But the reality is that volunteering opportunities for families and groups with young children are the hardest types of volunteering to find. Many nonprofits and other community groups:

• do not allow people under a certain age to volunteer, because of legal liability risks and safety risks. They may prohibit everyone under 10, under 12, under 16, even everyone under 18.

• do not have tasks available that can be done as a group.

• have volunteering tasks that require skills that people of a certain age do not possess.

• cannot guarantee that young participants will be fully entertained and never bored during the entire experience - something many parents demand.

• do not have the time, resources and expertise to create volunteering opportunities for families.

• Sign up to participate in Watch the Wild, a program of Nature Abounds: you and your children can observe and report what is taking place in your community, from trees and plants to weather and wildlife activity. "In as little as ten minutes, your observations help us to understand how our eco-systems are changing and helps us to adapt for the future." All you need to do is choose a location or route to observe, whether it be your backyard, a route you drive regularly, or an area that you and your children play, visit, or hike in regularly, sign up to participate, then record your observations and report them to Watch the Wild/Nature Abounds via mail or email.
  

• Instant Wild web site and app is a project from the Zoological Society of London that online volunteers use look at wildlife pictures and videos from around the world and identify certain animals— wildcats in Costa Rica; otters in England; bears, wolves, and lynx in Croatia; jaguars in Mexico; critically-endangered Príncipe Thrush on the island of São Tomé; black and white rhinos in in Kenya—all of which saves scientists' time and helps conservation efforts. Seems like a fun online volunteering opportunity to do with children.
  

• Pick a day for your family to go through your things and to pick clean, stain-free, unbroken, un-torn things to donate to Goodwill. Talk as a family about what Goodwill does (Goodwill trains people to be able to work; their stores raise money for their programs, and provide a training ground for the people they are working with) and why their work is important. Talk to them about the importance of reusing and recycling, to reduce what is sent to other countries as trash. 
  

• Make Love Rocks together. Love Rocks are very simple to make, even for the craft-challenged. In making them together, talk about how the Love Rocks movement came to be, about safety outdoors, about personal responsibility, and about every person's power to influence other people. When you have made several Love Rocks together, you can distribute them together - not just on one occasion, but over the course of many months. Choose what neighbors should get them, and leave them for those neighbors where they can find them - in a mailbox, on the front porch, in a flower pot on the front patio, etc. Give one with a tip to a waiter or food delivery person. Put them on your teacher's front porch. Put them on a fence post that hikers walk by. Just don't leave them in natural spaces, like beach or amid rocks in a state or national park (keep wild areas wild!).
  

• Take your family to the grocery and help them to spend just $25 to put together several meals of non-perishable items, and then donate those items to the local food bank. Talk together about nutrition as well as the needs of hungry families, why some children go hungry in your community, how hard it is for many poor people to get healthy food because their nearest food outlet is a convenience store, etc.

• Organize a food, clothing or book drive in your neighborhood or your community of faith. The items should be donated appropriately (to Goodwill, to the library, to a food pantry, etc. -- contact the organization for guidelines and permission BEFORE the drive). Children can help to sort and stack items.

• Call your local hospital and ask to speak with the volunteering coordinator. Ask her if it would be okay for your children to make get well cards for all the children in the pediatric unit, how many they should make, and how you would deliver those to the hospital so that they get to the kids. Then spend a day with your kids making those cards and talking about what being in a hospital might be like. However, explain to your kids that they won't be able to deliver the cards to children in-person, and why that is. 

• Make a list of all of the various senior homes in your immediate area. Call each and find out how many people are living in each, and if it would be okay for your children to make and drop off "Have a nice day" cards they have made. Then spend a day, afternoon or morning making cards for one of these facilities. As you make the cards, talk to your kids about the importance of respecting elders, of being kind, etc. However, explain to your kids that they won't be able to deliver the cards to seniors in-person, and why that is.

• Practice singing 5 - 10 short songs as a family, and when you feel you are ready to perform, then call your local hospital or senior center and see if you could perform there during lunch or supper for patients or residents. Don't only do songs related to your family's religion, as not everyone adheres to that religion; have a few secular songs that anyone would enjoy, including people who are not religious.

• Volunteer together to support UNICEF. UNICEF's online Volunteer Center provides activity toolkits and speaker resources to help you and your family conduct awareness-building and fundraising activities in your community.

• Start a home-based recycling and reuse program, where you and your children explore how to recycle things not accepted by your community's curbside recycling program. What about starting a compost pile? How will you reuse grocery plastic bags? Could you weave your plastic bags together into one very strong bag that lasts for many years, or any one of a number of other items (rugs, place mats, mug rests, ponchos, toys, laptop case, etc. -- anything that can be knitted or sewn) and sell them, with the money raised going to an environmental program? There are a number of web sites that have free patterns for these crafts and many others.
  • make kites from plastic bags
  • How to Prepare Plastic Bags for Knitting or Crochet
  • How to Knit a Bag from Plastic Bags
  • Recycle plastic shopping bags by knitting them into a carryall
  • Recycled Plastic Shopping Bag Tote
  • How to Fuse Plastic Bags Into a Laptop Case
  • Links to various plastic bag knitting projects

• Look into Adopt a Soldier programs that allow you and your kids to send letters and items to soldiers. Plenty of info on the Internet, easy to find, like Adopt a Soldier.

