Family Volunteering Club is on a mission to make it really easy for kids aged 0 - 9 and their grown ups to help out at important causes on their doorstep. We want to help create a society in which every child grows up feeling connected to their local community, and understands the positive role they can play in helping change issues that matter to them.

 

We work with different charities and community groups to create programmes of fun, impactful, tailor-made volunteering sessions, specifically for kids!

 

Why Family Volunteering Club is great!

• It’s an easy way for families to volunteer together

• Participants can benefit from increased confidence, learning new skills and feeling better connected

• Families can help make the world a better place – every week

• We are teaching kids how to tackle big problems, from the climate crisis to food poverty

• It's a great way to make stronger connections in the local community

• Families can fit volunteering into their schedule, without fuss

 

What to expect

At a Family Volunteering Club session, both kids and their grown ups will have a brilliant time doing age-appropriate volunteering tasks for important causes, in a fun environment! As well as rolling up our sleeves to get stuck into helping out, we always start with a song, and end with a story (and snacks) plus stickers to say thank you to our helpers. Here's a short video to give you a taste of what happens.

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Here's why people love Family Volunteering Club!

Exposing my child to gardening - something we can’t do in our London flat! And spending time with other local parents doing something fun.

I loved the freedom of being able to do as much as you could, whilst having your children there.

It was so brilliant. I loved getting to know one of our local charities and feel really inspired to do more volunteering with my daughter in future. THANK YOU!

It was great! Love my son helping "the real world" and learning to help others so young.

Interactive, well run, friendly organisers, meeting other local families with children the same age, the activity, safe space for kids, feeling of helping the community.

It can be hard to build connections as a new mum, and this has helped me hugely as well as giving me a great way to introduce my daughter to volunteering.

The sessions are perfectly formatted for young children... hands-on-activities... opportunities for learning... and the inclusion of the all important story and snack! 

Activities were age appropriate and paced well for their attention span. Well done!​

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Our story so far

Family Volunteering Club was established in 2019 by me, Maddy - a mum of one living in London. Nice to meet you! I used to do volunteer work in my free time, but found that after having my son, places just weren't set up to accommodate families, so I had to stop. Lots of parents and carers I spoke to felt the same, and I realised there was an opportunity to make a difference.

 

We piloted Family Volunteering Club in autumn 2019 with 7 organisations including: London Transport Museum, Ronald McDonald House and Waterloo Foodbank. The project was an immediate success, welcoming 40+ families (and a nursery group), creating 116 new volunteering opportunities. The positive impact and potential for this to grow into a national project was clear. Recognising this, we secured modest seed funding from Marks & Spencer.

 

With additional support from Comic Relief and National Lottery, we have been delivering programmes in south London (mostly around Lambeth and Southwark), including remotely during Covid. We partner with a large range of charities covering a variety of causes including: Little Village, The Felix Project, Bee Urban, Roots & Shoots and MySocial, and in 2022 alone we have created over 400 new family friendly volunteering opportunities.

 

We are now entering the next chapter for the project, to take the model from south London, and roll it out across the UK.

 

​The Vision 

We have big plans. We are now entering the next chapter for the project, to take the model and take it to towns and cities across the UK. Family Volunteering Club will become a national programme, with clubs across the UK run by local coordinators, supporting their local causes. We want it to be easy, and part and parcel of family time (just as arranging a swimming or football lesson!) to spend perhaps a few hours each month volunteering together for a local cause. The sessions will always guarantee fun, a positive impact and be entirely geared up for kids. 

 

We are keen to link up with people from across the UK who might be interested in setting a club up in their area, and businesses who would like to support this project to grow - do get in touch!