30 Days of Giving Back

Granted, this is from Glamour magazine, but I still thought it provided some useful ways to give back for the holidays or all year 'round. . .

1. Buy a holiday turkey for a family in Baton Rouge (home to thousand of Hurricane Katrina evacuees) for $25 @ brfoodbank.org
2. Offer snow shoveling services to an elderly neighbor. Excellent exercise & there may be cocoa in it for you.
3. Support the troops with warm socks , deodorant, CheezIts: find their wish lists @ anysoldier.com
4. Donate new blankets to kids in homeless shelters @ projectnightnight.org
5. Buy funky gifts @ thrift stops that give back such as Out of the Closet; sales help support the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. For locations, see outofthecloset.org
6. Before you shop online, go to goodshop.com. Then buy from participating retailers and the site donates a portion of your purchase to the charity of your choice.
7. Give manicures @ a local nursing home.
8. Spend an hour or two a week helping an immigrant learn English (check out literacy volunteers.org)
9. Help protect half an acre of rain forest in South Central America with a $25 donation at rainforestalliance.org
10. Donate old cell phones to victims of domestic violence for emergencies (go to ncadv.org and click 'donate').
11. Vaccinate 50 people around the world from deadly diseases such as meningitis, measles or polio with a $50 donation at doctorswithoutborders.org.
12. Provide a month of care for a woman or child rescued from sexual slavery for just $30 at sharedhope.org
13. Get friends involved. To find group volunteer projects, go to thevolunteerfamily.com.
14. Clean out your closet! Then donate old glasses (neweyesfortheneedy.org), shoes (shareyoursoles.org), and even wedding gowns (makingmemories.org).
15. Find projects that help people in your very own zip code at dosomething.org.
16. Make a $10 donation to freethechildren.org and a special matching-funds program will turn it into $100 worth of medical supplies for kids around the world.
17. Mentor an at-risk teen online at icouldbe.org.
18. Volunteer - inside or out - at a national park (nps.gov)
19. Play the Mozart concerto you've (almost) mastered for seniors. For local programs, see volunteermatch.org.
20. Help an aspiring student pay for college at scholarshipamerica.org.
21. Send aDVD or video game to hospital-bound kids via childsplaycharity.org.
22. Tutor a future J.K. Rowling @ 826national.org
23. Staying home for the holidays? Donate frequent-flier miles to injured solidiers' families @ heromiles.org
24. Look at your medical history, then donate to a cause that could help your loved ones, be it the American Heart Association (americanheart.org), Susan G. Komen for the Cure (komen.org) or another charity.
25. Loan money to a budding entrepreneur in the developing world @ kiva.org.
26. Train your pooch to be a therapy dog for nursing homes and hospitals @ tdi-dog.org.
27. Sell gifts you don't need through eBay's Giving Works program (givingworks.ebay.com), which earmarks a percentage of sales for the charities of your choice.
28. Give to donorschoose.org; a small donation can help create cozy reading nooks for underfunded classrooms.
29. Upgrade your laptop; worldcomputerexchange.org will send your old one to a child in one of 61 countries.
30. Give blood (to find out where, go to givelife.org). What better reason to stop and lie down for 10 minutes?