homeless shelter, volunteering as a family...

depends on the shelter and depends on what meal you volunteeer for. the diinner crowd is kinda raw at some

I agree it depends on the shelter. The shelter that I do the most work for is a women's and children's shelter and they do allow children to help. I think just like with anything else it has to be age appropriate. I take my 5 yr old when he's donating his toys to the children there. I just wanted to say that I applaud your efforts in helping those that live in a shelter.

There may be liability issues with a child that young. The foodbank we volunteer at has a cutoff of (I think) 8 for stocking shelves and packing bags. There is a fantastic soup kitchen, set up as a restaurant, that has a cutoff of 12. You need to phone each facility.

When I was working as a social worker I had some good friends who worked with the homeless. They didn't allow kids under the teen years to volunteer. The reasoning was for liability issues... in case of violence, or communicable disease, or issues like that. There are a lot of ways to get kids involved volunteering though- even encouraging them to donate used toys and clothes to a shelter, sorting donations, especially in 'casual' food banks like those offered through community centres and churches... good for you for teaching the kids to be giving!