Obviously, community service is difficult right now as social distancing is still in effect. However, there is still the opportunity to do virtual service to help the community! Please comment any ideas you may have!!
Week 1: June 1- 6: Helping medical personnel and other essential workers
Essential workers are risking their lives and well being during this time, especially medical personnel. Some ways to help would be to donate to relief funds or make masks to donate to hospitals. To express your gratefulness, you can hang signs in your window thanking them for their efforts or write thank you cards to be distributed in hospitals to the staff.
Week 2: June 7- 13: Helping the elderly
The number one way to help the elderly is to stay home and prevent the spread of COVID-19! As the elderly are more at risk, you could offer to do their grocery shopping for them when your family is making their own shopping trip (do not put yourself at risk though!). Offer to help mow their lawns (call their house! Try not to be in their physical presence) or do other services that are no longer running due to shutdowns. If you have a local nursing home, write letters to residents to keep their spirits up. If you are artistically talented, you could make pictures to send to them to brighten up their room. Call your local nursing home to see what services they could use at the moment!
Week 3: June 14-20: Helping children
Children are having an especially rough time with the COVID experience, considering that they may not be able to comprehend the whole experience. You can make simple sidewalk games and draw them out for children who might be going on a walk with their parents to get out of the house (these are popular on TikTok!) or create chalk drawings for neighborhood children to admire. Teddy bear hunts are a popular trend, where a neighborhood will have people who put teddy bears in their window for children to do a sort of "hide and seek" with. Offer to have a story time to neighborhood children over Zoom or FaceTime where you read a book and discuss it so that they will be able to interact with other children, or host weekly craft times for neighborhood children with supplies that they will already have at home.
Week 4: June 21- 27: Helping the homeless
Those who are homeless are experiencing a very rough time right now. Donate money to local food banks or soup kitchens, or buy extra when you go to the store to donate to a food bank or soup kitchen. Create care packages containing items like hand sanitizer, a mask, hygienic items, and some non perishable food items. Donate extra cleaning products to homeless shelters as increased cleaning is a necessity in every situation.
Week 5: June 28-30: YOU
Use these two days to take care of you! Self-care is incredibly important and you have to make sure you're putting as much time into keeping yourself healthy as other people! Sleep late, FaceTime some close friends, and binge watch your favorite movie!
Wishing you all the best and hoping you are all staying healthy! Again, feel free to comment your ideas for each category!
Jules / under-the-staars
