What are ways that the elderly can participate in volunteer activities?

Depends on their health and mental stability and physical ability. Someone with business experience can volunteer to mentor a new small business owner and help him get his business up and running. They can make a recipe book of their old favorites and sell it to raise cash. There are printers online who will put it together for you. You can adopt a pet (or have someone donate a cat or dog) to give them something to care for. Statistics show that the elderly who have a pet tend to live longer, more productive lives. Ask each of them to write a list of their talents. You may be surprised at what you uncover. Many older women know the arts of crochet, knitting and needlepoint. They can make crafts to auction off and you can ask the public to donate old or new yarn. You can create a quartet or choir with those who love to sing and plan concert engagements. You can have the orphans in your area assigned to a Adopted Grandparent with regular visits. It will be good for the child as well as the elderly. Hope this helps.

The elderly will have had a lot more experience of life than the rest of us, and would therefore be very well equipped to provide advice on a wide range of life's little challenges. If you were to ask around you may find that some of your residents may also have specialist areas of expertise from their former careers, and knowledge of post war austerity, which might also be useful in the present day. With all this knowledge and ability being available, it would be a shame for it to go to waste (which is one of the main reasons for having diversity policies by the way), so you could try and set up some form of advisory clinic or telephone services, where they could share their wisdom with those in need. Allowing your residents to see themselves as advisers or counsellors might also then be good for their self esteem, which might also create some possible further health benefits. Hope this helps, PE

Ideas for home-based volunteering, which are listed on this page after the very long list of virtual volunteering activities, might be just what you are looking for: http://www.coyotecommunications.com/stuff/findvv.shtml Lots of links there to organizations like Afghans for Afghans, Mother Bear Project, Project Linus, Quilts of Valor (QOVs), Adopt a Soldier and more.

Try to schedule a parenting adoption; let them be adopted mother of granny to a family wo does not have one. Let the be with the family once a month. This may cheer them and also serve the community who are in need one. May God Bless you effort. Amen.

Try by getting a free fundraising kit from various websites. It's a great way to learn more about the fundraising options they offer. With the right information and the right tools they can help you make your next fundraiser a success. All fundraising groups are going to have to sell their items to generate money. Everyone starts with selling to mom and dad then moves on to friends. The more successful the campaign means the more people you will actually have to talk to. Here are a collection of sales tips you can use to help you while you are raising funds. - Have fun and enjoy what you are doing. It is not necessary to have a canned speech and perform it by memory. You can talk to people and have fun with your campaign, the donors will pick up on this and sales will increase. - Be honest while making the rounds for sales. You are a representative of your school group. - People do not want to be told what to do. Your job is to make people feel good about donating to your school group. - When you get a no, don’t take it personally. The donors are not saying they don’t like you; they just may not care for the product or have the money available at the time. - For people who are nervous about selling a little preparation is key. By practicing your sales talk it will bring confidence. Again the goal is not to recite something word for word but to talk about your fundraising campaign with confidence. It might sound a little funny but try role-playing if selling is an issue with you. Spend time with people rehearsing just talking and getting past an objection or two. - Avoid hard selling. There is no need to be pushy while fundraising. People like to help out and also enjoy buying. You may even be able to offer them the chance to show up to school to check out the new equipment, or the new uniforms for the baseball team. By being friendly and a good representative you just might pick up new volunteers along the way. - If possible get a booth or a table in a high traffic area. Places like malls or local events. This will get you lots of traffic and potential donors that you can approach. These sales tips are good for whatever sales you might find yourself in. You might even consider these tips good advice for talking to people and relating. Remember interacting with people will serve you better than just about any learned skill taught. A little preparation with these tips will insure that your fundraising campaign is both fun and profitable.