Young Hands Making a Difference

What is the more important goal of any kid? Well if you are a kid or have a kid, you can guess the answer right away. It isn’t concerns about having enough to eat, where they will sleep or whether the bomb will be dropped tomorrow. No the worse fate that can befall a kid is summed up in one plea – “What can I do? I’m bored!”

It may seem like an odd suggestion then, to both the kid out there and to the ones charged with battling this dread affliction of “boredom” in the kids on our lives that there is one medicine for boredom that you may not have given a chance. And that is community service.

Now this may be a tough sell because on the surface, community service isn’t a toy or a video game or something designed to entertain kids. It is something so much different from any of those repacked amusements. It’s for real. Lots of computer games are made to give you the feeling you created something whether it’s a city, an alien planet or a spaceship. But when you turn off the computer, that creation is gone because it never was real.

With community service you DO create something and not by talking to a pretend civilization on the computer screen. Oh no, what you create is real, it will be there tomorrow when you go back. And you are dealing with real people and solving real problems. All of a sudden, the kid isn’t so much a kid any more. He or she is a valuable member of the community, just like an adult and there is not better feeling than that!

There are tons of other great reasons to get involved in community service this summer or as a hobby to replace the endless hours playing computer games. There is such a huge variety of things you can get involved with through community service that you can get your hands dirty on a hobby or an interest that you really want to be involved in. And you won’t be just enjoying that great interest by yourself because you will be working side by side with other youths, older kids in college or beyond, young dads and moms and even grandparents all who don’t want to sit home and be bored and would rather be out there being somebody for someone else.

Volunteering can even give you as much variety as playing games or fooling around with toys might give you and you don’t have to beg mom and dad to buy you a thing. In most towns or cities, there is a community service coordinating group that will have dozens and dozens of ways you can plug in and do something for someone else.

Some of the great ways you can pitch in and help out might include…

• Helping stock food that will go out to famine victims or hurricane survivors.
• Serving meals at the homeless shelter to families who really need the help. In fact, after the meal is over, those homeless kids would like nothing more than to spend a few hours with some new friends enjoying a simple game or just learning about each other.
• Help the Special Olympics put on one of their athletic outings. If you or your kids love sports, what better way to put that skill to work helping others than letting someone who isn’t as lucky as you know that great feeling of winning a race or sinking a basket.
• Reading to a shut in or to the blind. You think its great hearing a story? You haven’t had a thrill until you read it to someone else who has never heard it and you see their face as they enjoy every new twist and turn of the plot.

Community service gives young hands a chance to really make a difference to others in the community. But maybe the most important thing it does is it opens kid’s eyes to how great it is to stop worrying about themselves and help someone else out for a little while. It is the kind of addiction your mom and dad will be glad you got into. And chances are you will never again complain, “What can I do? I’m bored!”

The Greatest Generation

Not long ago, Tom Brokaw, a well known newsman and author wrote a book about the heroic sacrifices that the men and women during World War II made to stop Hitler and his allies and save our nation and the world from tyranny. The name of that book was The Greatest Generation. Now there is absolutely no question that the tremendous effort and self sacrifice that our grandfathers and grandmothers made during those dark days represents very best of what America is all about. We will never be able to thank them enough for what they did to preserve this great country for us and for our children.

But there may be another greatest generation that deserves recognition as well. And that generation is the next one. The reason that generation has the chance to be the greatest generation as well is that we have the chance, right now as the parents, the guardians, the teachers, the Boy Scout leaders, the Sunday School teachers and the mentors of these young people to show them what greatness is and how they too can be for their times the greatest generation.

To help the next generation to demonstrate that kind of greatness, we must instill in them a sense of community awareness, devotion and pride that will generate from everything they do. If the next generation is only what used to be called “the me generation”, they will only do what makes them happy right now. Greatness comes from doing something that means something for the community. So by teaching our youth how to be involved in community service from a very early age, we equip them to be as great as any generation that came before.

Being of service to the community is a skill and an attitude that is caught and not taught. So by making sure we, as the adults in their lives, are always looking for ways to get involved in community service, the youth will mimic our behavior as youth will always do and they will catch the fever and get a taste for community service that will last a lifetime.

A wise man once said about helping the poor that if you give a man a fish he is fed for a day but if you teach him to fish, he is fed for a lifetime. This ethic is true about teaching our youth that community service is fun and that neighbors helping neighbors is what makes life worth living. That is teaching our kids to fish. And the result will be a love of community service that will last a lifetime.

We have good mentors in our quest to raise the greatest generation. And there are outstanding youth organizations that thrive on community service and passing the torch to the next generation. From Boy Scouts to school clubs to youth groups to the YMCA, wherever there are mentors of youth, there is community service going on.

How will we know if our quest to make the next generation great is a success? The clues will come quietly. When you hear your son or daughter leave the house with enthusiasm to go join in on a project to clean up the park or to sign up at the library to help children to read, you can reflect that you are witnessing the birth in that child a love of giving and a love of community service that will last a lifetime. That is the spirit that made the World War II generation great. By empowering our children to be servants of the community, they too will become for their times, the greatest generation.