Christmas Cards for Community Service

Service was a priority in the first Adventurer club my family was involved in. At staff meetings, we always discussed ideas for upcoming projects. Our goal was to have some kind activity of service every month. Some were larger events – like a park clean up or Adventurer Sabbath. And some were easy to squeeze into a regular meeting alongside our normal investiture and award activities.

Because my first director put such a strong focus on community service, I have always considered it an important part of the adventurer program. My club is small right now. And I don’t have the large active staff we had at that club. So, I can’t do all the activities I want to do. But, I can do some. And my eyes are always open for service activities that welcome young children.

Holiday Cards

One of my favorite service activities is to make cards for people – retirement homes, military friends, older church members. The kids always seem to enjoy making the cards. And I have heard how encouraged their recipients were when they received them. Sometimes, I will have an adventurer who adores drawing and writing cheery messages, but I’ve found that many of the kids are intimidated by that blank piece of paper. I have created card-making kits to take away the intimidation.

I lay out all of the supplies, and the kids can pick their base color for the card, a picture to color for the front (or a blank front for the artists) and an insert with a seasonally appropriate greeting (or a blank insert for the writers).

Adventurers will color the picture and glue it to the colored cardstock. Next, they’ll glue the insert to inside and then sign the card. (We strongly encourage our adventurers to only use their first name unless the card will go to someone they know personally.) Depending on where the cards are going, we may include a sticker (address label) on the back of the card to explain that the card is from the Adventurer club.

Stickers!!

I have also started creating sticker kits for the little lambs – all the parts for the front of the cards are in one place, just stick them wherever your little heart desires! My little lambs love these! And truthfully, as soon as the older Adventurers are allowed to use them, they jump right in. Obviously, you are never too old to enjoy stickers. You’ll find a cut file for print and cut stickers at the end of this post. (Hint: Remove the sticker paper “outline” to make it easier for the littlest Adventurers to remove the stickers without ripping them.)

Supplies

Cardstock – One letter-size paper cut in half and either folded in half or scored for later folding. Any colorful cardstock is great. I love the multi-color packs Michaels has. I get a nice variety of seasonal colors, and they frequently have good sales.

Glue – Washable glue sticks are great for this project. I bet you have lots of those! Just encourage your adventurers to glue around the edge of the picture and insert cards.

Pictures to color – a quick google search and you will find tons of great pictures to color. Or, you can click on the download link below and I’ll share some picture with you!

Card inserts – The link below also includes inserts.

There are twelve pictures and twelve inserts. Depending on who you are making them for and when you are making them, you may want to use all of them or just a page or two. For example, for Christmas cards for church members, I would print all twelve pictures and twelve inserts (all six pages of the pdf), cut them (just remove the color borders), and let the kids mix and match.

If we were making them for a non-religious group at Christmas, I would print the religion-neutral pages and the winter pages. Or, if you want to send out some winter cheer in January, you will find a page that doesn’t mention Christmas and will fit nicely for both Christmas cards or winter happy mail.

What holiday service projects does your club enjoy? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

Special thanks to my artistic kids for coloring most of the sample cards. When they saw me start coloring a card, they insisted on being part of the fun.