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1. Volunteer a morning of your time at a nursing home, hospital, community center, or food pantry.
2. Offer to shop for groceries or do laundry for a shut-in neighbor.
3. Baby-sit overnight for a friend or relative with young children so the parents have a night or a weekend to themselves.
4. Campaign for an organization or group that works for a cause you believe in.
5. Tell your local election board that you'll help monitor the voting booths on the next Election Day.
6. Spend Thanksgiving (or another day) volunteering at a homeless shelter.
7. Start a giving circle with friends or relatives. To learn more, visit All About Giving Circles .
8. Call your mom, dad, grandma, aunt, brother, uncle, cousin, or friend and make a date to volunteer time together.
9. Become a mentor at a nearby school or local educational facility.
10. Give old clothes, books, or furniture to The Salvation Army or a local facility, such as a community center or church.
11. Spend a weekend building homes with Habitat for Humanity .
12. Offer (respectful) help to a stranger who is physically challenged, whether he or she is blind, deaf, in a wheelchair, or has another disability.
13. Get involved in planning a charity event or fundraiser for a group or organization.
14. Offer to coach or assist the coach on a sports team at the local school or children's center.
15. Donate a service you do well to a local community center or nonprofit group, whether it's baking, accounting, plumbing, or writing.
16. Mow the grass, shovel the walk or clean house for an older relative or neighbor.
17. Spend a Saturday or two working at a nearby American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) shelter.
18. Give your frequent flier miles to the Make a Wish Foundation.
19. Take your oldest-living relative out to lunch or brunch.
20. Buy team uniforms for the local girls' soccer club or Little League team.
21. Set up a system that collects leftover food from local restaurants and delivers the food to a food pantry or shelter.
22. Start a block (or building) association that looks after neighbors and works on local issues and the environment.
23. Spend a day with your entire family cleaning up a local park or playground.
24. Join your state's "Adopt a Highway" campaign to keep roadways clean and environmentally friendly. Every state has a program.
25. Teach senior residents at a nearby nursing home or long-term care facility how to use email and the Web.
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