Northwest’s Child and Aaron’s Place, which serve children, teens and young adults with special needs, have been giving back to the communities they serve by donating their time to various initiatives this month.

“We’re often the beneficiary of others’ generosity,” NWC Assistant Director Taylor Manlangit said. “We thought about giving back to our communities, and we wanted to focus on something other than ourselves.”

From doing some planting at Kirkland’s Juanita Beach Park and picking up litter to giving thank you cards to police officers and firefighters and leaving “random cards of kindness” with personal messages for strangers, the staff and students at the centers across the Seattle area have been coming up with ways to celebrate NWC Gives Back Month this October.

“Everyone can get involved with all of our different abilities,” Manlangit said.

Aaron’s Place has locations in Kirkland, Bothell, Shoreline and Seattle, and Northwest’s Child has locations in Edmonds and Seattle. They are both part of the same company, and students and staff from all of the locations frequently come together for activities, including NWC Gives Back Month events.

“Having all of us work together as a team has been great,” Manlangit said.

To organize the events, staff reached out to local government staff, including Kirkland Volunteer Services Coordinator Patrick Tefft, who coordinated the planting at Juanita Beach Park with the city’s parks department, and Bothell Parks Supervisor Scott Purdy, who loaned some litter sticks to NWC.

This is the first year the organization has done this, and they hope to make it into a twice-a-year event.

“We want to continue to give back,” Manlangit said, adding they may double up and have another Gives Back Month in the spring.

NWC also is holding a food drive for Northwest Harvest at all of the locations as part of the Gives Back Month. For more information, visit northwestchild.org.