100+ Ways for Your Family to Make a Difference

So I found this list today and tis a great one.. I am not sure who the author is of it, there was no name to it, so if you know please let me know so that I can credit.. I would like to share this with you..

1. Babysit for a single mom
2. Teach compassion with a Family Giving Box
3. Write a Family Mission Statement
4. Bake cookies for your local fire dept.
5. Pick up trash at local park as a family field trip
6. Create snack packs for Ronald McDonald residents
7. Welcome a new family to the neighborhood with a dessert and introduction
8. Pray for the poor of the world
9. Color a Smile-print coloring page to be given to lift someone in need up
10. Make a baby care kit for a baby in need
11. Take time each week to unplug as a family
12. Donate your time or treasure to the Make a Wish Foundation
13. Appreciate your church staff in some small, tangible way
14. Do yard work for an elderly neighbor
15. Make a Life Book for a child in Foster Care
16. Read You Were Made to Make A Difference as a family
17. Volunteer to cuddle babies at the hospital (older kids/teens are often allowed also)
18. Read Christmas Jars as family
19. Save loose change in a jar and give to a needy family at Christmas
20. Take a family volunteering vacation
21. Stop and say thank you to grocery clerks, waitresses. Ask them how they are doing.
22. Become a monthly sponsor to help pregnant girls in Kenya
23. Make a birthday cake for an underpriviledged child
24. Serve at home: make each other’s beds, clean up someone else’s mess
25. Write thank you notes to people who serve you: postman, yard guy, doctor, etc
26. Sponsor a child monthly (cannot recommend enough)
27. Make relief kits for disaster relief victims
28. Sew a sleeping bag for someone in need (easy pattern)
29. Volunteer at a non-profit
30. Make up some Hygiene Bags to pass out to local homeless people
31. Take your family on a tour of Red Cross
32. Put a monthly date on the calendar for a Family Service Night
33. Take a meal to a new family
34. Create a card for Habitat for Humanity new home owner
35. Encourage your older children to be a Mother’s Helper to a mom with young kids
36. Fill a backpack to help give a homeless person a lift up
37. Make birthday cards and deliver them to a local nursing home monthly
38. Donate books to Africa
39. Take your kids to a local Food Pantry with canned goods to donate
40. Deliver food for Meals on Wheels
41. Pray as a family on a regular basis for the people in your life.
42. Donate your hair to Locks of Love.
43. Give blood. (Take your kids with you and explain the importance).
44. Donate nice toys to cancer ward at a Children’s Hospital
45. Buy a mosquito net and help prevent malaria
46. Randomly celebrate each other with a special treat, meal, time
47. Donate school supplies to a classroom in need
48. Compliment and thank the teachers in your life
49. Buy a soccer ball for a child in poverty
50. Give a used bike to a homeless person
51. Donate coloring books/crayons to hospital emergency rooms
52. Host a 40 hour famine in your home (fast something!)
53. Give clothes to a family in need (call your church/school to find one)
54. Read to a special needs child
55. Only drink water for 2 weeks, give proceeds for clean water
56. Buy a goat for a family in extreme poverty
57. Give a donation in someone’s name to an organization you believe in
58. Send your used shoes to Reuse-a-Shoe
59. Become Certified Respite Caregivers to give Foster Family’s a babysitting
60. Decorate a Christmas tree at an elderly person’s house
61. Hold a collection drive: makeup, lotions, etc for women at a shelter
62. Find a Food Bank near you to volunteer
63. Deliver popcicles to children at a homeless shelter
64. Offer your pet for therapy to the elderly
65. Decorate nursing home rooms of residents with homemade art
66. Have regular “family nights” with games, ice cream, time together
67. Visit the NICU with treats for the doctors and anxious parents
68. Write to unsponsored children
69. Read to patients at a local hospital
70. Plan a family missions trip
71. Bake cookies, host a bake sale and donate money to the poor or a cause
72. Volunteer at a local animal shelter
73. Plant a garden and share the produce
74. Hold a drive for lightly-used stuffed animals for police stations SAFE program
75. Write letters to servicemen
76. Give a micro loan and change a family in a third world country
77. Smile. At everyone.
78. Make care packages for children in the hospital
79. Instead of a birthday gifts, ask for donations for a charity or food for a food pantry
80. Shop fair trade
81. Offer to decorate hospital hallways during the holidays
82. Ask your city about volunteering to remove graffiti
83. Host a Lemon-AID stand and donate proceeds Blood Water
84. Make no-sew fleece blankets for Hospice
85. Collect pencils for African children
86. Send a care package to our military
87. Read the Bible together as a family every day
88. Collect shoes for Shoes for Kids (started by an 11 year old girl)
89. Let kids choose a charity to donate to for one of their Christmas gifts
90. Become a foster family
91. Pay for someone’s drink in Starbuck’s drive-thru. Make sure your kids enjoy the act of kindness.
92. Help your kids starts a neighborhood or school Bible Study with their peers
93. Volunteer to plant flowers for your school/church flowerbeds
94. Make a Care Bag for a child in need
95. Adopt a child
96. Welcome home a hero at the airport
97. Complain less
98. Start a Kindness Club with your family
99. Let your light shine!
100. Look for opportunities to be the difference in someone’s life
101. Host a virtual food drive
102. Start a KidzRap on your street!
103. Purchase gifts through families fundraising for adoption.
104. Make a quilt for NICU familes
105. Pay the toll for the car behind you
106. Invite friends to Vacation Bible School
107. Help keep families together
108. Take someone flowers from your garden
109. Participate in Operation Christmas Child

