Community Service Ideas

Here you will find community and mission service ideas. If you have service project ideas that you've used please let us know and we will add information to this page.

America Soldier

When doing your Christmas cards this year, take one card and send it to this address. If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think of how many cards these wonderful special people who have sacrificed so much would get.

When you are making out your Christmas card list this year, please include the following:

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20307-5001

A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a blank check Made Payable to "The United States of America" for an amount "up to and including his life."
  • Do a good deed for each of the 12 days of Christmas--Yes, do 12 god things for other people, one each day of the Christmas season!
  • Make a care package with mittens, socks, t-shirts, etc. for a child at a homeless shelter
  • Make "I Care" kits with combs, toothbrushes, shampoo, etc. for homeless people.
  • Be responsible for a cemetery
  • Adopt a "Grandfriend", write your "grandfriend" a letter or write letters for an elderly person.
  • Put together care packages for the families of patients in the ICU
  • Collect and repair used bicycles and give to needy kids.
  • Build birdhouses and donate them to a nature center.
  • Mow an elderly neighbor's law.
  • Collect crazy and fun hats for kids receiving chemotherapy treatments.
  • Christmas Lights - Collect donations of Christmas decorations and tree lights from the community and tree lights from the community. Then arrange for teams of your Pathfinders to decorate shut-in homes for the holidays. Once the holidays are over you may want to check to see if they need help taking the decorations down and storing them.
  • Shopper Sitting - have a group of Pathfinders turn the youth room into a nursery and baby-sitting room for half a day. Publicized the free service to parents in the church. Ask parents to bring their children to the church for a specified time so that they can run holiday errands.
  • Hot for the Cold - Search out locations where people are working outdoors during cold weather ( bell ringers for the salvation army, construction workers, police officers). Ask kids to bring Christmas cookies from home. Meet with your groups members and prepare a large supply of hot chocolate and coffee then from and send out "heat crews" to serve hot drinks and cookies to the people you identified earlier. If your area doesn't get cold, serve cold drinks instead.
  • Baby Layette - Help provide low-income mothers with baby items necessary for the first months of their infants' lives. Use grant money, donations or funds your group has raised to put together layettes from items purchased in your county stores. The layettes could include one infant grown, one receiving blanket, one combination garment and one crib sheet. Meet with the managers of local stores to compare selections and prices on infant merchandise. After you put together the packages, a local community services agency could distribute them to low-income mothers.
  • Playground Clean-up - playgrounds and families go hand-in-hand. Have your club or group sponsor a playground pizazz day! Spiff-up and fix-up a community playground. Celebrate your efforts with a picnic at the park and invite neighborhood kids and families to attend. Ask a local hardware or builders supply store to share in the fix-up and the fun!
  • River Clean-up - Does your community have a river clean-up or other type of community clean-up project? Find out and spend the day helping/ Many of these are scheduled on Sabbath so you may have to work with the organizers to schedule something on Sunday. You might even be able to get your entire church involved.
  • Plant a Row for the Hungry
  • Warm up America - Create a warm afghan blanket for someone in need. That's what Warm Up America! is all about --- keeping people warm. Sounds simple? Well, it is, and it works because you can make a difference whether you complete one small section or an entire afghan.
  • AIDS Baby Quilts
  • Help at Special Olympics events
  • Volunteer at your local humane society or county animal control office. These facilities often need individuals or groups to help with animal bathing, dog walking and facility clean up. If you can’t volunteer at the facility, consider holding a fund-raiser such as a dog walk or pet wash day. If you do it on your own try to find someone that experienced in pet grooming to make sure that it is done correctly. Also make sure that all animals are up to date on their shots.
  • Paint hearts, flowers, diamonds, zigzags, suns, moons, stars, comets, ladybugs, snakes or other fun and simple shapes on kids’ faces at a festival or fund-raiser. Use water-based cosmetic paints (such as Kryolan, Mehron or Snazaroo) purchased from a clown supplier. Apply the paint with cotton swabs or paint brushes (sable works best). Be sure to bring a mirror so the kids can admire your handiwork!
  • Find out what a homeless shelter needs and then just "do it".
  • Create a senior prom or banquet for a local senior home. Coordinate with the program director at a local retirement or nursing home to plan a Senior Prom or banquet for the residents with old songs and memorabilia.
  • Hold a grandparents tea at a local retirement or nursing home. Combine the activity with a lesson on good manners for younger students and your Pathfinders will have a chance to show off their best behavior.
  • Plan activities for Grandparents Day. Here are several ideas. Ten Grand Activities for Grandparents Day.
  • Help senior citizens install smoke alarms in their homes, or if they already have smoke detectors offer to change the battery when it's time.
  • Create table arrangements for a soup kitchen.
  • Make clothes for preemie babies at hospital.
  • Clean graffiti off of neighborhood walls and buildings.