Intergenerational Service Projects for Summer Ministry

This post is part of the Children's Ministry Toolkit - a collection of resources for building strong and vibrant children's ministry, brought to you by Faith Formation Ministries.

While serving is not a “one-off” event, you can utilize the summertime to adopt one of these ideas to focus on service. There are a variety of simple projects you can do in or for your community including: 

• Making care packages for military or emergency personnel. 
• Visiting nursing homes and making cards to hand out to people you visit. 
• Cleaning a park or the church or helping an elderly person with yard work. 
• Collecting food for a local food pantry. 
• Read about how one church created a local mission trip for children 6th grade and younger here. 
• Take a look at this blog post to see how a church planned a Service Day Camp. 
• Gather a group of children and volunteer at Feed My Starving Children. FMSC offers groups of kids a one-of-a-kind experience where kids can hand-pack rice, soy, dried vegetables and a nutritionally complete blend of vitamins and minerals into bags which are then sealed, boxed, placed on pallets and shipped to the neediest children around the world. If they don’t have a location near you, you can still engage in a wonderful experience by participating in or hosting MobilePack events. 
• For more service project ideas, check out this article by Childrensministry.com. 
• An Illustrated Compassion: Learning to Love Like God is a 12-session curriculum from Illustrated Children’s Ministry that walks participants through 12 stories (six from the Hebrew Scriptures and six from the New Testament) that all focus on the theme of compassion.

Have questions? Our Children's Ministry Catalyzer would love to talk with you about faith formation in children at your church. Email [email protected].