your budding Bono and Jane Addams (ages 8 and up) to projects that are both age appropriate and close to their hearts. Sign-up and orientation are online; once that’s done, check the monthly calendar posted on the website for events open to kids, like its Senior Breakfast Club at nursing homes, forest-preserve clean-up and soup kitchen work. Kids under 16 usually need an adult to join them.
The Greater Chicago Food Depository (4100 W Ann Lurie Pl, 773-247-3663)—which distributes more than 46 million pounds of food around Cook County each year—relies on the help of kids 13 and up to sort and repack goods for pantries, shelters and other organizations it serves around the city. Younger kids (ages 5–12) can get involved during GCFD’s Kids’ Days, when they pack food for Nourish for Knowledge, a program that provides take-home bags of food on weekends to students in low-income areas. The next one is scheduled for January 24.
Vital Bridges (312-948-2784) provides HIV and AIDS patients with healthy food. It has five grocery centers in the Chicago area where middle-school and high-school students can help sort and pack food. Families with kids of all ages can volunteer to deliver meals to homes.
Clans that are good in the kitchen can volunteer to cook an evening meal at one of the four Ronald McDonald Houses in the Chicago area (visit the website or call 630-623-5300 for locations). The houses serve as temporary residences for families of patients at local children’s hospitals. No special skills are required, though, to help Little Brothers–Friends of the Elderly (312-455-1000), which relies on volunteers—including families—to visit with seniors who may be lonely on holidays and birthdays.
Oak Park’s Animal Care League (1013 Garfield St, 708-848-8155) lets kids as young as six with adult chaperones walk dogs, play with pets and fill water bowls. Tree House Animal Foundation (1212 W Carmen Ave, 773-784-5488) is a cat shelter with sites in Edgewater and Bucktown that has a youth-volunteer program for ages 12–15.
Preschool-age kids can get in on the act, too, by doing something simple. Have them bring canned goods to one of the two Lakeview Pantry locations on the city’s North Side (773-517-4813); or stop in to a Barnes & Noble to buy a book for an unprivileged child during its holiday drive. It’s never too early to start, right?