So Coy and I get pretty busy during the Spring/Summer months. On weekends we go out and help out with a group called Habitat for Humanity. I'm sure you've heard of them before. Basically they build/rebuild homes and sell them immediately to low-income families.

It's pretty satisfying work! Right now we're working on a lot of land that has this condemned home on the property that we have to tear down and demolish first before they can rebuild on the site. Boy, lemme tell you, it's FUN to swing around a giant sledgehammer and smash through walls/supports/etc. Really gets a lot of stress out and it makes me feel good that I'm helping people who are less fortunate than myself.

Anyways, the purpose of this thread is to encourage ALL of you to try to help out in your communities. There are lots of things you can do, and no matter how small your effort I'm sure that it will be appreciated!

Help with the Red Cross, donate to charities, or if you want to help out with Habitat for Humanity in your area you can check out this link.

Make a difference! It will bring not only a smile to the faces of those in need but I guarantee you will feel accomplishment for helping others!!!

Here's a cool and easy (and cheap) idea too!

Find out where your local ASPCA or local animal shelter is. Buy a bag of dog food and drop it off to them.

I'm an officer of a student led volunteer group at my school, the Student Service Corps. We provide volunteering opportunities to students as well as creating some of our own such as a food drive, clothing drive, etc. We try to provide like at least three events per month. Last weekend, we picked up trash in a town wide effort to clean up the area. In past years we have worked with Habitat for Humanity but I have yet to volunteer with them. They sound like a great organization though. So far this year, I have volunteered for like 47 hours, I'd like it to be more but I'm busy a lot. I'm really proud to say that I'm a member of this club because we do a lot to help out the surrounding community.

That's great to hear JB!

Habitat for Humanity is a lot of fun and very rewarding. I'm not so good at the building of houses, but I sure as heck can swing a mighty sledgehammer!

Ahaha, who doens't love breaking things? I'll bring it up to my fellow officers to see if there's anything around us going on.

I'm going to re-interate what Chris was saying and I want to thank him for sharing the message. Volunteering really is a great way to help others in need and make yourself feel better too. There's just something amazing about the smile on the faces of the less fortunate that just brings out the best in everyone. While I do love all kind of volunteering opportunities, the one thing that I do every week , that I enjoy the most (like I prefer this over video games, tv, music, etc.) is something called the Challengers Sports Program. It's a program where you help out special needs kids and adults. It takes place in the elementary school gym and is completely free and run by just volunteers. I love working with these kids and adults, like I've never seen anyone happier than these people. It's weird to say, but it's beautiful. Even though to us they have these "problems" they could care less, they just have pure happiness and the smile on their faces are amazing. This program is something that I really enjoy and if there's something similar in your area, I highly suggest you get involved!

And I'm not going to lie, I volunteer with some people who just do it to put it on the college resume. While I volunteer just because I love to help people out, I don't have a problem with it, I mean at least you are helping out whether or not I agree with your intentions. Nonetheless, you are still having a great effect on people. So those of you who are looking to get into a good college, I suggest you get some serious volunteering hours underneath your belt. You may start out just doing it for college but you'll soon realize there's so much more to volunteering than that.