One very popular school charity project is food drives. Children are told to bring canned food from home to donate to a cause. Prior to that, meetings are held to discuss the cause and get the children excited about the project. One way of encouraging the children is by having a contest – the class that collects the most cans gets a prize for the efforts (or the individual in the class, depending on how the project is organized).

One way of starting the project is to invite the students to the assembly room, putting out a school desk for each person or a computer table for a few to have them all sit comfortably enough to pay attention and even have some fun entertainment before the project is discussed. To facilitate the food drive, a charity should be chosen that can provide the school with a container to hold all the items and will also collect them at the end of the drive.

There are two main issues to consider when planning such a project. First, that the children get excited by the project and second, that it is well organized and the charity with which the school has chosen to work, is accommodating as much as possible.

When the holidays approach parents often think about teaching their children the importance of giving to others. Many families will then trek on down to the nearest soup kitchen on Thanksgiving, perhaps to man the reception desk there, or to help serve the meal to those who would otherwise have nowhere to go. This admirable activity may not have the desired effect on the children we bring to this event, and could even backfire, for several reasons.

“The 7-year-old is making more work for the agencies,” said Joel Berg, executive director of New York City Coalition Against Hunger. “They’re too young to move stuff around, and they can’t really be around anything hot, or knives. The time it would take to instruct them is more than it would take for an adult.”

In other words, taking children to a soup kitchen can actually hinder rather than help, and children can feel this.

But Berg has another reason not to bring the kids to the soup kitchen:

“Even very young kids have a built in b.s. detector,” Berg said. “If you send them to a food pantry or kitchen on Thanksgiving that normally has 10 people volunteering, and there are 55 people there, they’re going to see in a heartbeat that there are people standing around and doing nothing, and they’ll get cynical.”
Berg says there are other, better ways for kids to help out those less fortunate. One suggestion he makes is for children to write letters in support of funding for school breakfasts for low income students. They can write to elected officials or their own school principals. Berg says that where he lives he has seen children delivering breakfast baskets to classrooms.

When children help in a way that they perceive as real help, they learn much more about giving than when they try to do something that is not really appropriate, or even helpful.

Children of all ages and stages should be encouraged to help out those who are less fortunate than themselves. No child is ever too young to participate in something like this. Schools can even put into their schedule a half-day a week that is known as the “caring project.” For example, a class can go visit a senior home. Or they can take people from a home with certain psychological problems for a walk. They can learn a little about pet therapy and those with pets at home can even bring them to people who are lonely (providing they get parental permission).

A great deal of what children should be learning in schools is behavioral as opposed to academic-related. Of course it is important for children to know where Asia is geographically and how to multiple 7 by 12 but just as crucial is knowing how to be a proud citizen and a credit to society and one’s family. This can be learned through working in communities that require extra help. Even preschoolers can be taken to places where people have disabilities to shine a light of happiness. In fact, sometimes, the younger the kid, the less judgmental they are and the more likely they will be to help those in need without making them feel like they are different.

There is absolutely no reason at all for schools not to make this kind of learning a top priority. If a child leaves school with academic excellence and a good name then the parents and teachers have succeeded in “educating” that child.