Ways to Honour a Loved One’s Legacy Through Charity and Volunteering

In the wake of a big loss, it’s easy to become caught up in your own grief. Everything feels overwhelming and unmanageable, leaving you lost in the wave of emotions. One of the best ways to start the healing process is to de-centre yourself and focus on others.

Charity work and volunteering is a selfless and rewarding act that can help you to manage and process your grief. It places the emphasis on other people, allowing you to connect with others and process your grief in a healthy way.

It’s also a very touching way to honour the memory of a loved one. You might volunteer with a charity that helped your loved one during their final years, or you might choose one that your loved one supported during their life.

In this guide, we’re looking at the benefits of switching your focus to charity work and volunteer work during the grieving process. We’ll also look at some popular ideas if you’re struggling for inspiration.

Why does helping others help with grief?

We are social creatures by nature, so when we are dealing with overwhelming emotions such as grief, it can be helpful to remain connected. Socialising in the wake of grief might feel challenging, but there is something about charity work and volunteering that is often very different.

Although it is often a social activity, the focus is on the greater good, rather than the individual. This kind of perspective can be vital for those dealing with grief, as it can help you to push through bad feelings to focus on helping others.

There is also a great deal of personal reward to be found in helping others. This selfless act can bring a sense of purpose and meaning to your life at a time when this might be sorely lacking.

With this in mind, let’s explore some of the most common activities you might try to help you to get through the grieving process.

Work with animals

Perhaps one of the most popular endeavours following the death of a loved one is to volunteer with animals. This can be particularly therapeutic as animals bring a sense of calm and routine into our lives. Volunteering with an animal shelter, for example, could help to bring companionship following the loss of a loved one. It might be difficult to be around too many people, but animals bring a calming presence with no expectations to be “better”.

Volunteer in a charity shop

Charity shops need friendly and approachable people to be able to do their work. If you have an eye for fashion, you would be a very welcome addition to the team. This is a more sociable volunteer opportunity, which might feel overwhelming at first. However, people often find that keeping busy with something that feels rewarding and also low stress can be hugely helpful.

You don’t have to worry about sales targets, ordering stock or managing returns. You simply need to be a friendly face to greet shoppers, manage donations, and keep the shelves looking clean and tidy.

Run a race for charity

Taking part in a charity race of any distance can be hugely rewarding and helpful for navigating the grieving process. Staying active will help to keep you feeling healthy and productive. It also helps to boost levels of mood-boosting chemicals in your body.

There’s also the altruistic aspect of raising money, which always feels good. It will help you to stay connected with people, as you’ll need to contact them for donations.

And once you’ve seen people pledging money for your charity of choice, you’ll know that you have to go through with the final event. Whether you sign up for a 5K, 10K, half marathon or full marathon, the dedication and effort is the same.

Volunteer with the elderly

If you are grieving the loss of an elderly relative, you might be feeling some residual guilt about how they were feeling in their final months and days. Loneliness within the elderly community is common, so if your loved one was fortunate enough to be surrounded by love and support, it might be upsetting to know that not everyone enjoys the same experience.

Working with the elderly can help to bring some perspective to your struggles and give you an opportunity to talk about your grief with someone who has much more experience with it. Of course, you shouldn’t go into this line of volunteering with the sole aim of talking about your own problems, but you might find that spending time with the elderly could help you to process your grief in a healthy way.

Plan an epic adventure

If you have the time and the resources, you might take your fundraising efforts one step further and try raising money with an epic adventure. This could mean scaling a mountain, cycling the length of a country, or taking on a multi-day hike.

This type of fundraising can also help to shine a light on a local cause that you are passionate about, such as ocean clean up or an endangered population of animals or birds. With the right challenge and the right cause, your fundraising could gather national interest from news outlets.

Setting up a regular donation

You don’t have to give your time and energy to charity if this is outside of your capacity. Some people prefer to honour their loved one by setting up a regular donation to a charity that they love to support. You might also consider adding a donation into your will, so that your own death will one day continue to support the charity.

Final thoughts

There are plenty of ways to honour loved ones after they have passed, but one of the most selfless and rewarding methods is through charity work and volunteering. It will help to shift focus away from your grief and help you to start to process your feelings. This kind of perspective shift can be life changing as you go through the grieving process.