40 Ways For WAHMs to Give Back This Holiday Season
Women entrepreneurs are already in giving mode in general. Sixty-eight percent of female business owners volunteer at least once a month, while 31% donate $5,000 or more each year and another 15% donate upwards of $10,000 annually.
Just because you don`t have the bank account to donate thousands of dollars to charity doesn`t mean you can`t give back. Every little bit helps. With that in mind, I`ve put together this post of 40 ways for work at home moms to give back during the holidays . . . but don`t forget that help is needed year round. Many of these ideas can be used any time of year, not just during the holidays.
1. Help a woman entrepreneur out by giving a micro-loan (from $25 up) on Kiva. You can choose the person and business, as well as area of the world that you want to help (men are also featured).
2. Drop off a can or two of food at the local food bank. Even if you`re short on cash, there are non-perishable goods available for a buck, something just about anyone can afford to give.
3. Knit or crochet a baby hat and save a life. It`s a great way to use up leftover yarn and help a baby through the Survive to Five program. There are even celebrities like Patricia Arquette and Mischa Barton participating in the program.
4. Give the next generation a hand up in learning with First Book. This charity was featured on Oprah and provides low-income families with brand new books for their children. If you donate before Dec. 31, Random House will match your donation book for book.
5. Give the gift of play. Just $5 will help plant a pizza garden, buy a bag of concrete or a pair of cotton gloves to help build a playground through KaBOOM! If you have more to give, you could build a swing set or even put up a climbing wall.
6. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. There are lots of them in every city and they are usually low on volunteers, so why not take the kids down and hand out food to the homeless?
7. Donate your old toys to charity. It`s a great way to pave the way for the new toys your kids will have for Christmas, so look for a toy drive and take all your older, gently used toys in.
8. Become a corporate sponsor. Your business could get a tax break and you`ll be helping families eat around the world. The Hunger Project offers this as one of their support options.
9. Take your old baby clothes to a local crisis care nursery. These nurseries allow children to stay with them for several days while parents are sorting out problems at home, often to protect them from a potentially violent situation.
10. Offer a special for the month of December on your products or services and donate a certain amount per purchase to a specific cause.
11. Make some hot chocolate, invest in a package of disposible cups and hand out warm drinks to the homeless on a chilly night.
12. Donate $50, the amount needed to teach approximately 100 people about finances. Teach Finance works with the impoverished to change their ideas about money and help them understand how to better manage their money.
13. Surprise someone with some fresh-baked goods. There`s nothing more exciting than placing a bag of freshly baked Christmas cookies or banana bread on someone`s doorstep and then ringing the bell and dashing away.
14. Take some sandwiches and hot apple cider to the local volunteer firefighters. Let them know you appreciate their vigilence.
15. Help a family through an emergency. Modest Needs provides financial aid for a family that is faced with an unexpected crisis. Needs range from new brakes for a vehicle to covering extra medical costs that aren`t covered by insurance.
16. Get your kids or husband to shovel the neighbor`s drive at the same time as yours.
17. Organize a caroling group to visit the local senior care home or extended care section of the hospital. This could even just be a couple of your closest friends and their children.
18. Put together a new baby basket with a blanket, diapers, onesies, a hat, sanitary pads, a parenting book and a baby toy. Take it to the hospital and ask them to give it to a new mother in need.
19. Find out what a teacher in the local public school needs for his/her class and arrange to have it delivered over the holidays.
20. Buy small gift cards or certificates for places like Wal-mart or McDonald`s and hand them out to homeless people on the street. They can use them to get a hot meal or some new clothes.
21. Provide Christmas for a family. Fill a box with ornaments, a couple strings of lights and some spray snow for a family that might not have the money to get decorations.
22. Keep someone warm. Crochet, knit or sew a blanket. It could be for a preemie or a homeless person, the idea is to provide a little warmth. Project Linus is just one organization that collects handmade blankets to give to sick or traumatized kids who need a little comfort.
23. Brighten the city by taking your kids for a walk and tossing some wildflower seeds (you can buy packets here) into an empty, overgrown lot. Obviously, this is for warmer climates, but it`s also a great project for spring. In a month or two, the lot will be alive with blooms.
