Bring chicken soup to a friend who is ill...mow their lawn...run errands for them.
Pay a teenager's way to summer bible camp.
Really listen to a friend and be a true friend.
Send a care package or basket to a new mom...offer to keep the baby for a
few hours so she can sleep.
Give a newly married couple a gift certificate for
a meal at a nice restaurant.
Have fun playing with children.
Help an elderly neighbor carry in the grocery...take out
the garbage and roll bin to sidewalk.
Shovel an elderly person's walkway in the winter.
Volunteer to serve food at a homeless shelter or church.
Greet a new neighbor with a house-warming present or cookies...invite them over for coffee.
Visit a widow or widower on Memorial Day.
Visit a nursing home on a regular basis.
Be gentle...be merciful...be generous...spread joy and sunshine.
Give your spouse a massage or a foot rub.
Give compliments and encourage one another.
Be an active member in your church.
| Give to Wings of Change and help a senior to attend college.
Admit when you're wrong.
Plant a tree.
Run a bubble bath for your wife.
Hug your children.
Send flowers to someone who is grieving.
Be good to a poor family at Christmas.
Teach someone a skill you know.
Forgive and make peace.
Bring a bagful of teddy bears to a children's hospital or organization.
Volunteer for your favorite charity...get involved.
Include encouraging notes in your child's lunchbox.
Forgive a debt owed to you.
Give your paperboy or babysitter a bonus for Christmas.
Bring your husband the newspaper and his slippers on occasion when he gets home from work.
Make an herbal tea for your spouse and include a shoulder rub.
Always send thank-you notes to show your gratitude.
Surprise your parent(s) with breakfast or lunch.
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"A hero is one who does what he can"
To feed the hungry, click a button at hungersite.com and corporate sponsors will donate a cup of food to people in need around the world.
Save lives with Silly String. When a woman learned that her son and his fellow soldiers in Iraq were squirting Silly String to detect nearly invisible bomb wires strung across building entrances--a common death trap--she launched a drive to collect the stuff at her church. She has sent more than 30,000 cans to the war zone. To assist her effort, contact St. Luke's Church, 55 Warwick Road, Stratford, NJ 08084.
Make a girl feel special. Donate your gently worn cocktail (or bridesmaid) dresses to a local program that gives them to girls who can't afford one for the prom. Find a program near you at glassslipperproject.org/yostate.htm.
Comfort a battered woman. When they flee from their abusers, they often leave their personal belongings behind, so they are in need of basics like clothes and toiletries. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 to find a local shelter where you can drop off these staples.
Lift someone out of poverty. "People in impoverished areas--who literally don't have money to put sugar in their tea--can do amazing things with small loans," says Jessica Flannery, an MBA student at Stanford University who cofounded kiva.org to help the world's working poor achieve economic independence. Putting up $25 can help fund a Tanzanian woman's hair salon or enable a Samoan mother to expand her craft business. Check the site to read the stories and see how you can help someone to achieve their goal.
Donate your old cell phone, do the world good. Phones4charity.org sells used phones to refurbishing plants and hands 80% of the money to more than 500 charities, including the American Red Cross and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. To date, they have handed out $1 million.
Rescue a new mom. 99% of 585,000 women who die each year from pregnancy and childbirth complications live in developing countries, where the leading cause of maternal death is hemorrhaging. But groundbreaking work by the Women's Global Health Imperative has shown that a simple bodysuit wrapped around a woman's legs and waist during birth can help slow a hemorrhage--and save a life. Give toward a $250 suit and save approximately 50 lives at lifewraps.org.
Try a random act of heroism. Every Monday, doonenicething.com posts ways to brighten someone's day--from donating frequent-flier miles to soldiers on leave, to sending supplies to schools in the Katrina zone. Check it out.
Source: Glamour Magazine, June 2007, French Writer Romain Rolland
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