Start a Community Service Journal. Write a quick synopsis of what you did, and don't forget to record how many hours or minutes you volunteered. To complete this [beginner] badge, you must donate a total of 10 hours of service.
Total: 24.5 hours | 2 hours @ food shelves | 0 hours @ community gardens
1/19/2026: 2 hours. Fallon and I helped on an assembly line to fill 571 cardboard boxes of shelf-stable items for food-insecure families on MLK day. We signed up with my Quaker meeting, but ended up in the thick of a very sweet group of ladies who seemed to be part of some sort of fraternity/sorority/greek organization and very supportive of what little Fallon could find to do (and conversely, what I could find that was close to her). My curious side wondered where/how they procured so many palettes of uniform food to do an assembly line. My critic couldn't help thinking that there were more nutritionally-dense and cost effective options than cereal and juice. How do food insecure families get fresh veg? Fallon ultimately had fun but was hoping to be more "customer" facing in her service work. [Parking Partners MLK, organized by OC Friends Meeting]
1/22-1/23/2026: 3 hours. School parent group treasurer. This was time spent doing 7 years of back book-keeping to file 10 forms the CA Department of Justice needs in order to remove our 501(c)3 suspension. Then an excursion to the post office to mail it. Generally, I sneak this sort of volunteer work in around the edges and don't track my hours, but this project was so big I started doing 25 minute "pomodoro" timed sessions to chip away at it.
1/23/2026: 0.5 hours. School parent group treasurer. Building a prepayments list for the book sale this coming week and setting up email forwarding.
1/24/2026: 1.5 hours. Girl Scouts mega cookie pickup and caravan to our cookie coordinator's house.
1/26/2026: 1 hour. Parent group at school- helping sort books for the book fair.
1/26/2026: 0.5 hour. Parent group treasurer building list of Venmo prepayers for the book fair.
2/9/2026: 1 hour. Parent group treasurer. Book keeping bank statements and calculating the book fair revenue.
2/11/2026: 1 hour. Helping room parents with a Valentine's day party. Throwing balls at a target and helping the first graders add up the total.
2/13/2026: 2 hours. Facilitating girl scout meeting.
2/24/2026: 1.5 hours. Girl scout service unit leads meeting.
3/2/2026: 1.5 hours. Parent group treasurer. Sorted payments for 2 activities, paid 2 bills, email correspondence.
3/4/2026: 2 hours. Parent group treasurer. Sorted payments for 3 activities, paid another 3 bills, balanced the books.
3/10/2026: 0 hours. OC Public Library-Tustin. Submitted application to help shelve books at the library.
3/11/2026: 4 hours. Parent group volunteer. Cooked 3 casseroles, loaned 2 folding tables + picnic blanket, and assisted at the "invisible ink" station during the Revolutionary War festival.
3/13/2026: 3 hours. Girl Scout troop leader. Helped facilitate the meeting and prepared all the fixings for a "Taco Factory" assembly line snack.
Research and write down three community organizations you could help by donating your time. Choose one and find out how to volunteer.
1. OC Public Libraries: The services provided here are so great. It is the main way I can feel "rich" without needing to spend much and I'd love to give back for all the labor I've generated putting in book holds, and reshelving. In addition, this branch is very convenient to many of our extracurricular activities. [applied 3/10/2026]
2. City of Santa Ana Parks & Rec Community Garden: This is walking distance from our house and helping here feels very reminiscent of an element of my favorite video game (Stardew Valley). Fallon is interested in gardening and engaging with others on gardening topics. I have some training with Master Gardeners and 9 years of volunteer experience there, but am letting my volunteer status lapse because I felt I needed to find a way to help out that was more complementary to parent life and hopefully reconnect with them in my empty nester season. This space is also exciting for me because I am learning Spanish, but need more opportunities that nudge me to practice with fluent speakers.
3. Meals on Wheels/Tustin Senior Center: Fallon wants to get more involved in food distribution and this place is somewhere her troop has been visiting for Christmas and in a convenient location to our regular extracurricular stomping grounds. Hanging out with seniors is fun.
4. [current] School Parent Group (Treasurer): already involved, significant source of hours. I am earning about nonprofit book keeping and how to revive a suspended nonprofit status.
5. [current] Girl Scouts (Troop leader): I offered to co-lead as a way to stay in touch with some of my daughter's besties from preschool as they disbursed to different kindergartens. They're in their 3rd year as a troop now.
6. OC Animal Care: Scouts are planning to visit later this month. When I asked sisters what types of volunteering they like to do, working with pets was top of their list.
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