24. Clip coupons to help kids get a better education with Campbell`s Labels for Education program.
25. Send a Christmas card to a sick child. Kids who are spending the holidays in the hospital have little to look forward and just a card or letter from you can make their holidays brighter. Hugs and Hope has a list of sick kids you can write to.
26. Take your kids, some rubber gloves and trash bags and pick up a section of street or a small park. It`s an anonymous act, but just imagine how much nicer it will be for the families who walk there.
27. Sponsor a rural family. Rather than make a one time donation, the Box Project lets you communicate with a family that you are sending things to.
28. Take a group of teens and adopt a retirement home where you can sing, do crafts and generally entertain some older people who may not have family nearby to be with them over the holidays. Alternatively, you could just adopt a senior citizen to bring gifts and some cookies to, ask the home who doesn`t have family to visit them.
29. Do some holiday baking. Invite some kids who you know don`t get the chance to bake at home and let them take their cookies and sweets home to their families. Or make baskets of Christmas goodies to give to someone underappreciated like a local pastor or youth leader.
30. Pay for the person behind you at the toll booth.
31. Help someone with mobility issues clean their home for the holidays. You might even offer to put up decorations and come back to take them down when the holiday season is over.
32. Give a child a reason to hang on. Sexually abused kids are already traumatized and when they have to be examined and asked questions that bring the trauma forth again, it`s even worse. To help, the Franks Foundation puts together kits with stuffed animals and markers to make kids feel safer.
33. Support your troops and send a soldier a care package! Have your kids draw some pictures to stick in with cookies and other goodies to help a soldier celebrate the holidays. You can learn more here.
34. Put your camera to good use and go take some photos of a holiday celebration. Print out the pictures and give them away to the participants. People love to receive photos of themselves, whether in concert or in a skit.
35. Make some stockings for the local homeless shelter. Put a bar of soap, a pair of socks, gloves, a hat, a toothbrush and toothpaste, plus a little treat, like a chocolate bar, in each one. If you can`t make many, try getting some friends together to help, everyone can donate three or four stockings to make enough for the shelter.
36. Be nice to someone you dislike. You know that traffic cop that always snaps at you? Or the teacher who makes snide remarks to your face? The holidays are the perfect time to pass on some holiday cheer . . . a plate of cookies, a box of chocolates or even just a smile and a cheerful “hello”.
37. Sponsor a tamale dinner for a needy family in Guatemala. Here, it`s traditional to have tamales at midnight on Christmas Eve. It`s a tradition that I`ve come to love, so I was really happy to see this chance for people to give a Christmas tradition to the poor.
38. Register to be an organ donor. It might not seem like much, but if you are able to give someone life after you die, it will be a big deal for them!
39. In the same line of thought, register to donate bone marrow. It`s fairly rare to find a proper match, but if you are a match to someone who is going to die without it, imagine the difference you could make.
40. Clear out your house. This is a good time to make room for Christmas and get rid of all your still usable items that you don`t want anymore. Donate them to the Salvation Army or Goodwill where your unwanted things will be sold to help others.
How are you planning on giving back this year?
Great list, I sent out on twitter for you!
[...] I’m a big believer in giving what you can and what goes around, comes around. I’ve been poor. Ketchup sandwich eating poor. And I’ve lived fairly nicely. Right now, things are tight. Ultra tight. But I have hope (a lot, actually) for the future and I think that attitude is key, as well as a feeling of abundance and spreading the “wealth” (whether that be actual money, time, help in other ways, etc.) and this post on ways to give back this holiday season is great. [...]
Great article and ideas! I created a company in memory of my 28 year old sister, Liz, who died from breast cancer. Uptown Liz (www.uptownliz.com) promotes products from companies whose proceeds go to charity. You can shop on this one-of-a-kind Web site by charitable cause or product category, knowing that every time you make a purchase you are making a difference. There are many great art, clothing, jewelry, house wares, beauty and eco-friendly products (just to name a few) that benefit charities all over the world.