"To help me enjoy serving others in my family, my neighborhood, my ward, and my country."

• WALK SHELTER DOGS: Contact your local animal shelter and volunteer to walk the dogs.
• HELP FOREST SERVICE: Contact the National Forest Service and volunteer to paint tables.
• FEED THE HOMELESS: Make sack lunches for the local homeless shelter.
• HUMANITARIAN PROJECTS: Make something and donate it to the Church Humanitarian Center. See http://www.desnews.com/cn/humanitarian/guidelines.htm.
• WRITE LETTERS: Write letters to the Governor or any other elected official. Include in the letter something that is of concern to you as a citizen. Ask what you can do to help solve the problem.
• HELP THE ELDERLY: Rake leaves or shovel snow for an elderly persons in your neighborhood.
• LEARN ABOUT POLITICS: We had a local politician (someone who has run for local offices) come and discuss the importance of being involved in the democratic process and making our voices heard. It was very interesting!
• RESPECTING THE FLAG: Teach the children about the flag and how to fold it.
• MILITARY APPRECIATION DAY: Contact your local city government officials and find out how to send a letter to some of the Soldiers who are currently serving our country right now. Talk about the importance of having someone defend our country. Talk about freedom and how it comes at a price. Explain that most of the service men and women have families at home who miss them. Have the children write letters and express their appreciation for what the soldiers are doing.
• CLEAN CHURCH: Make arrangements with the Bishop to clean the church. This will make the children be more careful when they are using the building.
• HELP THE PRIMARY CHORISTER: Find out what the Primary Chorister needs for visual aids. Make them for her to use during singing time. It will help her and will be fun for the girls to see what they made.
• HELP THE NURSERY: See if the nursery needs more toys. Have the girls send out a flyer to the ward members asking for good used toys. Go around together to pick them up. Clean and repair them and take them to the nursery.
• FIREMEN AND POLICEMEN APPRECIATION: Make cookies and take them to the local fire station or police station. Write thank you notes for them telling them how much you appreciate all that they do.
• SCRIPTURE HIGHLIGHTING: When I was a missionary, we would spend a lot of time hi-lighting scripture passages in the copies of the Book of Mormon before we gave them away. I don't know if the missionaries still do this but if they do, the children could do offer to do the hi-lighting for them.
• CHILD CARE: Provide child care at the church for the Relief Society during Home Enrichment Night. Our group set up the primary room with different stations like the building blocks area, the drawing area, the story time area, etc. Then we gathered all the children to the movie area where we showed them a fun video (like a Disney sing-a-long or movie, etc.) until their moms came to get them. Michelle Butler Colfax Ward, Greensboro, NC Stake
• PEN PALS: I am getting together a new on-going activity for our group of girls. We are looking for another achievement day group to become our pen pals. At the end of each activity we are going to spend 15 minutes putting together a package....letters, pictures, and stuff to send our achievement girl pen pals.
• SERVICE COUPON BOOKS: Do this by making a coupon for each family member. Example: For her Mother the girl will vacuum the house. Sister: Read her stories etc...
• THANK THE BISHOPRIC: We wanted to let the Bishop and Stake President know how thankful we were for all the time they put in. So we gave them each a heart attack. The girls cut out and decorate different size hearts. The girls also took one heart and wrote a personal note from them to the Bishop. We also made cookies. We got one of the Bishop's counselors to let us in to the office, then put hearts up all over the room. For the Stake President we just put hearts all over his office door and left his cookies outside his door. Both the brotheren and the girls enjoyed this activity. The Bishop even left his office decorated for a few weeks.
• SERVICE SCAVENGER HUNT: Choose a good cause like your Local Food bank, Deseret Industries, MS foundation, Battered Children's Shelter, etc...and find out what they are in need of. Divide the children into teams (each with an adult leader.) Have the teams run from house to house, explaining that they are collecting items for their charitable cause. For example, "We are having a service scavenger hunt for our local Food bank. They are in great need of food for the winter. Do you have any items that you would like to donate? Even one item would be greatly appreciated." If you would like to have some prizes at the end of the scavenger hunt you may do silly ones like: Largest item, funniest, cutest etc... You could also have the children go with you to drop off the items to the charity so that they could see the entire process.
• VALENTINES FOR VETS PROGRAM: Have the girls make valentines that you can send to a local VA hospital for the hospitalized vets.
• CLEAN THE NURSERY TOYS:. Our girls were amazed at how dirty the toys in our building were.
• A DIFFERENT SERVICE SCAVENGER HUNT: Make a list of things that need to be done around a home (take out the trash, wash the windows, rake the leaves, shovel sidewalks, sweep a kitchen floor). Divide the girls into two groups. Give each group a list of the chores and tell them they are to go to different homes and complete one chore per home. Have the homeowner sign off whatever chore they completed. The first one to make it back to the start point wins. This is great because it teaches the girls that they can have fun while serving others. Be sure to have the leaders go with the girls and only go to the homes of neighbors you know!
• HONOR THE MILITARY DAY- Have a lesson about the military. Have some veterans and/or families of service men come and talk to the girls. Have them bring a uniform, medals, equipment, pictures, or anything that might be of interest. Explain how important these men and women are to our country. We need them to protect us. Explain how the families feel when their Dad or Mom has to serve for months at a time and be away from the family. Discuss the different branches of the Military and what each one does. Write letters to some servicemen or to their families and express your thanks for their great service and sacrifice. Talk about the possibility of war and allow the children to ask any questions that they might have.
• FESTIVAL OF TREES: This past holiday season we made ornaments out of pretzels and ribbon and donated them to Festival of Trees. The girls loved making these simple pretzel wreaths. We then talked about how it made them feel to donate something they made to help others. We also talked about how thankful we can be for our health.
• SPONGE AND SHAVING CREAM CLEAN UP: Every church building has nursery equipment that needs cleaning. Ask each girl to bring a sponge (yellow and green ones work great) and small container of shaving cream to the activity. Tell them to be prepared to get wet. Move all the large plastic nursery equipment, small plastic chairs and tables out to the parking lot near a hose. Hose down the equipment and let the girls go to work with their sponges and shaving cream. Rinse clean, dry and carry back inside. Not only will everyting be clean, but things will smell great. (works well with primary chairs as well)