Volunteering Together Can Have a Meaningful Impact for Westchester Families

The joy of working alongside your children at charitable events and the sense of accomplishment gained through volunteering have a tangible impact on families.

When parents roll up their sleeves and dive into volunteer work with their kids, it’s a win-win that’s hard to beat. Not only do families get the opportunity to make a real difference in their communities, but they can also bond over shared experiences.

“It is truly critical and impactful to teach our children how to give back,” says Deborah Blatt, a resident of New Rochelle and founder of The Sharing Shelf, based in Port Chester, which provides clothing to children living in poverty. In her view, when you engage in an activity that genuinely helps to meet the needs of a nonprofit organization, it can set children up for a lifetime of charitable giving.

Katie Pfeifer, Senior Director of Programs at Volunteer New York!, which aggregates programs around the county, agrees. The youngest volunteers become volunteers for life, she says. “So start with something that works for your child and matters to your family, and find an organization [serving] that area,” Pfeifer says. “Then have a conversation about what kind of world we want: Do we want a community that supports each other, treats each other with empathy, notices when someone is struggling, and wants to help?”

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Hastings-on-Hudson resident Danielle Butin, founder of the Afya Foundation, an international relief agency, has witnessed first-hand the educational impact of giving back. Once, she says, a child showed up with his mother to donate his allowance toward packing and shipping supplies to victims of a Haitian earthquake. There was another time when a young volunteer sorting donated shoes at Afya was unable to find complete pairs of shoes, and Butin heard his father seize the moment to teach the boy about the needs of people who have lost one of their legs.

Matthew and Mariquita Blumberg of Edgemont founded the Million Meal Project in 2022 in partnership with the international Rise Against Hunger Group. They have been involving their three teenage children in the organization ever since. “It’s been a great process for the five of us to engage in something together and for [Mariquita and me] to teach our kids about how to start an organization, how to raise money, how to mobilize volunteers, how to build the back-end infrastructure,” says Matthew. “The five of us love working at the events. We are on our feet for six to eight hours, and then we’ll come home and hang out and process the day together.”

His 16-year-old daughter Elyse says volunteering showed her the power of the community to come together. “Since COVID, there’s been a lot of separation, people doing stuff on their own, but [I’ve seen] how easy it is to get 200 people, 300 people, to sign up for something, to actually show up and really enjoy what they’re doing…not just in Edgemont, [but] in every community.”

The Million Meal Project has engaged about 2,000 to 3,000 volunteers, often parents and their kids, at more than 40 fun, high-energy assembly-line-style packing events, primarily held in Westchester. In December 2024 (a full three years ahead of schedule), they reached their goal to assemble one million dried meal kits containing rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables, and a packet of vitamins. The kits are sent abroad—to the Philippines, Vietnam, South Africa, Nicaragua, and Sri Lanka—in boxes containing 216 nutrient-dense and culturally adaptable meals, which is enough to feed a child for an entire school year.

“It’s hard to find volunteer opportunities that people of all ages can be a part of, understand the impact of what they’re doing, and have a physical representation of the impact they’re making,” says Matthew. “But whenever volunteers finish one of our events, “they can literally say, ‘55, 110, 220 kids are eating because of the work we did here today.’”

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At Endeavor Therapeutic Horsemanship, a farm in Katonah that serves veterans and individuals with disabilities or special needs who benefit from riding and interacting with horses, volunteers play a vital role by helping to support lessons, care for the horses, and maintain the facility. Individuals must be at least 14 years old to volunteer, but the nonprofit welcomes families to help the farm out in several other meaningful ways such as at special events, community clean-up days, and other farm projects. “It’s a great way to bond while giving back,” says Endeavor’s Volunteer Manager Melissa Mayer. “By volunteering together, families contribute to creating a safe, welcoming environment that empowers participants to grow and thrive.”

Jaclene Ginnel, an Endeavor board member who has been a volunteer for the past decade along with her two sons, ages 10 and 17, highlighted the impact that volunteering has had on both her family and on the broader community: “Therapeutic riding is one of the most incredible facets of being a horse lover— seeing horses work this way and touch human lives the way that they do. Going [to Endeavor] and caring for them so that they can do the amazing work that they do, for all of us in our family is a really meaningful, impactful thing.”

Related: 4 Community Organizations Making a Difference in Westchester

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