The main reason Bill and I emphasize serving others is that it impacts our children so much.  They learn to focus a little less on self and a little more on a higher purpose, they see the bigger picture of their world, they begin to see themselves as having a part in making a difference in that world, and they have opportunities to shine for the Lord in more public arenas.

An election year is a great time for families with older children to sign up with the political party of your choice to do volunteer work.  But, there are also places for our children to serve elected officials during any time of the year.  There are many things that moms, dads and older children or teens can do that make an impact in our community, in an election, and with our children.  For example…

When our oldest was about 14 or 15, he phoned all the voters in our small city for one of the candidates in the state representative’s 1996 race.  We turned it into a school project, putting all his other school work on hold for 2 or 3 days, and he did all the phone calling from home.  Some of the advantages were that our son became very aware of the issues the candidates were facing, discovered he agreed with some and disagreed with others, discovered about himself why he disagreed with some and disagreed with others, polished up his phone etiquette, learned to face rejection graciously, and felt like he had made an important contribution to his candidate’s campaign when he won in November.

Several of our teens have walked or roller-bladed through neighborhoods, calling on folks door-to-door and calling on businesses to put up yard signs with for their candidates in several campaigns.

Our teens have manned the phones at Republican headquarters, gathered in groups with friends to make yard signs, folded and stuffed flyers into envelopes, made phone calls, and stood on street corners waving at passersby with their candidate’s sign.  In 2002, Daniel, Stephen and Patrick talked three neighborhood children into holding signs with them at the end of our street and waving at cars passing by.  (I am not sure their Democratic parents knew their children would be campaigning for Republican candidates when they sent them to play at our house that day…).  J  The kids even put two campaign placards on our golden retriever and took him on a leash with them.  Max was wagging his tail and grinning.

I have many times dropped responsible teens off at a campaign headquarters for the afternoon when I didn’t have time to serve, while I ran to a grocery store or to other errands, or came back home to teach the younger ones.  Sometimes Bill has picked them up on his way home from work for me.

Once the primaries are over in September, we typically let our teens jump into a campaign nearly full-time, taking a back pack of books with them so they’re prepared for any down time or waiting time or travel time, and postponing regular studies until after the second Tuesday in November.  We’ve never regretted it; nor have they.   It’s really a lot of fun for them.

Besides the long-term personal advantages for our children in learning to serve in their community, your student’s high school records will also look very nice.  Kate was surprised to be nominated for a nursing scholarship by her dual enrollment counselor.  But, she needed a high school transcript to provide with the nomination.  We’ve never needed a transcript before, so our evaluator helped us to create one.  How surprised we were to see over 800 hours of volunteer service in grades 9-12.  And how nice that little footnote made that transcript look.  It would be very easy to get all 75 of the Bright Futures hours required for high school in one campaign year alone, and any campaign office should be able to give a letter verifying hours volunteered by any teen for their high school records.  (However, don’t expect campaign headquarters to keep track of it, but be sure to have your teen verify hours served on each visit.) 

Besides all that, campaign offices LOVE home schooling teens.  They tend to follow directions, have a good attitude, learn quickly, can man phones like an adult, work efficiently and bring enthusiasm into the office.   

If you’d like to serve through the Republican headquarters as our family does, you can contact Mildred Russell at 352-375-7646 (Home), 352-213-0473 (Cell) or Myrrh460@aol.com to find out what your family can do.  Mildred  loves to work with home schooling families and teens.