As a school librarian involved in a lot of community service groups outside of school, I love to use my 400+ students, their endless creativity, and their passion for a good coloring project to brighten up our community just a little bit. In the two years since I moved from a public library to a school library, I’ve experimented with using different projects , many of them which could be easy passive programming, to help my students engage in community service and volunteerism projects in the school library.
These are 3 of the most successful projects we’ve had to date:
Valentines for Veterans
Every community has veterans, and while some kids are knowledgeable about the military experience, many don’t know any veterans. I do this project annually in late January and early February, reading a few books about the veteran experience, like “21 Steps”, and showing videos from Honor Flights coming into our area. Then, I give my kids pre-cut valentines to color and write a message in.
Pre-cutting the valentines allows this to be a one day community service project. For all grades, I recommend writing a few sample messages on the board or a sheet per table to base their message off of. I let my kids sign their first name and grade—the veterans at local organizations or through Honor Flight hubs love receiving a sweet little valentine from “Arya, 2nd grade” or “James, Kindergarten.”
This project starts great conversations about veterans they may know or what their experience with military connectivity is. Consider partnering with a local care facility for veterans, or reach out to an Honor Flight hub near you to donate valentines to their next batch of veterans.
Decorate with a Local Assisted Living Home
Got kids who LOVE to color and design and make crafts? Use their creativity, a little bit of your forward planning, and connect with a local assisted living, independent living, or other facility to bring some delightful creativity into their space. My involvement with this sort of project started with a friend who was a Resident Services Director. She was looking for stuff to fill a bulletin board that she used for different holidays—-from Christmas to Valentine’s Day to the Fourth of July and even Constitution Week! This partnership allowed me to give my kids the activities they wanted to do but not have to store or display it all myself.
From festive coloring sheets to snowmen garlands and colorful cardstock sweaters, the opportunities are endless! Reach out to a care facility near you and see what their needs are—maybe they have a bulletin board, maybe they want the cafeteria decorated, or maybe they want door decor. The magic of this partnership can go a long way.
Bookmarks for New Readers
My kids are voracious bookmark creators. Do they need all those bookmarks? They do not, and they love to leave them in the library for me to give to younger grades. I capitalized on this and had my upper grades create bookmarks using blank cardstock templates, stickers, and markers. This was an early finisher task at the end of another project. By the end of the two weeks, I had about 150 bookmarks of varying colors, detail, design, etc.
Then, these bookmarks were given to a local literacy nonprofit, Everybody Wins DC, who distributed them alongside encouraging notes in Little Free Libraries all over the community. The nonprofit focuses on diverse books and book deserts. My students loved thinking about their unique bookmark design going home with a kid like them in a book that might spark their next reading journey. You could even do this project yourself without a partnership—but I’m sure there are book donation nonprofits near you that would love an adorable bookmark!
What are some ways you’ve turned your kids creativity into community service?
Photo by the author
Aryssa Damron is a school librarian at an elementary school in Washington, D.C. She’s the co-chair of the Children and Libraries Editorial Advisory Board.
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