My First Make a Difference Monday post

It's funny that I came across this blog post from She Lives Free today. My son attends an I.B. school in our district that focuses on a lot more than a traditional public school. They encourage community service, a whole, international, civic minded individual with guiding principles. It's an interesting concept and I've watched my son develop into this very world view minded kid as a result. We have been lucky that he has been in an I.B. school since kindergarten.

Back to the irony of coming across this post today. My son's den teacher (like a homeroom teacher) sent out an email stating that the school encourages at least 10 hours of community service for the students. Not mandatory, but strongly encouraged. I believe in high school this is required for graduation. These kids work hard! I decided to broach the subject with my son and see what he thought about volunteering. He was immediately on board and this weekend we will be doing some research into some organizations that we can volunteer at together. Children model our behaviors, it's how they learn everything, from walking, talking, to their prejudices, likes, and dislikes. So I think it's important to do this with him. I give in other ways, generally monetarily, but volunteered frequently as a teenager through my church.

Living in Austin, there are lots of opportunities to make a difference in our community. Up for discussion:

Habitat for Humanity. He's under 16, so he's not allowed on an active construction site yet (he will be super bummed to hear this one) but they have Youth opportunities, such as painting or helping with landscaping that he can do.

Keep Austin Beautiful has ongoing and one-time opportunities quite often.

Austin Food Bank has a few different opportunities, though I'm not sure they'd allow a younger child to volunteer.

I will be emailing most of these to see what the age limit is for volunteering. My son also mentioned volunteering with the elderly.

Link up with She Lives Free