What You Can Do For Your Community*
These days we are often skeptical about national and world affairs. Politics, the stock market, the global economy all take the headlines in the nightly news. With all our national troubles we sometimes forget there are things we can do individually, in our families, in our communities, and at work that will make a difference. The following are some ideas to consider:
What You Can Do
- Write down how you would like your community to look in 10 years.
- Read a book about the history of your community.
- Attend a local cultural fair.
- Find an important community story not being co ered by local media and write a letter about it to the editor of the local newspaper and news directors at radio and TV stations.
- Get to know another part of town by going for a walk there.
- Introduce yourself to someone in your community you don't know.
- Make a list of ten things you would like to change in your community and mail it to your mayor or city council member; follow up with a phone call to see how you can work together on the list.
- Call or visit your neighborhood school and ask how you can volunteer.
- Find someone doing a good job in your community (a city council member, a teacher, a volunteer, etc.) and write a thank-you letter.
- Make a commitment to getting to know three people from ethnic or racial groups different from your own.
What Your Family Can Do
- Attend school functions together.
- Together; take food to a local homeless shelter.
- Clean out your closets and take old clothes to a charity.
- Volunteer for three hours a week in a school, hospital, or senior citizen or youth center.
- Spend one day as a tourist in your own city.
What You Can Do In Your Community
- Get together with three others to brainstorm a list of community projects-pick three to work on.
- Organize a tree and flower planting day.
- On Halloween be a block monitor for neighborhood children.
- Find at least two other people to do a clean-up/fix-up day at your nearest public school.
- Start a community garden.
What You Can Do At Work
- Join a civic organization and recruit two co-workers as members.
- Serve food on Thanksgiving at a homeless shelter.
- Form a discussion group to explore how your company and its employees can become more involved in community problem solving.
- Encourage your employer to start a charitable matching gift program.
- Organize a food or clothes drive among your co-workers.
*Taken from a list of "95 Things You Can Do for Your Community in '95", Alliance for National Renewal, see: http://www.ncl.org/anr/about.htm for more information about the Alliance for National Renewal.
Gerry Campbell
Professor and Extension Specialist
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