Hear those wedding bells chiming?

William and Kate leaving Westminster Abbey.

In lieu of the Royal Wedding today, I thought I’d talk about some wedding themed good deeds!  While you may not be marrying the
Prince of Wales, you can still have a beautiful wedding.  Even without a royal budget, weddings usually run pretty steep.  There is a lot of money to put in to a ceremony like that.

When it comes time for a wedding of your own (or one that you have some say in) think about how much money is being spent and on what.  There are ways to use weddings as a way to give to others.

I’ve found a few suggestions.

If you shop for a wedding dress through the Brides Against Breast Cancer Foundation you can donate money to a very worthy cause.  The organization holds shows all year long all over the country.  You can buy a dress, at a very good price, and a lot of the money will go toward women and men who are losing their fight against breast cancer.  Why can you buy them at such a low price?  Because brides also donate dresses to the foundation.  All the dresses are donated by brides or by designers and shops.  The programs is part of the Making Memories Organization.

Let’s take an green approach.  Recycled Bride is a website that helps couples not only save money on wedding costs, but be more eco-friendly while doing it.  Not having a dress made is very helpful to the environment.  There aren’t just dresses on here though, there are shoes, tuxedos, table decorations, and more.  This Big Green Purse blog post lists a ton of go green ideas for weddings, including Recycled Bride!

A tip I came across a few times while looking for ideas was just something you can o on your own.  If you have a special organization you’d like to give money to, sell your dress online and pledge all the money to that organization.

How about those brides maid dresses?  Fairy Godmothers is an organization that collects formal dresses to give to girls who can’t afford prom dresses.  High School girls can come to several locations all over the country and pick out a donated dress, shoes, and accessories, free of charge.

Happy Weddings!

Project Hope

There are people all over the world who suffer because a lack of healthcare.  Many countries can’t provide citizens with medicine or medical care.  Project Hope is a non profit organization dedicated to helping everyone get long-term healthcare.  The organization aims to give people in need medical attention as well as training physicians and nurses.  Project Hope also gathers medicines and supplies to distribute where needed.

If you have experience in the medical field you can easily get involved!  Project Hope is constantly looking for doctors and nurses to come help in different areas.  Either find a current position or look for a place that you’re interested in.  There are over 35 countries that Project Hope works with.

If you don’t have medical experience you can always make a donation.  If you’d like to be a little more involved than just sending in a check you can sponsor your own event.  Project Hope makes it possible for you to make up your own program and invite people to donate.

Project Hope has blogs too!!!

Their In the Field blog documents stories and news about what Project Hope is doing all over the world.  CEO Dr. John P Howe writes a blog of his own.  He talks a lot about how people are helping and how they can help out with Project Hope.  There is also an Africa blog.  Project Hope has a long history in Africa, the blog keeps readers posted on whats going on in the struggling regions.

These blogs help volunteers and those serious about proper healthcare keep up with what is going on with Project Hope and the people it is helping!

A trip to the library

We have one more day left in National Volunteer Week, let’s make it count!  I’d love to hear about things that anyone has done to help their community or the people around them.

Have you ever considered volunteering some time in a library?

You can contact your local library and ask to volunteer your time.  There are plenty of jobs that librarians can give you when you’re helping at a library.  You can help people who are visiting the library with finding materials or using the computer.  You can assist librarians with filing books and digital media.  You can help keep up the appearance of the facilities as well.  While volunteering at a library you get the chance to spend time with members your community.  You can work with children and learn from librarians.  If you are in high school or college you can also put library work on a resume (but remember, that shouldn’t be the only reason you volunteer!)  Check out this site for Champaign Public Library (located in Chicago).  It gives a lot of good information on how to get involved at libraries.

Find a library near you.

Also, grab some books that you don’t need anymore and donate them to the library.

And before you go volunteer to help file book, catch up on your library knowledge.  My cousin is in elementary school and apparently librarians are showing kids this little rap- enjoy!

Pick up trash

National Volunteer Week is halfway over,  but there is still plenty of time to to give time to a special cause!  I wanted to share a volunteer idea with you every day this week, but of course, school is always getting in my way.  Oh well, we still have today, tomorrow, and every other day to volunteer.

For today’s topic—

A large portion of litter is made up of trash from fast food.  Most people litter because they are too lazy to bring something to a trashcan.  I heard recently that one cigarette butt pollutes several gallons of water.  I can’t find a statistic on it, but cigarette butts are a common item found in litter.  Green Eco Services presents a lot of facts about littering and different ways you can prevent it.  Check them out!  A study found that 18% of litter ends up in the streams, rivers, and oceans.

Trash on my street

So, what can you do about all of this??

Cleaning up communities and neighborhoods is a very worthwhile thing that you can do.  I stumbled across Keep America Beautiful, which is a community oriented organization that is geared toward getting people more involved in their community and the environment.  KAB is the sponsor of the Great American Clean Up, a nationwide effort to clean up our communities.

If you don’t have a KAB affiliate in your area or any other program you can always go outside and start cleaning up around your house and down your street.  You can always get groups together or find groups via the ever useful Twitter and Facebook.  If you want to work with a group or on an area that needs special attention then you have to find a program related to that opportunity.  You can look online to see what programs are in your community.  I found out about a campaign in my town (Morgantown West Virginia) that is spreading awareness about litter in the Monongahela River.  Anyone can get a group together and pick up trash along the banks of the river.  Other areas have programs or campaigns specific to their community.  Henrico County Virginia, for example, has a litter clean up program that anyone in the county can get involved with.

