31 days
- Buy a holiday turkey for a family in Baton Rouge (home to thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees) for $25 atbrfoodbank.org.
- Offer snow-shoveling services to an elderly neighbor. Excellent exercise, and there may be cocoa in it for you.
- Support the troops with warm socks, deodorant, Cheez-Its: Find their wish lists at anysoldier.com.
- Donate new blankets to kids in homeless shelters at projectnightnight.org.
- Buy funky gifts at thrift shops that give back, such as Out of the Closet; sales help support the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. For locations, see outofthecloset.org.
- Before you shop online, go to goodshop.com. Then buy from participating retailers and the site donates a portion of your purchase to the charity of your choice.
- Give manicures at a local nursing home.
- Spend an hour or two a week helping an immigrant learn English (check outliteracyvolunteers.org).
- Help protect half an acre of rain forest in South and Central America with a $25 donation at rainforestalliance.org.
- Donate old cell phones to victims of domestic violence for emergencies (go toncadv.org and click “donate”).
- Vaccinate 50 people around the world against deadly diseases such as meningitis, measles or polio with a $50 donation at doctorswithoutborders.org.
- Provide a month of care for a woman or child rescued from sexual slavery for just $30 atsharedhope.org.
- Get friends involved. To find group volunteer projects, go to thevolunteerfamily.com.
- Clean out your closet! Then donate old glasses (neweyesfortheneedy.org), shoes (shareyoursoles.org) and even wedding gowns (makingmemories.org).
- Go to glamour.com/woty to get inspired by our 2007 Women of the Year winners and to support their charities.
- Find projects that help people in your very own zip code at dosomething.org.
- Make a $10 donation to freethechildren.org and a special matching-funds program will turn it into $100 worth of medical supplies for kids around the world.
- Mentor an at-risk teen online at icouldbe.org.
- Volunteer—inside or out—at a national park (nps.gov).
- Play the Mozart concerto you’ve (almost) mastered for seniors. For local programs, seevolunteermatch.org.
- Help an aspiring student pay for college at scholarshipamerica.org.
- Send a DVD or video game to hospital-bound kids via childsplaycharity.org.
- Staying home for the holidays? Donate frequent-flier miles to injured soldiers’ families atheromiles.org.
- Tutor a future J.K. Rowling at 826national.org.
- Look at your medical history, then donate to a cause that could help your loved ones, be it the American Heart Association (americanheart.org), Susan G. Komen for the Cure (komen.org) or another charity.
- Loan money to a budding entrepreneur in the developing world at kiva.org.
- Train your pooch to be a therapy dog for nursing homes and hospitals at tdi-dog.org.
- Sell gifts you don’t need through eBay’s Giving Works program (givingworks.ebay.com), which earmarks a percentage of sales for the charities of your choice.
- Give to donorschoose.org; a small donation can help create cozy reading nooks for underfunded classrooms.
- Upgrade your laptop; worldcomputerexchange.org will send your old one to a child in one of 61 countries.
- Give blood (to find out where, go to givelife.org). What better reason to stop and lie down for 10 minutes?
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