DFW Volunteer Opportunities for Kids

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Volunteer Opportunities for kids DFW
Stacie Jeffries reads to a shelter dog. Photo courtesy of DFW Humane Society.

The holiday season offers a great time to get children involved in the spirit of giving through community service.

Tales for Tails is a reading program at the DFW Humane society that gives children and adults an opportunity to help the shelter pets. Volunteers read books to the cats and dogs that live at the shelter while waiting for forever homes.

Reading aloud to the animals helps provide socialization for the shelter pets, which can help them get adopted quicker, according to Lisa Barlag, the program’s creator.

Positive interaction helps pets get adopted

“The ultimate goal of the program is for our homeless animals to feel comfortable engaging with visitors so that they experience a shorter length of stay in the rescue shelter before being adopted,” Barlag said. “Through their positive interactions with the readers, dogs become more willing to approach the front of the kennel to greet potential adopters.”
But the animals aren’t the only ones that benefit from the interaction.

“For our young reading volunteers, the Tales for Tails reading program helps foster compassion and empathy, while providing a supportive environment in which to develop their reading skills and confidence,” Barlag explained. “In addition, the program allows kids to make a positive impact on the world by helping animals in need.”

The DFW Humane Society is at 4140 Valley View Lane in Irving. For more information, call 972-721-7788.

More volunteer opportunities for kids

Help pack bags of food for Mansfield’s Common Ground Network’s Feed the Kids at 4:30 p.m. Wednesdays.

Mansfield Cares Warehouse
150 S. Sixth Ave., Mansfield

Host a canned food drive or sort and pack food at the North Texas Food Bank distribution facility in Dallas.

North Texas Food Bank
1010 S. Pearl Expressway, Dallas
For more information, call 214-330-1396, or visit www.ntfb.org.

Sort and pack donations at mobile food pantries across Tarrant County or get your hands dirty working in the community garden.

Tarrant Area Food Bank
2600 Cullen St., Fort Worth

For more information about volunteer opportunities, call 817-857-7100 or email volunteer@tafb.org.

Spend a day at Bonton Farms, where your family can help harvest plants, milk goats and work in the chicken coop.

Bonton Farms
6915 Bear St., Dallas
For more information, call 972-982-2245 or email Info@BontonFarms.org
Host a donation drive to collect items to fill Care Packages for troops, first responders, veterans, military families and wounded veterans.

Operation Gratitude
For more information, visit operation gratitude.com.

Volunteer Ellis County

Volunteer Ellis County is a website where you can search for volunteer opportunities in Ellis COunty. Many of them are family friendly. Click on view details to see the specific age requirements, etc.

Voly

The Voly website lets you search opportunities by interest and then breaks down opportunities by dates, time involved, how many volunteers are needed, etc.