The 12 Days of Chicago, Day 3: Do Some Good
In Chicago and its suburbs, just like most cities, they are plenty of opportunities for you to do some good this holiday season. Even if you don’t have a lot of extra cash to donate to worthy causes, there are other things that you can do to help out. Here is a short list of ideas, although it is no way comprehensive.
1) Make a bell ringer smile: The Salvation Army bell-ringers, who collect money throughout the city, are hard to miss. Downtown they are in front of every major department store and other key places. In the neighborhoods, you can find them outside of your local grocery store. Those people work hard, often standing out in the cold for hours waiting for donations. Recently outside Macy’s, I saw a bell-ringer singing carols. I hope she has as much enthusiasm a few weeks from now. So, when you pass one by, drop whatever change you have in your pocket. Better yet, do what my sister and I did one year: take that jar or bowl of change you have accumulating at home and dump the whole thing in the Salvation Army bin. You’ll feel great and so will the bell-ringer.
2) Donate what you already have: There are boxes at all of the area Dominick’s stores for food donations and toy donations. You could add a few extra canned goods to your cart during your shopping, stop by the toy aisle and pick up a teddy bear, have them rung up and place them in the boxes. You could also just take a look around your house. Did you go crazy last month when the canned corn was on sale and buy five cans…then remember you don’t like canned corn? Provided that it is unopened and not expired, you should take it to your local grocery store and donate it. Did your grandmother give you a teddy bear for your birthday–even though you are 30? Provided it is still clean and in new condition, you could donate that as well. Your grandma won’t mind!
3) Give your time: There are lots of places throughout the city where you can volunteer your time. This goes for all year round, not just at holiday season. A quick search online and you can find a number of places to volunteer. I will just highlight one: The Greater Chicago Food Depository. I had the opportunity to volunteer there one holiday season and it was a memorable experience. It is hard work and involves packing boxes of food for needy people, but I found it to be rewarding because, unlike a cash donation, I knew that the next step for the box I was packing was to put it into the hands of a family who needed it.
There you have it, three simple ways to do some good this season. Have other ideas of ways to do good in Chicago? Feel free to leave them in the comments.
This post is part of the 12 days of Chicago series, which brings you 12 fun and interesting things that you can do for the holidays in Chicago. In conjunction with the series, this blog is sponsoring a holiday contest, which you can read about here
Chicago, volunteering, Greater Chicago Food depository, Salvation Army
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