What do you do to make a difference in your community.

Post Reply New Topic

I changed one word to go from speculation to action.

Some of the stuff for me

I talk with my neighbors.
Volunteer at the homeless shelter
Play music at local library a free acoustic jam
Took a Community Emergency Response Team Training
Took mental health first aid traing

Small things can add up

Well, I regularly donate to charity, and I give money to the homeless...

I don't do traditional volunteer work, as I'm not a people person...

I'm planning to sign up as a juror, though, but one can only register for jury duty once every 4 years in Denmark, and the next round isn't until 2019...

I've also considered becoming a volunteer fire-fighter, but I neither work nor live close enough to a fire station (as a rule of thumb in Denmark, one needs to live or work within 3 kilometres of a fire station to be eligible for volunteer positions)...

I also try to choose an occupation where I can help people ... I currently work in social services, but my position is as an economic consultant with no direct citizen contact, so any difference I might be making would be indirect...

I'm working on a master's degree in social work. Right now, I'm interning at a local free clinic, crunching data and grant writing. Used to work with a local NPO serving homeless vets. I also volunteer 6hrs/week for the local crisis hotline, and I'm trying to start a fund to help disabled people buy recunbent trikes and other adapted recreational equipment to use on the local trail system.

When I graduate, I want to start a housing first program for the chronically homeless in the area.

Grant writers and data crunchers are in high demand.

Statistics (after doing extremely well in math) gave me all night study sessions in college.

Vets and homeless is included in my passion and service.

Making my own home a bright light is sometimes a challenge.
A dimmer switch on my magnifying brain would help.

I record books for blind end users and dyslexic end users.

I guess what I'm doing right now is trying to put on a personal development seminar series for autistic young people. I'm getting a lot of pushback from local people so if I can't find a place to hold it I will reformat it and put it online.

The other thing I will be doing this year is trying to publish my study about working autistic adults. That is a narrative study from the point of view of autistics so I hope that will be a positive, empowering contribution to the field of autism research.

Nothing right now but when I am further along with my own healing I really would like to volunteer and make a difference to folks lives and help people who are not as far along as I am, even if I am not very far along I will try to get far along enough to volunteer!

Small things that aren't in direct contact with people, and much of which probably benefits animals more than humans, but they matter too, so...

I often pick up trash people leave where they shouldn't, and bin it. I can't stand disrespect for the general area in the form of garbage left around when there are bins.

I periodically cut back brambles and branches growing across a little foot-track through woods, which is used as a short-cut in the local area. Nobody, not even the forest keepers, bothers much with this little woods area, but some of us do things to maintain it. We don't even know each other but I've run into another person trying to keep it nice too.

I closely monitor the resident colonies of waterfowl on my local lakes in parks, and keep an eye on their welfare. I know quite a few of the birds on sight individually and up close, and I know if they are missing, injured etc. I recently removed a plastic bag from around the neck of a swan who already knows me and let me do this. I report violations of forest regulations. I got a local news source to report on an issue, creating greater awareness on a problem.

I'd like to start doing some "guerilla gardening," which is when you plant beautiful things in public areas that aren't cared for, in some neglected tree pits near me, but apparently there's a huge problem with people stealing the flowering plants you seeded.