GET INVOLVED:

Volunteering at the Museum

The National WWII Museum could not function without volunteers. The minimum age to volunteer at the Museum is 16. If you are interested in volunteering at the Museum, please email volunteers@nationalww2museum.org.

Activities for Today's Home Front

Americans of all ages and backgrounds worked together on the Home Front to speed our Victory in WWII. The need was obvious and immediate. The consequences of failure were unthinkable.

The challenges we face today may not seem as immediate as those of 65 years ago. But as a country, a community, a school, we see injustice, poverty, violence, ignorance, destruction of our natural resources, substance abuse. The list goes on. Who will address these concerns? Will our country come together as we did in WWII to overcome these present-day enemies?

Students are often under the impression that they make no difference in the world. But it is these same students who will be facing these challenges as adults in just a few years. Below are some social action activities that students can initiate in their schools and neighborhoods. Pick one or two and see what happens when everyone gets involved to make the world a better place.

The following service project ideas (and hundreds more) can be found in the book, The Kid’s Guide to Service Projects, by Barbara A. Lewis, Free Spirit Publishing, 1995. E-mail the Museum at educator@nationalww2museum.org to tell us about any community or school-based service projects you are involved in. We may just spotlight your project on this page!

Improve Your School's Environment

• Clean up litter inside your school
• Erase graffiti and pencil marks from bathrooms and hallways
• Plant trees or a garden at your school
• Research how your school can implement a recycling program; present it to other students and the administration. Design recycling posters and collection bins.
• Hold a recycling contest between classes

Promote Literacy and Learning

• Hold a used book sale. Donate the money to a literacy group.
• Collect used books to give to a hospital, nursing home, shelter, or preschool
• Read aloud to a person who is visually impaired
• Organize a reading hour for children at your local school or library

Promote Safety

• Create a play that teaches young children how to stay safe at home while their parents are away
• Conduct a natural disaster awareness campaign
• Raise money to buy smoke detectors for all homes in your neighborhood
• Write a rap song for a public service announcement (PSA) on a safety issue
• Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper on a specific safety issue

Fight Hunger

• Collect grocery coupons to give to a local food bank
• Volunteer to help at a food bank
• Volunteer to help prepare and serve meals at a shelter
• Conduct a food drive in your school for a shelter
• Contact restaurants and grocery stores to find out how much produce they throw away each day or each week. Organize a pick-up and delivery service for the produce

Help People with Special Needs

• Visit a rehabilitation center. Learn about patients with special needs. Volunteer to help
• Survey people with special needs who live in your neighborhood. Find out their special needs and lobby local, state, and national government agencies on their behalf
• Tour local shopping malls and see if they are accessible to people with special needs. If they are, contact mall officials and thank them. If they are not, contact mall officials and ask them about plans to make them accessible
• Hold an invention contest to see who can make the best, most creative, and most useful invention for people with special needs

Promote Tolerance

• Make posters, murals, etc. that promote tolerance and understanding of differences. Display them in your school and around your community
• Plan ethnic awareness days. Spotlight each group on its special day with food, readings, plays, etc.
• Start a club to promote tolerance and understanding
• Give awards for the friendliest people in your school
• Hold a contest for the best ideas for promoting tolerance and understanding in your school, neighborhood, or community. Put the ideas into action
• Invite notable people from many different groups and backgrounds to speak to your school

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