Summer Is A Coming!

  Summer is coming and I don't know about you, but I have a lot of children and a lot of children's friends that hang around all the time.. hearing that they are bored is not on the top of my list!.. and trying to find something that everyone loves to do is a bit chaotic as we have varying ages around the old barn here.. sooooooo I have been brainstorming ideas to try this summer, I have read a lot of blogs and I have looked at way to many pinterest pins.. but here's what i've come up with.

Boredom Busters (please note that these may not fit all ages)

1. Golf Ball Ants - Take 3 gold balls and paint them whatever colors you would like , because seriously, who wants a boring old black or red ants when you can have orange or teal or periwinkle colored ants!!.. Next hot glue them together (supervise the little ones). then take heavy craft or florist wire and cut them long enough to be sturdy enough to hold the ants up. Bend the bottoms to make feet. Use some more wire and curl the end to make and hot glue on the top or head are for antennae. Glue on some googly eyes and VALLA! instant ants.. you can even spray them with a sealer if you would like to put them out in the garden.

2. Painted Rocks/Sticks - take the kids on a nature hike, or to a park or beach, wherever you may want to go and collect rocks and thick sticks of varying sizes. Grab all that left over craft paint and pout them out into some paper plates and throw out the old news paper on the table. Let the kids go crazy painting them different colors.. even get out the craft odds and ends of strong and yarn and glitter, some stickers and away you go let them be their creative selves!. again if you have sealer and want to show their creations off tot he neighbourhood, spray those rocks and set them in the garden or on the window sill. The painted and fancied up sticks can be hung on the porch or in the windows..

3. Summer Snow jars - all you need for this craft is some mason jars, the small ones work the best.. some 3D stickers, glitter confetti, water and veggie oil (cheaper than glycerin and works too!).  take your stickers and press them firmly in the inside of the jars, as many as you want(stickers from Michaels work best) . Fill the jar half way with water and the other half with veggie oil, or if you don't have a lot of oil, fill the jar with water almost to the top and then add a few drops of veggie oil(works both ways).  Add the glitter (if you have sequins kicking around those are awesome to!). Seal the jar and then shake up and watch the amazement happen!.

4. Homemade Paint - grab a few containers and some cornstarch and some water.. mix 1 cup of cornstarch and 1 cup of water together really good and then just add the food coloring until you have colors you want (we are looking at the neon colors this summer) . take your little ones and yes even the big ones out tot he side walk and let them go crazy because the best part about this paint, it washes right off of everything!.

5. Mosaic Rocks on flower pots - you just need some glass rocks from your local dollar store and some terra cotta flower pots and a glue gun(supervise the little ones please) . using the glue gun you just take the rocks and cover the pots in them, you can be creative and do whatever design you would love to. Best thing about these pots is that they are ready to go outside right away, no spraying with sealer needed!.

6. Googly Eye Pictures - start with gluing googly eyes to a piece of paper and let the kids go at them with markers and crayons and whatever else they can get there little paws on!. its great fun and some great creations come out of these times..

7. Write and Illustrate a Book - Give your kids a list of ideas for a book , doesn't have to be much just one or to words of  something creative such as - cats in suspenders(only if they cant think of something to write about themselves) and let them go to it.. this is a quiet activity, it might take a couple hours, it may take a couple weeks but the end result will be fantabulous! .

8. Scavenger Hunt - have a list of nature things for the kids to go out and hunt.. this is especially fun at your cottage or trailer, or at a conversation area.

so this is my list so far, I'm sure there will be lots more to come as I think of them.