12 Most Helpful Ways to Make A Difference in your Community
People everywhere are waking up to the beautiful realization that the poor are our neighbors, both locally and globally! That realization is leading people to creatively serve those neighbors, right around them. One such creative service effort is called “ServeHope,” a nationwide October event sponsored by Global Hope Network International (GHNI), that has friends serving the poor locally while raising sponsorships — sponsorships that help locally and help GHNI serve poor villages globally in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Here are 12 of the most creative ways ServeHope teams can serve the needy in their area:
1. Homeless Serving Hope
A group of homeless men and women in Boulder, CO are serving needy families with necessary home repairs. They want to give back to the community that’s helped them!
2. ‘Schooling’ Street Kids
A group of friends have served homeless inner-city teens by ‘schooling’ them… in a fun, relationship-building 3-on-3 basketball tournament.
3. Halloween Hope
Best Buy employees in Florida teamed with Disney Universal employees to host a costume-creation party with local underprivileged kids… helping them make Halloween Costumes any kid would envy.
4. Trashing the Trash
Friends in Denver canvassed 5 inner-city parks near where they live, gathering all the unsightly trash (including, ugg, drug needles), and “trashing the trash” to clean up their neighborhoods.
5. It DOES Compute
One team helped paint and set up a new computer lab for inner-city families through a local outreach center. Then they gave lessons to locals on how to use the new computers.
6. Bank the Food
Teams gather on a huge farm to spend an exhausting-yet-exciting day from daybreak to dark, harvesting remaining fruits and vegetables, to donate the fresh produce to the local food bank.
7. Dress your Best for School
One team helped a local clothing bank host a back-to-school day where underprivileged kids could come “shop” for free cool clothes for the school year.
8. Habitat Help
You can volunteer with your local Habitat for Humanity, hammering, nailing and building, to help needy homeowners make their own new homes.
9. Readers are Leaders
Spend a day in the library of an underprivileged neighborhood, getting hundreds of donated books catalogued and shelved so local residents can “up” the neighborhood reading rates.
10. Loving the Lonely
Consider how many poor elderly are the forgotten poor right around us. Invest a day at a local low-income nursing home — playing games, reading aloud, and simply listening to residents tell personal stories from the past century!
11. Who Doesn’t Like Toys??
Conduct a used-toy-drive in local neighborhoods, going door-to-door after passing out flyers the previous week, to stock the local food bank with toys for the upcoming holidays.
12. Homeless Lookin’ Good
One team spent a day making and distributing toiletry packets of shaving cream, soap, toothpaste, etc., to their local homeless population, while enjoying the day-long interactions and story-sharing.
Please join us at ServeHope in making your community and the world a better place!
http://www.pangeo.us
Jeff is the founder of Pangeo Coffee. He's been dedicated to full-time humanitarian development with poor villages in Africa, Asia and the Middle East since 2007. Follow Jeff's travels and work on his personal Blog: Pangeo.us , and on Twitter.