This is an easy but very beneficial volunteer opportunity that you can have fun with.  You can go outside on a nice day with a group of friends and make the environment better.  So grab some gloves and a few trash bags and get started!

It isnt difficult, just throw something in one of these instead of on the ground!

SummerTIME

I mentioned sharing some summer volunteer ideas yesterday.  Did you ever go to summer camp when you were a kid?  I did!

As a Girl Scout, I got to go camping all the time.  In my later years in Girl Scouting I became an junior camp counselor.  Junior counselors didn’t get paid, but I really didn’t care!  Being a counselor was just as fun as being a camper.  The actual counselors
get paid a stipend for their time, but it wasn’t the best summer job as far as salary goes.  Girl Scout camps usually have girls for a weekend, a full week, or sometimes just for day programs.  If you aren’t a Girl Scout you can still be a counselor.  Girl Scouts USA is always looking for more!

Other Junior Counselors and me at camp in 2005

If Girl Scouts isn’t what you had in mind (but I strongly recommend it!) there are tons of counseling opportunities in camps all over the world.

Camp Quality USA is a camp made for children with cancer.  Activities there are like any other camp: swimming, games, arts and crafts, campfires, and more!  The camps are scattered around the Eastern half of the country but there are quite a few of them.  Find one near you.  Anyone can volunteer to work with kids who are fighting cancer.  The goal of the camp is to let kids feel like kids.  Camp Quality hosts camps during the summer, but also gets involved with children throughout the year.  Contact Camp Q to apply to be a volunteer.

Many camps are exclusive to one or two areas.  If you can’t find a large camp organization like Girl Scouts or Camp Quality you will still definitely have a camp somewhere near you.  Many summer camps take place in neighborhood parks all summer long.  I found this site that helps you locate summer camps near you.  So start looking!  For many of these programs you can be as involved as you want.  If you have a job, they would still appreciate your time when you can lend it.

Happy Camping!

Ideas!

Hello volunteers!

National Volunteer Week is close!

This is my first attempt at embedding a countdown onto my blog.  It isn’t very exciting looking, but it gets the job done.

http://countdownpage.createyourcountdown.com/countdown.swf?filename=edf0320adc8658b25ca26be5351b6c4a_12214

I want to make sure you have plenty of volunteering ideas to choose from.  So here are a few:

I just recently came across Smart Volunteer.  The aim of this site is to give working professionals volunteer opportunities that are relevant to their field.  Anyone can go on to Smartvolunteer.org and tell their location, how far they want to travel, and choose an area of expertise.  Smart Volunteer then searches its list of opportunities and shows you what you can do in your area.  The opportunities are not general volunteer options either, they are specific events with set dates and times that are looking for additional volunteers.  You actually have to apply to most of them, but it is not a rigorous process by any means.  So if you are a working professional who would like to put your skills to use for free check out Smart Volunteer.

Next up is a subsection from the site Volunteer Guide.  This site offers a special segment called How to Make a Difference in 15 Minutes.  You can click on a category like animal welfare, the environment, or the community and a list of ideas will pop up.  The ideas are all things you can do to help yourself and people around you in just 15 minutes.  This idea, under poverty,  suggests you buy food gift certificates for the homeless.

United We Serve is a resource that you can use to find volunteer opportunities.  The special thing about this site is it was created to help America snap back from the falling economy.  If you consider yourself very patriotic, I’d recommend this site!  They have a blog too!

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but you can always use Twitter to find volunteer ideas too.  A quick search of #volunteer brought me to this- summer volunteer activities!  Hmmm… I sense a similar post in the near future.

Prepare yourself for National Volunteer Week (and any other week in the year), someone can always use your help!

When you can’t volunteer…

On March 11th a 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami terrorized Japan.  So far the death toll is over 10,000.  The disaster in Japan happened over two weeks ago, but relief efforts are still going strong.  If you are reading my blog you are probably very passionate about volunteering.  If you’re like me, you’d rather give your time than your money.  Unfortunately there are a few things preventing overseas volunteers from helping Japan.

Photo courtesy of Associated Post

If you have been thinking you’d really just like to get over there and help, hands-on, just take a second and think about it.  While many people want to be there for the Japanese right now, it isn’t necessarily the best thing for them.  Trained volunteer groups are being sent by the Japanese Red Cross to do everything they can.  As an untrained volunteer you should strongly consider cash donations. Japan needs help from the rest of the world, but help from untrained help isn’t always helpful.

InterAction is a group dedicated to uniting the world through helping the world’s poor or suffering.  Inter Action encourages those eager to help that their money is the best thing they can do.  Read their reason why cash is the best option when dealing with overseas disasters.  Inter Action is very confident in Japan‘s Red Cross and it’s two million plus registered volunteers!

So, here!  A few donation opportunities.

1. The American Red Cross, of course!
2. Direct Relief International, this organization is dedicated toward helping any area in need of relief.
3. If a religious outlook is more your style check out Samaritan’s Purse website, click on the donate button to give.
4. UNICEF helps children all over the world, in this case they’re raising money for Japanese children.

I hope you like these organizations.  If you aren’t interested in any of these there are many others out there.  Do what you can to support those that are suffering, every little bit helps!

Side Note* April 10-16 is National Volunteer Week!!! Start getting excited!  I’ll have more for you on this topic next week… I’ll try not to seem too eager