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You are here: Home / Archives for Activism

Activism

5 Fantastic Family-Friendly Charities to Support Right Now

Alissa Ellett Leave a Comment

Family-friendly charities focus on issues that children will likely want to invest in. So, we’ve put together a list of five to choose from to make your holiday giving easy.

family-friendly charities 101

You amazing church leaders and parents likely have family-friendly charities you love to support. Share with us in the comments how giving has encouraged generosity in the kids you nurture.

Raising Funds to Donate

There are a few ways to gather holiday giving funds with your child to donate to charity.

First, simply tell your child a set amount you will allow them to give. Then, go online and have them go through the screens necessary to donate to the charity they choose.

Second, if your child has a piggy bank, or something similar, invite them to take funds from there. Then, send that money (or a check of equal value) to one of the family-friendly charities you choose. Or drop the money in person, if the organization is local.

Third, create easy ways for them to raise funds to donate. For example, invite them to be in charge of saving aluminum cans in your home. Then, take them to the recycling center to redeem the cans for coins.

To best teach children about holiday giving, connect them to concrete actions as often as possible. Keep this in mind, especially if your child is young. On the other hand, youth are better equipped to think abstractly. Encouraging teenagers to give can be a bit less involved for this reason.

family-friendly charities 102

5 Family-Friendly Charities to Support

No Kid Hungry

No Kid Hungry knows that we have plenty of food in the United States. And we have meal programs that work. The problem is that not enough kids are able to access them.

That’s a problem they know how to solve. And your kids can be a part of the solution.

DONATE to No Kid Hungry.

KaBOOM!

KaBOOM! knows that kids are missing out on the childhood they deserve. Play is disappearing at home, at school, and in communities, particularly for the 14 million children living in poverty.

So, the organization pairs funding partners with under-resourced communities who come together to build safe playgrounds, in just one day, resulting in kids feeling valued.

DONATE to KaBOOM!

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Alex’s Lemonade Stand

Alex’s Lemonade Stand strives to change the lives of children with cancer through funding impactful research, raising awareness, supporting families, and empowering everyone to help cure childhood cancer.

Alexandra “Alex” Scott held a front yard lemonade sale to raise money for childhood cancer. She herself was diagnosed with cancer just before she turned one and passed away at the age of eight. So, her family carries on her legacy through this organization.

DONATE to Alex’s Lemonade Stand.

Defenders of Wildlife

Defenders of Wildlife is a major national conservation organization focused solely on wildlife and habitat conservation and the safeguarding of biodiversity.

It is one of the family-friendly charities that focuses on the inherent value of wildlife and the natural world, and this defines their important niche in the environmental and conservation community.

DONATE to Defenders of Wildlife.

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Hope International

Hope International focuses on something more abstract: entrepreneurship in developing countries. Therefore, it may be a good choice for youth in your family. This charity assists individuals turn their talents, education, or skills into sustainable businesses.

For example, your child may be able to help a woman buy a stove to set up her bakery. Or, they may buy a share of a greenhouse to help a farmer grow vegetables to sell.

DONATE to Hope International.

Giving is a Gift

All of us here at ICM hope you and your family find joy in holiday giving this season. Making this time to encourage generosity at home is a gift to your kids, for sure. So, we hope our list of five family-friendly charities helps. And don’t forget to tell us in the comments how you’re encouraging generosity in your kids!

March For Our Lives Posters Around the Country

Adam Walker Cleaveland Leave a Comment

Not One More

We are grateful for all those in our community who asked for posters to march with during the March For Our Lives. And then the photos started streaming in and being shared on social media. It was impactful to see you all marching alongside youth and children with raised voices demanding change for communities to be safe from gun violence. Make sure to check out the gallery of images below!

Some of the youngest speakers from March 24th’s March For Our Lives especially inspired us here at Illustrated Ministry. These 10 and 11-year-olds who spoke are the same age as many in our children’s ministries who are getting ready to graduate into youth ministry.

Despite being among the youngest on stage that weekend, we as children’s ministry people know that the youngest voices are just as able to speak truth, wisdom and God’s love as anyone else; perhaps, at times, even more so. In case you missed it, here are quotes from three of the elementary school students that spoke and some links to learn more about the inspiration for their speeches:

“I would like to finish my speech today by honoring Martin Luther King Jr. by remembering his words, which are as true today as when he was alive. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ‘Our lives begin to end the day when we become silent about the things that matter.’ And our lives matter.”

-Christopher Underwood, 11 years old
watch his speech • learn more

“School, lunch, and recess is normal,” Floyd said. “Dodgeball and freeze tag is normal. Columbine is not normal. Sandy Hook is not normal. Parkland is not normal. There’s nothing normal about the fact that my classroom, my classroom, can become a war zone at any given day at any given moment. But it doesn’t have to be this way.”

-Dezmond Floyd, 10 years old
listen as Dezmond talks with his mom about active shooter drills • learn more

“I am here to acknowledge and represent the African American girls whose stories don’t make the front page of every national newspaper, whose stories don’t lead on the evening news,” Wadler said. “I represent the African American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls full of potential. For far too long, these names, these black girls, and women, have been just numbers,” Wadler later said. “I’m here to say ‘Never again’ for those girls, too.”

-Naomi Wadler, 11 years old
learn more about Naomi and her story

May these young and acutely aware voices inspire us to work even harder at creating spaces among our congregations that encourage children to tell their stories, share their experiences, to speak and be attentively listened to, foster empathy, and truly be valued in our schools, churches, communities, and world.

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March For Our Lives: Not One More.

Adam Walker Cleaveland 2 Comments

On March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives will take to the streets to demand that their lives and safety become a priority and that they end gun violence in our schools and communities. Thousands, if not millions, of people, will join together in over 800+ marches happening around the world. We wanted to do something to help support their cause, and so we created signs that you can print out and use in the march (or for other events in the future).

March For Our Lives

Not one more. We cannot allow one more child to be shot at school. We cannot allow one more teacher to make a choice to jump in front of a firing assault rifle to save the lives of students. We cannot allow one more family to wait for a call or text that never comes. Our schools are unsafe. Our children and teachers are dying. We must make it our top priority to save these lives.

March-For-Our-LivesNot one more. The above quote was taken from the Mission Statement of those who are behind the March For Our Lives. Here at Illustrated Children’s Ministry, we obviously support children and youth. We stand behind the student-led protest movement that began as a response by students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida to the devastating shooting that took place at their school on February 14, 2018.

Our NOT ONE MORE signs include a list of the dates and locations of every school shooting from Columbine (4/20/99) through the most recent shooting in Great Mills, Maryland (3/20/18). 19 years. 216 school shootings. NOT. ONE. MORE.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO DOWNLOAD FREE POSTERS? Click here to download your free set of “NOT ONE MORE” posters.

You can print out the signs in the following sizes: 8.5×11, 18×24 and 24×36 and we have included both Adobe Illustrator files as well as PDFs. Also included is the above shareable image for using on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

I’m reminded that if anything in our country is going to change when it comes to guns, it’s going to happen because of the younger generations: the high school students, the middle schoolers, our elementary school kids. They are the ones who are losing their friends and classmates to these acts committed with weapons made for war.

Not-One-More

However, it’s clear that nothing will change in our country until we get rid of these assault rifles and weapons made for the sole purpose of killing people.

We do hope that this may be a turning point for our country, and we are so inspired by the young people around the country who are leading this March For Our Lives movement. They are the ones who are leading the conversation about gun violence, and we grateful for that.

We hope these posters might be useful or helpful for you. Download them here.

Not. One. More.

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