The Orphaned Earring

Make A Difference Day is this Saturday, October 22nd! What will you be doing to participate?

Make A Difference Day was started in 1990 by USA WEEKEND Magazine and is celebrated each year on the 4th Saturday in October. It has a 21-year history of bringing people together to tackle small and large needs in their communities.

It is cited as America’s largest day of doing good and volunteering thanks to the passion and commitment of millions of people willing to give of themselves and their time. These volunteers include students, families, clubs, church groups, neighbors, corporations, athletes and celebrities doing things such as feeding the hungry, teaching children, repairing homes, as well as thousands of other unique opportunities and ideas about how to volunteer.

This is also an opportunity for national recognition for volunteers! By helping others on Make A Difference Day and submitting your project for award consideration you provide your favorite charity an opportunity to receive a $10,000 donation from Newman’s Own.

USA WEEKEND Magazine will feature 10 National and three City Award honorees in a special April 2012 issue coinciding with National Volunteer Week, led by Points of Light Institute. Award honorees will receive their awards that month at an event in Washington, D.C.

A $10,000 Encore Award funded by the Gannett Foundation and USA WEEKEND will go to a former national honoree who shows continued excellence in volunteerism.

Check out the Make A Difference Day Facebook page! Share your story, post a photo of what you did to make a difference, and use the hashtag #MDDay11 between October 23 and November 14. You will be eligible to win one of three weekly prizes of $100 gift card or the grand prize of $500.

Something as simple as cleaning your closet can reap triple benefits! Easter Seals of Metropolitan Chicago will be collecting coats4kids on November 1st. This simple chore helps you, is helping a nonprofit organization with a charitable activity in the future and ultimately will make a difference to someone by providing a warm coat this winter!

Volunteering as a family provides quality time, strengthens communication, and provides opportunities for family members to be role models, while making significant contributions to their communities. Even though this day is geared for families, anyone with an interest to volunteer can join in.

Here are five (5) recommendations and tips on how you can easily participate in Make A Difference Day:
1. Offer to rake an elderly neighbor’s yard.
2. Offer to babysit for free to a couple for an evening so they can have a night out.
3. Spend the day cleaning up litter in your community; organize your friends and have fun!
4. Purchase some pumpkins and carving kits; deliver them to families and see the faces of the children light up!
5. Make a commitment to talk with your family about your plans to give back during the holiday season!

Bonus Tip: Create a calendar to track your activities of making a difference!

October 20th, was the original Sweetest Day. It started in 1922 when Herb Kingston, who worked for a candy company in Cleveland, Ohio, organized a day to deliver candy to the sick, shut-ins, and orphans in the city. What a great example to follow in doing something nice for someone else.

Also, mark Saturday, November 19th on your calendar as this is National Family Volunteer Day. It is designed to show the benefits of families serving together and to introduce community service to youth. National Family Volunteer Day is always held the Saturday before Thanksgiving

The HuffPost recently posted an article and absolutely loved it! Jon Bon Jovi opened a new restaurant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just another celebrity owned restaurant you might think but this one is different and worth mentioning. It’s called The Soul Kitchen, a “pay-what-you-can” restaurant he and his wife Dorothea established in a former auto body shop near the Red Bank train station in central New Jersey.

The restaurant provides gourmet-quality meals to the hungry while enabling them to volunteer on community projects in return without the stigma of visiting a soup kitchen. Paying customers are encouraged to leave whatever they want in the envelopes on each table, where the menus never list a price.

Love how it really forces people to practice kindness, fairness and humility – something we need more of in the world.

Imagine we ran a variety of endeavors based on trust, honor, and honesty. Something that operates under the rule of the “honor system” where no one strictly enforces rules governing its principles.

Possible? Mmm, not really… Or maybe just not yet.

The more we are aware of our granted freedom from customary surveillance – simply doing what we should without someone having to constantly nag us – and practice kindness, the easier it is to do good.

I really hope that places such s The Soul Kitchen, not only continue serving great food, but that it triggers something in the hearts of people that visit, serve and eat there, where  ‘to do good’ becomes a daily habit.