How to walk the walk

Engaging kids in climate volunteering

In the journalism class I teach at Nikko’s school, we were brainstorming for our next Good News blog posts. I posed a list of questions to the kids to help generate ideas, like pandemic bingo. Questions ranged from Name a great book you read in quarantine to What’s a new skill you learned since the pandemic began?

I was feeling great about this assignment. Surely, we’d get a ton of great topics to explore. The kids were seeing that though they often felt there was little to be excited about right now, they’d had plenty of joy in lockdown.

But then I looked at Nikko’s list. The only thing he said he hadn’t done in 2020 was volunteer or donate to a local charity.

“Wait,” I said, muting myself on Zoom. “You have volunteered and donated. We have!”

“OK,” he shrugged, drawing a line through his first answer, then writing the word, yes.

“Wait, don’t you remember any of it?”

His shrug stayed with me long after class ended as I catalogued all we’d done this year: planting trees, postcarding for the election, donating clothes and toys to fire victims, delivering food to neighbors and grieving families, growing a community garden, giving money to cancer and climate organizations.

Yet, my kid saw none of that?

Photo by Michele Bigley

Can we get our kids to see the value in volunteering?

Our kids need to first see us doing the work to become engaged citizens. But what if they’re not noticing all we’re doing, or worse, they see it, and just don’t care?

In Mary DeMocker’s inspirational book The Parents Guide to Climate Revolution, she offers 100 ways to teach our youth to be climate action heroes while helping parents become the adults we want our kids to be. While I loved her entire book—and highly recommend it—her climate volunteerism chapter inspired me to look at my daily actions.

Truth is, much of the work I do is behind the scenes. As a writer, it’s not cute for my kids to watch me write letters to my leaders or sign petitions, or even see the writing I’ve been publishing on a larger scale, or even for this newsletter. Like DeMocker experienced, our kids might see us in Zoom meetings clocking so many hours as PTA parents, cooking healthy meals, and even bringing our own bags to the grocery store. But if they don’t see us physically doing something, they might not realize the extent of the work we’re doing.

I hear you though; I’m exhausted too

Surely, we’re all exhausted. I know I’ve hit my pandemic edge. And yet, according to many therapists, a huge way to overcome our climate and pandemic anxiety is to get involved in something using our hands. One sure way to combat isolation is to work with other people. Doing something that has meaning not only helps us feel better, but it also shows our kids how to become change-makers themselves.

But, mom, we don’t want to

Inspired, I decided to rally my kids for an actual volunteer project. I asked them what they’d want to do, or what environmental cause they want to help. But they said that right now, during the pandemic, they didn’t feel comfortable going out and doing something with strangers. They don’t feel safe always going to a restaurant, they argued, why would I want to put them in contact with more strangers?

Ugh. F$@k COVID, right?

I didn’t want to just give up. So, I searched for volunteer opportunities that felt safe for my boys. Something outside and distanced. Unfortunately, I kept finding closed doors. I tried signing up for our family to volunteer at our local food bank, but volunteers need to be over 18. I searched for an organization to do river and beach clean ups, but they weren’t doing outings right now.

Just when giving up seemed the only option, I found an organization that gleans unwanted produce from residential gardens and farmer’s markets. Their goal is to deliver fresh food to the 1 in 6 people who are food insecure in safe socially-distanced ways. Jackpot! I filled out the waivers and signed us up to volunteer during spring break!

It’s not much, but it’s a start, right?

Our kids want to learn how to be good adults, and they expect us to model this for them. I thought they could see all I did to instill these values into them. I thought it was enough for them to see me pick up plastic on the beach while they were boogie boarding, or giving my neighbors kale from my garden, or packing up our clothes and toys to donate to those in need.

But young people are physical beings. They learn with their bodies and clearly need to see us actively doing something to make a stranger’s experience better. And so, once again, they schooled me on how to be a good adult.

A silver lining, maybe

This week, Nikko’s teacher asked them if someone gave them $5000 what they’d do with it. I hear Nikko say he would use it to make the abandoned lot at the corner into a park for our community, something I’ve been advocating for since we arrived in our neighborhood. He didn’t ask for more soccer cards, or a flight to Berlin. He asked to create something that would green our neighborhood and give other kids a place to play.

Friends, they see us. They are listening. We don’t know what they retain, but we’re showing them how to be grown ups with our actions, and our words.

This week’s action

Find a volunteer activity you can do with the young people in your life. It could be cleaning up trash on your street; delivering old clothes and toys to a women’s shelter; doing a beach clean up; shoveling the driveway of a neighbor. Let them see you taking the lead and then invite them to participate with their bodies (if they can) to learn how to become change-makers themselves like these young people in France.

Like always, please share what you’re doing with us!