Geauga County Habitat for Humanity has an active Youth United program. Youth United is a program in which community youth come together to completely fund and build a Habitat home. Youth ages 5 to 25 serve as the leaders, planners, fund-raisers and public relations specialists while youth ages 16 to 25 build the house on site. There are many ways for Geauga County youth to support Habitat, whether they are old enough to work at a construction site or not. Awareness and publicity, fundraising and even some construction activities keep Youth United of Geauga County busy. A few of these activities are listed below. Contact us for more information or to get involved: Send an email or call us at: 440.564.5848.

Visit Youth Photo Gallery

Awareness/Publicity Activities:

• Fold Newsletters/stuff envelopes
• Design webpage or newsletter
• Create poster
• Speak to schools or church groups about Youth United
• T-shirt design contest (can be fundraising activity as well)
• Poverty, substandard housing lessons
• Write letter/article to local or school paper
• Work at local community events, such as street fairs, etc.

Fundraising Activities:

• Playhouse Build – build and raffle a playhouse
• Pizza Sales - ask local pizzeria to donate or sell at cost and then sell to after school activity participants at your school.
• Dress Down Day – students pay a donation to Habitat to be able to dress down
• Candy, Flower and Bake Sales
• Quilt Raffle- sew quilt and sell raffle tickets
• Car Wash
• Letter Writing Campaign - write letters to the people you know asking for support
• Fundraising Swim - get pledges for laps completed
• Penny Collection- start a contest to challenge each grade level to collect loose change. Winning grade level wins a pizza party or some other prize
• Build/sell birdhouses, window boxes and mailboxes
• Shoe size donation campaign - Size 8 shoe = $8.00
• Lego House Contest – have different groups/classrooms build Lego houses. Place a jar in front of each house. Have students vote on their favorite house by putting money in the jar, which is donated to Habitat.

Construction Activities:

• Decorate studs with messages and blessings for partner families
• Painting off-site (as needed)
• Serve lunch or snacks at the worksite
• Clean up a lot prior to construction
• Landscape a home after construction is completed
• Participate on the worksite (for volunteers 16 and older)

Miscellaneous Activities:

• Build mini-house for collection box
• Collect house warming items for Partner Family (i.e. cleaning supplies, plants etc)
• Decorate Thank You cards
• Decorate a stone, rock or cement stepping stone for family