Volunteer Opportunities for Kids Around Orlando

Tracy Snyder Molina:  The Meals on Wheels program delivers meals to home-bound seniors, transportation and the opportunity for seniors to engage in conversation and social interaction with others.

Delivering meals as a family is an excellent way to teach children about community responsibility and the importance of nutrition. For many recipients, the daily visit from volunteers is the only human contact they’ll have all day, so imagine the joy on their faces when they’re greeted by smiling children! It also provides children the opportunity to build relationships with seniors in your community.

Tracy Snyder Molina:   The Foundation for Foster Children provides personalized support to individual kids based on what they need to succeed. Their "Make a Birthday Card" project encourages families to make gender-neutral birthday cards and then mail the cards to the organization to be distributed when a child celebrates a birthday. This is the perfect project to work on together and your family can do this from home.

Tracy Snyder Molina:  HandsOn Orlando is a volunteer project management organization and offers a great free calendar resource for finding local volunteer projects for your family without long-term commitments. Almost one-third of their project volunteers are youth and select projects welcome volunteers as young as 4.

Ages: 4+ based on volunteer project

Tracy Snyder Molina:  Rise Against Hunger has a mission to end hunger in our lifetime by providing food and life-changing aid to the world’s most vulnerable and creating a global commitment to mobilize the necessary resources. Meal packaging volunteers produce millions of nutritious meals annually that are then distributed to partners in countries around the world. They welcome people of all ages and skills sets to volunteer in their warehouse during the week as well as meal packaging events.

Tracy Snyder Molina:  The Ronald McDonald House offers a variety of volunteer opportunities where kids can participate. The Baking Buddies program invites families or groups to bake sweets or casseroles. Families can also work together to assemble comfort kits that include toiletries or individually wrapped snacks to provide families with some of the comforts of home.

Tracy Snyder Molina:   Second Harvest Orlando is a Feeding America food bank. Volunteers help with a variety of tasks including donation sorting, labeling cans, bagging produce and perhaps packing disaster relief boxes for communities in need.

Ages: 10+ for donation sorting shifts. Kids age 5-9 can volunteer on Family Day events.

Tracy Snyder Molina:  The goal of #HashtagLunchbag is to spread love by bringing bagged lunches to those in need. The organization hosts monthly events where volunteers of all ages pack and distribute lunches to individuals in need.

Cost: $10 donation recommended to cover supplies

Tracy Snyder Molina:   United Against Poverty (also known as UP Orlando) was created to empower people living in poverty to lift themselves and their families up to self-sufficiency. Kids of all ages can attend the monthly Family Volunteer Night. Activities include stocking, organizing and cleaning shelves, helping prepare for special events and more and pizza is provided. If you can’t make it to the monthly event, you can also sign up to volunteer as a family on an alternate date.

Tracy Snyder Molina:   Feeding Children Everywhere’s mission is to provide healthy meals to those in need and working together towards a hunger-free world. Your family can get involved by participating in local Hunger Project events where you will work together with other volunteers to package food donations for distribution in domestic or international communities.

Tracy Snyder Molina:   Give Kids The World Village is a non-profit resort in Central Florida that provides week-long, cost-free vacations to children with critical illnesses and their families. The Village and its community partners provide children and their families accommodations in fully-furnished villas, transportation, tickets to theme parks, meals, daily entertainment and more. Volunteer opportunities exist with food & beverage outlets, entertainment venues & programs and more.

Ages: 12+