About 100 young volunteers from Barrington 220 schools are putting Martin Luther King Jr’s message of service to others into practice during the national holiday honoring his legacy today.
They’re taking part in JourneyCare’s Soup & Stories Volunteer Challenge created to give kids and teens a simple yet meaningful way to touch families facing serious illness.
All month long, these young volunteers have been assembling sixty hand-made “No-Sew” fleece blankets to include with care packages delivered today to sixty area patients utilizing the services of JourneyCare.
JourneyCare provides compassionate end-of-life care, pain and symptom management to 900 patients a day in ten Illinois counties making every moment count for those touched by serious illness and loss. Along with blankets, the care packages include soup and “chat packs” with questions to spark family conversations.
The young volunteers started out with their deliveries early this morning. JourneyCare Major Gifts Officer Kelly Henry and mother-of-three says the initiative is a way to spread love, bring comfort to families and help teach kids about the importance of volunteerism and the meaning of MLK Day.
“If you have a great volunteer experience as a kid, I believe you become a volunteer for life. What we at JourneyCare want is for people to have a positive experience, get connected with our organization and maybe become a life-long volunteer. I have a big belief in youth volunteerism. You can’t start too young. Once you do, it becomes a natural part of your life and what you do.”
Kelly also says one of their major goals with Soup & Stories is to show young students how easy it can be to help others.
“I think it’s really important for the kids to see how they can really make an impact in a simple way. How something as simple as a warm blanket and a nice bowl of soup might make someone’s day because every moment counts.”
JourneyCare’s Soup & Stories…Comfort and Conversations for Family and Friends initiative was made possible, in part, thanks to a $1,000 grant from Hands On Suburban Chicago, an organization that works to inspire, equip and mobilize people to volunteer and take action in their communities.
JourneyCare says the door is open for any 4th through 8th grade volunteer who wants to take part in their JourneyCare Juniors program. To learn more about JourneyCare Juniors, contact Kelly Henry at 224-770-2525.
They’re also hosting a Volunteer Orientation for participants of all ages coming up this Saturday on January 25th. For more information about the services offered by JourneyCare, this Saturday’s orientation and how you can participate as a volunteer, visit JourneyCare.org/ways-to-volunteer.
