16 Simple Ways You Can Give Back to Your Community

By giving of your time, you can help make your community a better, safer, cleaner, and more pleasant place to live. And often, very small gestures can make a difference.
Not every volunteer effort has to change the world. Let your efforts make your corner a little brighter. Here are some simple ways you can improve your community:

1. Help an elderly neighbor rake leaves, shovel snow, or do home repairs.

2. Give away free flowers or seeds in the spring.

3. Put out flags for the 4th of July.

4. Sponsor a Little League team where there wasn't one already.

5. Become active in the chamber of commerce.

6. Speak at career day at the elementary school.

7. Repaint a playground.

8. Take your pet to the local senior center.

9. Organize a summer cleaning or painting of the community or thrift center.

10. Sit as a member of your city capital improvements task force.

11. Bring a carload of newspapers, towels, and blankets to an animal shelter.

12. Ask a local teacher what supplies his or her class needs most, and then donate them.

13. Hold a canned food drive, and then deliver the goods to a soup kitchen.

14. Organize a community clean-up day.

15. Take a lonely child with you when your family goes to the movies.

16. Join the PTA.