I am quite determined for these little kidlets of ours to have ways to help the community around us. I erroneously thought that we would have an easier time finding suitable volunteer opportunities in Canada than we were able to find in europe, but I was wrong. Jason and I put in a lot of work to find a volunteer opportunity for our family that was both suitable and where the folks running it would allow children to help out. We were very blessed to find this great group of folks who dedicated a lot of time to get a whole pile of toy donations to give out to families in Montreal that are struggling financially. The kids got to help us give out the toys for the children 10 and under.
They were pretty excited about that responsibility. I was a little worried about my lack of french speaking ability, however, with a very large diversity in languages, it seemed that both Jason and I were needing to use smiles to communicate more than words. The kids really loved the opportunity and had warmed up to the other wonderful volunteers by the time we needed to head home.
And, of course, because the kids and I couldn't be content with just one volunteer opportunity, we brainstormed a little list of other ideas that we could do to serve those around us. We put some of our stealthy helping ideas to work before Christmas, but we saved some of them to do throughout the year (with a goal of doing something each month that takes a little more planning to serve). Here are the kids all excited about going out and learning to be stealthy :).
Of course, there was also our church Christmas party that the kids helped out with a TON, as well as the sticker project that they always get excited about. We had also planned some caroling but needed to forego that on account of weather. However, we did get a nice surprise from the missionaries serving in our area (and a few members of the Mission President's family) and they braved the cold to come sing us some carols. The kids were pretty excited to still get to experience some caroling.
While, yes, we do want our kids to experience being able to serve in more unique ways so that they see families in different circumstances and situations we also have been working on helping them understand the ways that we serve our family, our neighbours and our friends. One of the things that we talked about is how we can help clean up our neighborhood and the next time we were at the grocery store (and every time following, actually) the kids have reminded us that the grocery store is part of our neighborhood as well and will pick up any products that may have fallen off the shelf or were clearly put in the wrong spot. And they are asking about our next volunteer project, so I had better start getting it in the works!
