This may sound ridiculous, but doing good isn’t always free. Sometimes it can be a real budget buster. I realized this a couple of weeks ago when shipping our extra Halloween candy took a surprisingly big bite out of my wallet. Next year, I’ll definitely take advantage of the many dentist drop-off sites that ship their candy to the same place.

I discovered it again when I hit the fabric store last week. With visions of a cozy winter afternoon spent together tying fleece blankets for the Linus Project, preferably in front of a roaring fire and a good movie, I stocked up on four color swatches of fleece.

Who knew eight yards of fleece could cost so much?! I’m still looking forward to that cozy afternoon with my family, making a cozy present for other children, but if we took on expenses like that with each volunteer effort, we just might start dong good a little less often. We might have to!

Thankfully, there are many opportunities for FREE good deeds. Several of our regular DGT efforts are expense free, including

• Meals on Wheels deliveries,
• The Garbage Walk,
• A wide variety of kitchen table craft projects, and
• Thanks to the local library, all of the Kinder Book Club suggestions.

As the holiday season approaches, family volunteering has even more appeal. Unfortunately, holiday budgets can be the trickiest to keep in check. I’ll try to continue posting ideas that are tagged “free” as I test them out with my family. In the meantime, I’ll offer this list of free holiday volunteering options, taken from Jenny Friedman’s book The Busy Family’s Guide to Volunteering as well as the Doing Good Together website.

Do more good for less this holiday season by trying the following ideas with your family:

• Deliver Holiday Meals – Contact Meals on Wheels to learn about holiday scheduling
• Participate in a toy drive - If purchasing extra toys threatens to blow your budget, volunteer some time to sort, wrap, or deliver gifts! In the Twin Cities, Toys for Tots is already setting up volunteer shifts.
• Help neighbors with the Holiday shopping – Offer to take an elderly person to shop for and wrap gifts
• Volunteer to Decorate the lobbies and dining halls of local shelters or nursing homes
• Visit – make time to share conversation and a holiday card with children and adults who can’t be with loved ones on the holidays.
• Ring bells for the salvation army.
• Drive seniors to holiday parties - contact local senior centers and offer transportation for holiday parties.

Tags: Free

About Sarah

Sarah Aadland is striving to make family volunteering a meaningful habit for her family of five. Join the conversation as she ponders what they may (or may not have) learned and looks for helpful information about raising compassionate kids.Though she plans to one day put her Masters in Public Policy back to work for social justice, she sees family volunteering as a way to build a stronger community, a better world, and a more connected family. In addition to her children, Sarah tends a large garden, a small flock of chickens, and a habit of mindfulness amid the necessary rituals of parenting.

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