Ready. Set. Give: 6 Simple Projects for Big-Hearted Beginners

If you’ve recently stumbled upon the compassion projects and parenting tools here at Doing Good Together, you may – like many of our newest fans – be thinking three things simultaneously.

Yes! Intentional acts of compassion are exactly what our family, our community, and our WORLD need right now.

This “ah-ha” moment might be quickly attacked by your nagging Inner Critic.

Uh-oh! We can’t possibly fit more into our already-packed family schedule.

At this point, your old friend Negativity might try to have the last word.

Nope. It’s too much. I wouldn’t know where to start. Maybe later.

It’s true of course. Our lives overflow with opportunities and obligations. Taking on something new can feel daunting.

But what if I told you, we’ll make it easy for you to get started?

Doing Good Together has distilled six of our best projects for beginners into the free and easy printable below. These projects are the ones we share routinely in our parent workshops for young families. Parents tell us they love how straightforward it is to start with these doable (and fun) activities. The projects below lay the groundwork for you to make a difference in a million different ways as your family grows accustomed to making time to do good.

If your challenge is getting started, we’re here to help.

And it matters. As DGT Founder & Director Jenny Friedman reminds us, “If we value a more just and compassionate world, we need to put a greater focus on raising caring, kind children.” We need to make lessons in generosity and empathy a regular part of family life, right alongside everything else on our family calendars.

Doing good as a family will make an incredible difference for your kids.

Kids who volunteer learn responsibility, tolerance, and respect. They tend to develop strong critical thinking skills and apply what they learn volunteering to their academic studies as well. Honestly, the benefits go on and on.

Doing good as a family will make a difference for your community.

The projects below will empower your family to become part of the solution to big issues in your community, from fighting hunger and loneliness to protecting the environment and standing up for issues you care about.

And doing good as a family will have positive rippling effects for years to come.

According to the 2011 Points of Light Institute report on the Social Impact of Volunteering, getting engaged in your community has far-reaching effects. Volunteering helps build a more cohesive, safer, stronger community. And kids who volunteer with their families are more likely to volunteer on their own as adults, ultimately passing on a passion for service to the next generation.

The risks of doing nothing may be just as far-reaching.

Parents hope to raise children who, as author Minor Myers suggests, go into the world and do good, even as they aim to do well. But many kids are getting the opposite message!

The vast majority of kids think that personal success and achievement are more important to their parents than being a kind person.

This is from a fascinating study released by Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They call this disparity between kids’ views and parents’ views a rhetoric/reality gap – "a gap between what parents and other adults say are their top priorities and the real messages they convey in their behavior day to day."

By adopting family traditions of giving, we can communicate our priorities more clearly to our children.

Click here to download Doing Good Together’s free worksheet for everyday compassion projects.

Ready? Get set up!

Getting started is as easy as one, two three.

Print Doing Good Together’s free worksheet and fill in the blanks as prompted.
Scroll down to learn more about each of the six projects. We’ll help you get set up for success.
Agree on a regular time each week or each month to work on one of the projects from your list. By giving your goals actual calendar space, your family is far more likely to make time to do good.

Learn more about each project.

1. Offer creative comfort

Set up a station for ongoing art for good.

Click here to browse our growing collection of kindness-themed picture books, sure to inspire your card-making efforts.

What you need: a bin filled with colorful cardstock, markers, colored pens and pencils, other craft supplies as desired, and envelops and stamps. Plus the two addresses on our printable.

Loneliness is a becoming an epidemic, and you can be part of the solution. Make cards or drawings to send to Cards for Hospitalized Kids or Color-a-Smile. Or better yet, reach out to someone you know who may be coping with a loss, an illness, or feelings of loneliness.

Visit our Create Greeting Cards project for reflection questions, book suggestions, and more detailed instructions.

2. Be a neighborhood steward

Prep a grab-and-go litter rescue kit to take on every walk.

What you need: a drawstring backpack filled with disposable bags, a pair of gardening gloves, and hand sanitizer.

We’ve all walked past some piece of litter and shaken our heads. Someone, should pick that up, we might think. Your family can be that someone for a park or neighborhood location that you love! My family has done this for years, and let me tell you, kids truly absorb the sense of connection to and responsibility for the space around them. Just be sure to keep your clean-up kit handy!

Visit our Clean Up Your Neighborhood project for reflection questions, book suggestions, and detailed instructions.

3. Share homemade goodies.

Be ready to share baked good with those in need of a smile.

Click here to create your own Giving Plate, perfect for sharing your goodies.

What you’ll need: a giving plate or container to deliver your treats in, a cheerful greeting card, and a few minutes to say hello.

It’s easy to stay isolated in our own homes and our own schedules, but reaching out to neighbors can be a regular part of building community. Maybe you know of a neighbor who could use a little sunshine. Or maybe you just want to surprise someone with a sweet treat. Either way, your community will be stronger for it.

Visit our Make and Bake project page for reflection questions, book suggestions, and detailed instructions.

4. Adopt the local food pantry.

Set up a donation box in your kitchen and make fighting hunger a habit.

What you’ll need: a box or bag to decorate and the address you’ve added to your printable.

Click here to locate your nearest food pantry.

Forming an ongoing connection with your local food pantry, in the form of regular donations will support the ongoing needs of your community. It also serves as a reminder that hunger and need aren’t far-off concerns.

Visit our Adopt the Food Shelf project for reflection questions, book suggestions, and detailed instructions.

5. Advocate for your community.

Set up an advocacy station to inspire your family to speak up and reach out with concerns.

Looking for inspiration? Click here for our collection of printable templates that make letter writing (and drawing) even easier.

What you’ll need: stationery, an e-mail address, or a telephone number. The address you add to your printable.

Active citizenship is another way your family can share compassion with your community. Rather than waiting for someone to notice a problem and make things better, make a call or write a letter and point elected leaders in the right direction. My daughter’s first activist letter was to e-mail a local city council person about the need for a garbage can at a bus stop near our house. She was delighted when the city responded. Her willingness to step in and speak up when she notices a problem has only grown from there.

Visit our Teach the Power of Speaking Up page for reflection questions, book suggestions, and detailed instructions.

6. Practice 180s together.

Practice perspective-taking to strengthen empathy muscles.

Click here for this collection of big-hearted conversation starters to inspire compassion

What you’ll need: time to chat.

Teach your child to imagine the world from another person's viewpoint. It can start with simple questions. How do you think your teacher feels when the class isn't listening? How do you think your classmate feels when he's laughed at? How do you think Grandma felt when she got your thank-you card? Do the same with characters in books or movies you share together.

Visit our Start Kind Conversations page for more reflection questions, book suggestions, and detailed tips.

As you prepare to tackle your first activity, let me assure you that making time to help others actually makes you feel less busy, not more.

There is stillness in stepping out of your own self-centered concerns and directing your energy outward.

The fall transition has been demanding for my middle child. This girl would happily stay in her pajamas all day reading and playing with her cats. Now she has to board a bus each morning far earlier than she’d like. Yet recently, after an overly full week, she begged me to take her to a fundraiser for the local animal shelter.

Even though she could have used a restful Saturday morning, my daughter was so energized after this event. Connecting in this way with her community, the community of like-minded folks engaging in a cause she cares about, fed her in a way that another morning of cartoon watching and laying on the couch may not have.

By making time for kindness and compassion, we really are making life more beautiful.

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The recommendations we offer are based solely on our mission to empower parents to raise children who care and contribute.

Ready Set Give: 6 Simple Projects for Big-Hearted Beginners