I started my volunteer work as a teenager, when my local group needed participants to join their choir to perform at nursing facilities.  In addition, our high school highly encouraged students to volunteer their time, either at school or within the community, way before schools required students do a minimum of volunteer time during the school year.

Subsequently, my first important job was as an assistant at a Head Start program in the San Fernando Valley.  Project Head Start was a great proponent of parents volunteering and becoming engaged within the educational and neighborhood community, whether the volunteer work took place in one’s home cutting crafting paper; or being a part of a committee that made important decisions for the program or the community.

Ever since, I have been a volunteer at my children’s schools and my community for several years, whether it was getting our neighbors together to start a Neighborhood Watch, or organizing and running the school Book Fair.  I wanted to instill on my children that part of being a productive community member is giving your time, and sharing your knowledge, expertise or special skill; that volunteering is one way of giving back to the community, whether it’s the school community, your neighborhood community, a community struck by disaster or a community that may be distressed or hurting.

It is not surprising that the findings on research about volunteering result in a .

Social Impact:  Volunteering encourages you to make friends and connect with others.  It can help increase your social network and strengthen your ties within your community. You may meet others that share the same interests, hobbies and have the same neighborhood resources.

Physical and Mental Health:  Volunteering has many physical and mental health benefits, including becoming more physically active, feeling less isolated and raising your self-confidence and self-reliance.  It helps counteract the effects of stress, anger and anxiety. This is especially true for volunteers that work with animals.

Job Skills:  You can increase your job skills or advance your career by volunteering at places that will help you acquire those skills or enhance skills you already have. For example, volunteering your time to help fundraise may help improve your skills in communication, marketing and outreach. In addition, some organizations provide workshops or pay for their volunteers to attend seminars or workshops to help improve their knowledge base or particular skills.

There are so many ways to volunteer, some more time-consuming than others, but no matter how much time you volunteer, the benefits are valuable, both to you and the organization. Here are some suggested places that need volunteers:  your local community organization such as your neighborhood council or community art center, hospitals, non-profit organizations, libraries, parent/teacher organizations, schools, churches, animal shelters, crisis centers, to name a few. in various roles, from office help to attending outreach events.

Also, there are organizations that specifically focus on matching volunteers with organizations.  Two of them are Giving Tuesday and Big Sunday:

(today!) is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social collaboration. Giving Tuesday has to help you find organizations, charities, events and more in your own community.

is an organization that connects people through helping by offering 2,000 ways for people to help out every year.

For more information on how you can help change the life of a gifted child through the gift of volunteer time or a financial contribution, visit our and pages.

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Many parents of gifted children are extremely grateful for public libraries. For our voracious readers, it can be extremely costly to purchase books at the rate at which they read them, not to mention the amount of space it takes to store them. Public libraries allow these kids access to a wide variety of books at no cost. They also have resources that would be more difficult to get elsewhere, including archives and reference materials. Additionally, the library is a great place to casually browse collections and stumble upon new finds in the safety of age- or genre-specific sections. Many libraries these days also provide online portals to rent ebooks, audiobooks, and other digital materials for our tech-loving set.

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Gifted students crave depth and challenge in their area of interest, which they often do not receive in the traditional classroom. They don’t want to merely memorize facts; they want to watch as subject matter comes to life. Mentoring often allows gifted students the opportunity to see practical applications in their field of interest and can provide the depth and challenge they need. In addition to creating academic challenge not present in the traditional classroom, mentors can provide gifted students with career guidance or other similar counsel.

3. Other Gifted Kids

It is important for your gifted child to understand that he or she is not alone, that there are other gifted children out there. Other gifted children with similar experiences or interests can provide a world of comfort for your child, and they can be a great source of support, friendship, and information. Seek out a group or a program for gifted kids – – for your child to attend, even if only for a summer. If this is not possible in person, the internet and technology make it much easier for our gifted kids to connect with each other despite geographic separation.

4. Extracurricular Activities

Encourage your gifted child’s passions through clubs, camps, or classes. Even if certain programs are not specifically created for gifted kids, they might still serve to challenge your child while feeding his or her interests, academic or otherwise. It could be dance, music, robotics, creative writing, chess, math, art – the list goes on. Often gifted kids will have so many different interests that it will be difficult to pick just one, but you can try to find one that fuses many interests together or rotate activities throughout the year. These activities can be expensive; look into activities offered through local nonprofit organizations, your city, nearby community centers, your child’s school, local meet-ups, and the like to find lower cost options.

5. Volunteer Work

Many gifted children are passionate about making a difference in the world, and volunteer work can fuse many interests and passions while challenging your child to grow in new ways. Though it can be difficult to find opportunities for young children to volunteer in certain capacities, there are plenty of opportunities out there in many different fields of interest, so don’t be discouraged if your first few attempts at helping your child volunteer are unsuccessful. Kids can also start their own volunteer projects based around their passions. Gifted kids have done amazing things on their own – from coordinating donations for those in need to writing letters to politicians advocating for change. Regardless of the opportunity, volunteer work allows gifted children to make an impact while also providing invaluable learning opportunities.

What are your favorite offline resources or activities for gifted kids? Please share in the comment section below.

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