• Call your local humane societies, ASPCA chapters and animal shelters, and ask if your family could:

  • Make appropriate food treats for dogs and cats and drop them off at the shelter. You can find a variety of recipes to make treats for dogs and cats online. As you make these treats, talk together as a family about the importance of appropriate nutrition for pets, the importance of having pets spayed and neutered, how adopting a dog, cat, bird, rabbit, or any pet means caring for that pet for the life of the pet (not just until you don't want to anymore), the challenges faced by animal shelters, etc.

  • Make appropriate bedding for dogs and cats and drop them off at the shelter. You could use scrap materials gathered from your own home and that of neighbors. There are lots of suggestions for making your own dog and cat beds online. As you make these beds, talk together as a family about the proper care of pets, how adopting a dog, cat, bird, rabbit, or any pet means caring for that pet for the life of the pet (not just until you don't want to anymore), the importance of having pets spayed and neutered, the challenges faced by animal shelters, etc.

  • Organize a dog and cat food and supply drive for the shelter. If there is a pet food pantry for low-income people, gather food for the pantry (note that this cannot be leftover, opened-bags of food; these have to be unopened packages of pet food).

  You can also contact nonprofits and community programs in your area to see what opportunities they might have. Call early - don't wait the week before or even the month before an event:
  • Does your neighborhood or city have a community garden? They may need help in early Spring to prepare the garden for growing season, or in the late fall to clean up after growing season.

  • Call your local state park and see if they have a children's program that combines education and volunteering, and volunteer to be a chaperone of they have such a program so you can participate with your children.

  • Girl Scouts of the USA might be an option if you have girls in your family; troops engage in community service programs at least once a year.

  • Call Meals on Wheels and volunteer, and see if your children can accompany you on meal deliveries. Even if they have to stay in the car, you could use the experience to teach them about philanthropy and the importance of being a good neighbor.

  • Look for large scale walks or runs in your community. Might they need help handing out water or juice at a refreshment station?

  • Call the city or state agency in charge of a nearby park, river front or beach front, ask if there will be a community cleanup, tree-planting day, ivy-clearing day, invasive plants removal day, etc., any time soon and ask if there is a minimum age limit to participate.

  Each of you should blog about your experience as volunteers, or each of you can use your FaceBook status updates to talk about what you are discovering as you volunteer, to further educate your friends and family. Take and share photos of yourselves volunteer as well!

  If you feel mistreated as a volunteer, here is advice for volunteers on how to complain.

Also see

You are NOT too young to volunteer! Ways you can volunteer, no matter how young you are

Finding Community Service and Volunteering for Teens

How to Find Volunteering Opportunities, a resource for adults who want to volunteer

Home-Based (in your own home) Volunteering Where Your Service is NOT via a Computer or the Internet (at least not to actually DO the volunteering service, but you may need to report your work online).

Creating or Holding a Successful Community Event or Fund Raising Event.

Fund Raising For a Cause or Organization

How you can advocate for an issue important to you

Volunteering with Seniors.

Volunteering To Help After Major Disasters.

Volunteering to Address Your Own Mental Health. There are many people that have high hopes that volunteering for a "good cause" can help them address their own mental health issues - depression, loneliness, even feelings of suicide. And, absolutely, social interactions and accomplishments that can come from volunteering can help improve a person's mental health. But volunteering activities can also can augment negative feelings. This resource is designed to help you have realistic expectations for volunteering and to avoid an experience that will make you feel worse instead of better.

Volunteering with organizations that help animals and wildlife.

Volunteering on Public Lands in the USA (national parks, national forests, state parks, wetlands, etc.)

How to Make a Difference Internationally/Globally/in Another Country Without Going Abroad

Using Your Business Skills for Good - Volunteering Your Business Management Skills, to help people starting or running small businesses / micro enterprises, to help people building businesses in high-poverty areas, and to help people entering or re-entering the work force.

Details on how to quickly fill a community service obligation from a court or school.

Ideas for Leadership Volunteering Activities
These are more than just do-it-yourself volunteering - these are ideas to create or lead a sustainable, lasting benefit to a community, recruiting others to help and to have a leadership role as a volunteer. These can also be activities for the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award (U.K.), a mitzvah project, or even scholarship consideration.

Ideas for Creating Your Own Volunteering Activity.

How to complain about your volunteering experience.

Donating Things Instead of Cash or Time (In-Kind Contributions)

Group Volunteering for Atheist and Secular Volunteers

Helping People Address Their Problems with Plastic
How to mobilize a community to clean up plastic bottles, plastic bags and other plastic waste from their environment, and how to reduce their use of such items in the future

Ideas for Funding Your Volunteering Abroad Trip.

Careers Working With Animals (for the benefit of animals)

 
 
 
 
Suggested books:

 
Volunteering: The Ultimate Teen Guide (It Happened to Me)

 
The Busy Family's Guide to Volunteering: Doing Good Together

 
Doing Good Together: 101 Easy, Meaningful Service Projects for Families, Schools, and Communities

 
Engage Every Parent!: Encouraging Families to Sign On, Show Up, and Make a Difference

 
Volunteer Vacations: Short-Term Adventures That Will Benefit You and Others

 
Children as Volunteers: Preparing for Community Service