Angel Blog

Summer Activities for Kids

Is the phrase "Mom, Dad, I'm bored!" a continuous phrase used in your household? Here's a few easy ways your kids can get active in service this Summer and beat boredom.

The summer months can be the most challenging for parents. If you don’t have summer camps or activities lined up, you’ve got to get really creative when it comes to finding ways to entertain your little ones (without losing your mind). The summer months are a great opportunity to engage children in volunteer activities and teach them the importance of giving back.

Soldiers’ Angels has many kid-friendly opportunities to give back to our military. While you can’t sign your child up to be a volunteer directly, you can sign yourself up and involve them in these great activities.

Crafting Opportunities

We have many wonderful programs that support our military families, deployed service members, wounded service members, and veterans in different ways. Many of these involve hands-on, creative activities that are perfectly suited for kids! Our angel teams are completely virtual and have lots of opportunities. You will have to sign-up and go through the verification process as an adult, but once you’re in, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to involve your children. Here are some ideas.

Make No-Sew Blankets

A blanket may seem like a simple gift, but think how much warmth and comfort your favorite blanket provides for you when you’re cold or lonely. Each year we host a blanket drive to bring our veterans a little warmth and cheer. Kids can participate by making No-Sew Blankets and/or writing a special message to go with them. No-Sew Blankets are super easy to make and are a very kid-friendly activity! Learn more here.

Learn to Crochet, Knit, or Sew

Sewing, crocheting, and knitting are all great activities for older children and a great way to teach patience and concentration. Our sewing and crafting team makes handmade pieces for veterans, deployed service members, and their families. Scarves, hats, quilts, and baby items are just some of the things this team makes for active duty service members, expectant military families and veterans in VA hospitals around the country. Learn more about this team here.

Collect or Create items for Care Packages

The Soldiers’ Angels Deployed Adoptions Teamis a great way to teach children the spirit of giving and to let their creativity soar! Signing up for the team means making a commitment to send your service member at least four letters and one care package a month until they return home.

Adopting a service member means you get to know their likes and dislikes so that you can send them treats and reminders of home. It’s not just what’s inside the box either – sometimes the best part is decorating the inside of the box to match a theme. Some decorate in their service member’s favorite sports team. Some choose holiday themes – it’s all about creativity and adding a personal touch to each box.

Care packages are a great way to teach children about deployment, and the many things we take for granted that our service members go without having. It’s the perfect mix of sending supplies and sending personalized items to brighten someone’s day. Putting together a care pacakge means shopping for supplies but also getting creative with the decoration of the box, and even some of the things you put it in it, like baked goods, handmade items, drawings, letters, etc. Here are some fun and crafty projects your children can make for their care packages:

Card making

Paper crafts are always fun to do with kids – especially younger children. Cards are easy to make and can also improve your child’s motor and creativity skills. Our Cards Plus Team supports service members, their families, and even other Angels by sending encouraging or celebratory cards and notes. Not in the mood to make the cards? It’s perfectly fine to use store bought cards and write messages in them.

Letter Writing

Our deployed troops love getting mail! We have lots of teachers and parents on ourLetter Writing Teamwho get their children involved in letter writing. Some children write their own letters and some send drawings to go along with the letters their parents send. Our troops LOVE getting letters and drawings from kids!

Letter writing is a lost art and a valuable skill to teach in the digital age. Angels on this team are required to write as few as one letter a month but some write as many as 14 letters per week! So, sign up, join the team, and start writing letters together. Who knows, you may end up with a family pen pal! Click to find out more about the Letter Writing Team

Baking

Some of the best memories spent with our parents are usually in the kitchen making yummy treats. Pass that tradition down with a fun twist – make them for our troops! Our Angel Bakers bake home-baked goods for our deployed military heroes. Cookies, brownies, cupcakes, rice crispy treats… they do it all!Find out more about the Angel Bakers Team here

Volunteer Opportunities

There are lots of needs within VA Hospitals that children can help with over the summer.

Volunteer at Mobile Food Distributions

Every month we host mobile food distributions in Atlanta, Detroit, Denver, San Antonio, Orlando, and Charleston. We love it when kids get involved! Activities include: packing bags of food and handing out the bags to the many veterans who come through. Age restrictions to participate vary by location. Click for more information on Mobile Food Distributions

Host a Fundraiser

Fundraisers are a great way to teach kids important skills like customer service, goal setting, math/money management, and the power of doing for others. Whether it’s a bake sale, lemonade stand, or something one-of-a-kind, it’s a fun summer activity that promotes giving back. Click for info on hosting a fundraiser

Host a Collection Drive

Soldiers’ Angels is always in need of supplies for care packages, box lunches, hygiene kits, or other programs we run. One fun way to get kids engaged and teach them about charity is to help them do a collection drive for supplies. Click here for info on hosting a collection drive.

As you can see, there are lots of opportunities to give back and keep your children entertained this summer! If you do sign-up to lend a hand, please send us pictures! We’d love to share pictures of your summertime activites on our social media sites. Feel free to message us on Facebook, or email [email protected].