Kids Volunteering This Summer

May 24, 2023

Lynn Hernandez,

“I Volunteered You”

My son, Atticus, dreads those words from Dad. He is 13, and he’d much rather play video games or sleep in on summer break than volunteer at a non-profit. So, I do it for him!

Why?

Because I feel it’s our duty as parents to try and inspire our children to help others. Some kids don’t need much inspiration, they do it on their own. My son? Yeah, he needs a little nudging. But once we get going, he always has fun and enjoys helping others. It’s something my parents instilled in me so I am passing it on to my kids.

Last week Atticus asked if his friend, Aden, who lives around the corner, could spend the night. I said, “On one condition!” Both listening, wide-eyed and happy I didn’t immediately say no, looked at me with optimism that they are about to have a marathon night of Call of Duty. I said, “In the morning you go with me to Tulsa SPCA and help unload, sort and stock donated pet food.”

Aden immediately jumped and said, “Yes!” My son hesitated for a few seconds but gave in to the compromise. The boys still stayed up most of the night playing video games but got up when I banged on their door. They honored their part of the agreement.

This was actually a “volunteer party”, as I like to call it, set up by my podcast, “Tulsa Rocks.” As you may know, occasionally I set up fundraisers and/or volunteer parties asking my followers to help a specific non-profit. This time it was Tulsa SPCA.

We arrived and were escorted to the warehouse by Jennifer, where they keep pallets of items that have been donated by Amazon and such. Have you ever wondered what happens to items that are returned to Amazon for various reasons? Items that they are not able to resell?

They sort these items and inspect them to see if they are in good enough condition to donate to local charities. That is what we sorted this past weekend. We broke down a full pallet of dog and cat food. And some rabbit food???

[Side note: I was THIS CLOSE to getting the boys to eat a can of rabbit food for $10. They wanted to do it for nothing!]

We separated the boxes into smaller bundles of dog food and cat food. Then, we stocked the shelves accordingly.

Doing what I do, of course, I brought a radio and cranked up 103.3 The Eagle and had a cooler full of iced-down bottles of water. We rolled up our sleeves and got to work. I’m glad we volunteered on such a beautiful day because I’m sure it gets in that warehouse!

Atticus and Aden taking a break:

We spent 2 1/2 hours doing that before we got to what we all wanted to do the most, and that was play with some of their dogs. We were asked if they were any kind of dogs that we liked and then paired up with a furry friend to go outside and play! It was the perfect ending to three hours of volunteering.

And yes, we were THIS CLOSE to taking this funny little guy home. His name is Trapper.