Opportunities for Family Volunteering in Houston, Texas

My best friend volunteered for the Red Cross at what was dubbed "Reliant City" after the major hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast of the Untied States a few years back. Displaced families from New Orleans, Alabama and Mississippi poured into Houston, and a temporary shelter was set up under the Reliant Park Astrodome, while thousands of volunteers came together to help keep things flowing as smoothly as possible.

But disasters aren't the only time that volunteerism should be considered; they are just the times that the need for a helping hand is most obvious. Every day in the United States, right in the Houston and Galveston area, there are families in need, people suffering from crime, poverty, disaster, illness, age, and more. So how can families give back and teach children to help their fellow man?

Family Volunteer Opportunities In Houston

Recycling & Volunteering

One of the best ways to help out as a family in Houston starts right in your own home. League City, a Houston suburb where I live, has a city-wide recycling program where residents keep recycling bins in their garages or homes, and then put them out at the curb once per week for pickup. This is a free service and no one is obligated to participate. However, it takes little time to do so, helps the city with revenue, makes the environment better, and we can all feel good about doing a little bit to do our part. My son is meticulous about recycling, saving the cans, bottles, glass and such and sorting them out on Fridays for pick up. We encourage this!

But recycling doesn't have to end with your own home. There are wonderful parks and outdoor venues in the Houston area, places fun for a picnic or spending the weekend at a festival or fair in Houston, at local Houston sporting events, or even at the Houston public swimming pools: these venues all have food, trash and litter.

Grabbing a few plastic grocery bags left over from the last trip to the store (we always love to reuse these or turn them back in to the stores and recycle them--check at the front of your grocery store to see if they have plastic bag recycling bins, and if not, ask them to start!)--you can grab a bag for each member of the family. Once at your venue, make a fun event out of taking the kids to pick up cans, bottles and other recyclables and dropping them off at your local recycling center or leaving on your curb if you community recycles. This helps clean the public venue and recycles at the same time, and it teaches kids Good Samaritanism.

Food & Nutrition Assistance

Many of the local homeless shelters will not allow children to volunteer, but they will let teens who are old enough to otherwise have a job. I have been broke enough in my past to receive assistance from The Salvation Army before, and once from Catholic Charities, and I am truly blessed to have no financial struggles at all anymore, but I haven't forgotten my past. There are many ways a family in Houston to volunteer time and help with food services for needy families and individuals, while teaching kids to appreciate what they do have, while helping those with less.

Families can also buy extra groceries every shopping trip and donate those portions to a local shelter, food bank, or church. Adopt a family in your neighborhood or church that is in need of assistance and invite them to your home for a home-cooked meal that all the kids help prepare. Prepare an entire meal with your family and package it to take to a needy or shut-in family or ill person. Volunteer for meal delivery programs and let your kids help you package the food and carry it to houses for delivery.

Projects & Cleanup

Many of the organizations in Houston have cleanup volunteer projects for cleaning up the lake shores, parks, communities and other public places in the area. There'es also the Don't Mess With Texas roadside adoption program. Find a business or organization in your community that needs volunteers for these activities and the whole family can help clean up together.

It's not hard to volunteer as a family, whether it's for an organized community project or just something your family chooses to do together to help make your community, and the world, a better place. These are just a few suggestions to help you get some ideas and you and your family can find ways to make them your own projects that fit into your lifestyle.