Youth Activities: Ways to Involve Youth this Fall

Involve Youth in Fall Activities

Sports, Halloween, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving offer opportunities for Auxiliaries to include our youth.

• Work with your high school soccer, football or basketball team and ask attendees to please bring canned goods to a game. Donate the canned goods to your local food bank in honor of the team.
• Dress up for Halloween and help kids enjoy this fun night. Kids love when adults participate! During the pandemic we don’t want our communities to think we aren’t available just because our Post may not be open. Remember your area’s social distancing guidelines and get creative! Alternatives to Halloween parties and traditional trick-or-treating include:
  • Trunk or treat
  • Drive-thru trick-or-treat
  • Trick or treat one-way parade
  • Candy scavenger hunt
  • Candy shoots
• Honor our veterans on Veterans Day
  • Google “free patriotic coloring pages for kids” – you will be able to print many wonderful pictures. Ask kids to color the picture and write a note on the back. Take them to a hospital, veterans home or assisted living facility in your area to be given to veteran patients and/or residents. Many of these men and women are not able to have visitors due to the pandemic; a coloring page and note would brighten their day!
  • Arrange for the school choir to entertain veterans with an outdoor performance. Patriotic songs could be sung at a local park or on the lawn of a veterans home or assisted living facility.
• Help those in need this Thanksgiving.
  • Contact your local school and ask if there are families with children in need of assistance. Your Auxiliary could put together a meal or food basket for those families to be delivered on Thanksgiving eve.
  • Host a community coat drive and collect new and gently used coats.
    • Sort the coats by age group and size (child, junior/teen and adult).
    • Select a day and time when families in need can “shop” and pick out a coat for each member of their family.
    • Donate any remaining coats to a local school, homeless or domestic violence shelter.

Youth Contests

Many kids will be out of school the entire week of Thanksgiving and will need something to do! Encourage them to work on our two contests in the Youth Activities Program:

• Get Excited for the Red, White & Blue!

Singing contest open to youth ages 6 to 16 years at the time of local entry.

• Illustrating America

An art contest for students in grades 1-8.

You can find the contest information and application for both contests under “Youth Activities” at vfwauxiliary.org/resources. There are many tools here to help you promote the contests. Use the colorful flyers on your next Facebook or Instagram post!

There are so many wonderful things that Auxiliaries across the country are doing. Please be sure you are reporting these to your Department Chairman. Who knows, your idea may be featured in VFW Auxiliary Magazine, on the National Organization’s Facebook Page or in the National e-newsletter!

We must learn to do so many things differently right now but remember you are making a difference one child at a time! We need to concentrate and remain positive by thinking:

If you fail,

Never give up because,

F.A.I.L. means

First Attempt In Learning!