How to Help a Community in Need
Communities that are in need often lack some of the basic necessities such as housing, education, food and work opportunities. If you want to help an entire community, the most direct way may be to work with organizations that specialize in providing these basic needs. Communities may be in need due to natural disasters, lack of opportunities for children, chronic poverty and other reasons. By helping the neediest in the community with their basic needs, you can help to uplift an entire area.
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Help the community by shopping. Goodwill is a nonprofit corporation with shops in nearly every American city. According to Goodwill, in 2010 nearly 2.4 million people were helped through their employment and training programs, and $7.4 million was provided to support individuals and families in need. The services of Goodwill empower people from needy communities by helping them retrain and maintain jobs. You can help communities by shopping for clothes and household goods at the Goodwill of your choice or by donating items to their stores.
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Help communities by cooking. Food Not Bombs distributes vegetarian meals to hungry people in poor communities in over 1,000 cities around the world. You can help a community by working with your local Food Not Bombs branch to provide free, healthy meals to those in need. If your community does not have a chapter, you can obtain the materials needed to start your own from the organization's national website.
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Help a community with housing. Habitat for Humanity boasts of providing hundreds of thousands of low income families with affordable homes around the world since its founding in 1968. By working in areas stricken by poverty and natural disasters, Habitat for Humanity raises the morale of families and entire communities and helps them to overcome often dire situations. You can work with Habitat for Humanity by volunteering both funding and your time.
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Help a community by helping their children. Often parents in communities in need do not have the time to provide extra educational opportunities to their children. To compound things, many schools in these areas face drastic budget cuts and issues with overcrowding. You can lighten the burden on the entire community and help its future by volunteering to mentor, tutor or read to a child for one hour each week through a program sponsored by United Way. All you have to do to start is enter your e-mail and zip code into the Live United website.
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Help a community by working for a year with AmeriCorps. Through the AmeriCorps City Year program, young people can sign up for a one year assignment to work with a diverse team from around the country mentoring, tutoring and serving as role models to kids from communities in need around the United States.
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Help communities through your work. You can help communities through your workplace simply by purchasing your future office supplies through Give Something Back Office Supplies. This organization, which supports over 50 nonprofit organizations each year, is one of the largest corporate donors in the United States, donating an average of 75 percent of its profits. Give Something Back provides office supplies for sale through their website at lower prices than are typically offered by other retailers.
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