26 ways to volunteer where you live

In addition to the ideas below, your first step should be to contact your local United Way to ask how you can help!

Education
1. Invite a friend, neighbor, family member to attend a school board meeting with you.
2. Organize a book drive with your family, co-workers, school, club or faith community.
3. Read to children in your family, at a library, or with a local non-profit engaged in child care or literacy.
4. Purchase school supplies for a local school to distribute to children who need them.
5. Help organize and promote a summer reading program at the local library.
6. Donate your newspaper subscription to a local school when you go on vacation.
7. Allow a high school student to shadow you at work and show them how to apply things they learn in school.
8. Take the children in your life to a local museum, exhibit or play.
9. Be a mealtime partner for a pre-school class to help kids develop social skills.
10. Mentor an at-risk youth at your neighborhood school.

Income
11. Bring a child in your life to a bank to have a tour and open up a savings account.
12. Tutor at an adult literacy or technology program.
13. Donate new or gently used professional clothing to an organization assisting individuals in seeking employment.
14. Serve as a greeter at a free tax preparation community coalition site to help low-income families acquire up to thousands of dollars in earned income tax credits.
15. Volunteer to prepare tax returns for low-income families.
16. Contact your local representative about an issue affecting working people in your community.
17. Ask your bank if they offer free checking and savings accounts to low-income families and encourage them to start if they don’t.
18. Engage with a middle school to teach a class on how to save money and watch with them as it grows.
19. Help senior citizens learn how to detect and prevent fraud.

Health
20. Contact your local health clinic to offer assistance in anything from distributing flyers to serving on an event committee to writing a letter to the editor on their behalf.
21. Check into what healthy snacks are or are not available in your local schools and call on others to promote tasty healthy meals and fun exercise at school.
22. Start a walking group for friends, families, neighbors and/or community members that meets regularly at a set time and location. 
23. Buy pedometers for your friends and have a fun competition for who can walk the most steps.
24. Purchase personal care items such as deodorant, toothbrushes and soap and drop them off at the local homeless shelter.
25. Help transport families to necessary medical appointments so children can have proper screening and immunizations.
26. Donate blood.