Thirty ways to give back during the holidays
The common complaint of the Christmas season is “too commercial” or too focused on getting instead of giving. But there are a multitude of ways to give back to your community without spending a lot, or at all, for that matter.
In the spirit of the season, we offer 30 ways to give back to the community in the next 30 days.
1. Call the Mentoring Center and consider being a mentor to a child who needs a positive influence in his or her life.
2. Find a family in need in your community and surprise them with gifts, food and sundries to ease their burden during the holidays.
3. Write a letter or an email to a soldier who won’t be able to be home for the holidays. The American Red Cross’s Holiday Mail for Heroes program might be a good place to start: www.redcross.org/support/get-involved/holiday-mail-for-heroes.
4. Buy several pairs of warm gloves and take them to your local school, with instructions to give them away to children who don’t have any gloves.
5. Good ol’ fashioned “Pay It Forward”: Pay for someone’s meal in a restaurant, the coffee for the person behind you in line at the coffee shop or the car behind you in the fast food drive-thru. Or hand the cashier a large bill and tell them to pay for as many people as the money will allow.
6. Host a brunch or a holiday-themed dinner for people who lost a spouse in the past year. Make it a fun, festive event that focuses forward.
7. Go through your phone or camera and find a favorite photo of those closest to you. Get prints of each one and find small, inexpensive frames. Give the people the framed photos before Christmas along with a promise to make more memories in 2016.
8. Help an elderly person decorate his or her home for the holidays. Many times, they’d love to see festive decorations, but have trouble putting them up. Help them, then return after the holiday to help put them away.
9. Over-tip on purpose. Leave double or triple the amount of your bill and make a server’s day.
10. For families, go through your child’s toys and weed out ones they rarely play with. Take the ones they haven’t played with or outgrew and donate them to a family in need, a church or a day care.
11. Donate your old shoes to charities that refurbish them and give them new owners, or recycle them into new items.
12. Organize a Christmas Day “give-back” day. Go to a place that is serving Christmas lunch or dinner to people in need and carve turkeys or hams and serve those who are less fortunate. If it’s too difficult to do on the actual holiday, volunteer in a soup kitchen or food or clothing bank for a day together.
13. For the musicians out there, gather a group of your friends and work with local assisted living facilities to play and sing some holiday favorites to their residents.
14. Collect food, bedding, toys and treats for local humane society or cat or dog shelters.
15. Make holiday cards to give to the local senior citizens center with the request that they have the Meals on Wheels delivery people hand them out with the daily meals.
16. Donate blood. The local chapter of the American Red Cross has many opportunities in the next month.
17. Write a short note or comment card to recognize someone in the service industry who goes the extra mile, whether it be the barista who always has your coffee order ready when you arrive or the mechanic or customer service person at the local car dealership who takes the extra step to ensure you’re satisfied with their work.
18. Being sick during the holiday season is a double-bummer. Offer to sit with a friend or relative who is sick and help them take care of needs during the time they need to be at rest.
19. Getting a new phone for Christmas? Donate your old phone to one of the many refurbishing phone campaigns, or to your local domestic violence shelter: www.dosomething.org/us/campaigns/cell-phones-survivors.
20. For Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s Eve/Day, invite someone who won’t be around family to your home. Pick them up and take them back if necessary.
21. Send a card to a child at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, particularly if you know someone there. Or write out some holiday cards to distribute to people who will be in the hospital during the holidays: www.nationwidechildrens.org/netapps/greetingcard?pageid=246.
22. Organize a charitable effort at your workplace. Whether it is putting together a coat and gloves donation for children in need or a canned food drive for the local food pantry, your effort can help clothe and feed people this year.
23. Treat a single parent by offering to keep the child or children while they go out and see a movie, have dinner, or run errands.
24. Bake some goodies for a neighbor or co-worker.
25. Donate some frequent flier miles to Make-a-Wish to help offset some costs: wish.org/ways-to-help/giving/airline-miles.
26. If you have long, flowing locks, consider donating them to Locks of Love: www.locksoflove.org.
27. If you have a truck or van, offer to help transport donations for a local charity for free.
28. Donate old eyeglasses to the Lions Club, or another service organization that will repurpose them for those in need.
29. Find a new passion to direct your energy toward in 2016: www.charitynavigator.org or www.coshoctonunitedway.org.
30. Rake leaves or shovel snow for a senior citizen on your block, or help him or her winterize doors or windows to save on costs during the colder months.