Community Friends.

Community Friends gives children the chance to earn badges through community service. By volunteering with local organizations, they see the value of hard work while building confidence. We are bringing the program to youth sports first, starting with little league football and baseball, because a team already practices together and already looks out for each other.

The program.

Community Friends partners with local organizations that serve their communities. Children earn badges by giving at least one hour of service, and track their achievements by collecting badges for their Community Blanket.

The program fosters compassion, hard work, and good will, and is especially meaningful for children who have bullied others.

Photo. A child earning a badge, supplied and cleared by the client.

How it works.

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Step one

Order a quilt.

Families order a Community Blanket to track the badges their child earns.

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Step two

Volunteer.

Choose from approved Community Friends locations and sign up to serve.

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Step three

Collect a badge.

Once volunteer hours are verified, the badge is ready to add to the blanket.

Why service, and why badges.

A child who has been bullied has usually been on the receiving end of everything for a long time. Service flips that. For an afternoon they are the person who showed up and did something useful, which is a different thing to be.

The badges matter more than they sound. A badge is proof that is visible to other children, and visible standing is exactly what bullying strips away. It is also the part children ask about first.

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