Families Can Make a Holiday Difference for Those in Care Facilities

Here’s Your Project:

Make festive decorations to donate to a senior center, homeless shelter, or community organization.

Supply List:

• Construction paper

• Scissors

• Glue

• Glitter

• Yarn

• Felt

• Markers, crayons, or colored pencils

How To Do It!

1. Contact a community organization and ask if they will accept homemade decorations. Ask if they have any rules about what the decorations can be made out of.

2. Arrange how you will deliver the decorations: by mail or by dropping them off.

3. Decide what decorations you will make. Snowflakes, snowmen, bows, and candy canes are all festive items that can be made out of paper or felt. Try some of our Internet Resources below for instructions.

4. Try making one of your decorations to work out any problems. Estimate how many you will be making so you know how many materials you will need.

5. Deliver your decorations. Take photos or ask for photos of the decorations being displayed.

6. Share the success of your project and thank everyone involved!

Preflection:

Before your volunteer project, ask these questions to be clear about what the goals and expectations are. If you are part of a group, talk about why you are doing a service project. Here are questions to guide your thinking or discussion:

1. Who are we helping?

2. Why are we helping them?

3. How are we helping them?

4. What are we most excited about?

5. What might be tough or challenging about our project?

6. What are everyone’s jobs during the project? What do we each have to do?

Reflection:

After your volunteer project, it is important to reflect on the experience. Ask these questions or, if you are part of a group, do the Whip Around reflection activity:

Reflection Questions

1. How did our project help people?

2. What worked well about our project?

3. What can we do better next time?

4. What is our next service project?

Pledge this project for the Holiday Gift Campaign and Hasbro will donate a toy through Toys for Tots on behalf of each person helping with your project before December 13, 2011! (Up to 100,000 toys!) http://www.generationon.org/global/big-happenings/holiday-gift-campaign