This post is sponsored by Frost Bank. All opinions are my own.
I feel you, girl. You see the world around you and yearn to get more involved in making it a better place for our children, but then something stops you. Often times it’s our lack of extra minutes in the day, and I totally get it. That’s what often stood between me and generous giving. Luckily, Frost Bank’s Opt For Optimism mission has continued to be a positive reminder of how worth it generosity can be. It’s amazing how this bank makes it a priority to show their heart. That’s not seen every day.
Even with my busy schedule of running a business, practicing medicine, and juggling my toddlers, I’ve been able to make time to volunteer several times this year. It’s all about
- making decisions to make it a priority
- putting a plan in place and
- getting it done.
The first step is up to you but I hope this post will give you five easy ways you can get started on volunteering.
Volunteering doesn’t have to cost a thing, but its impact can be so deep, touching generations to come. That’s one of the reasons I chose to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity SA last week. If you’ve been around, you’ll remember how I covered the impact optimism has had on my life and its proven benefits. Frost Bank believes that generosity sparks optimism and I couldn’t agree more. Their mission to make the world a more optimistic place starts with real people like you and me.
WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE ON THE OPTIMISM SCALE? CLICK HERE
Local Impact
On Friday, I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity San Antonio. My good friend Chalice and I talked about how good it felt to be there helping families build their future. After a few hours of volunteering, we were able to witness the dedication ceremony where each family that helped build their own home got to share their story and the number of hours they put in their own property.
At the end of the day, I believe that volunteering and helping your community in any way you can is very important, but it’s so easy to feel like you don’t have time, especially when it seems like you don’t have one free minute. However, there are some amazing ways to make an impact on your community, without designating a whole day to volunteering projects.
Easy Ways To Give Back
- Recycle– In my opinion, recycling is the easiest way to help your community. Our community makes it easy by providing us with Recycle bins. The important part is to create a consistent habit of organizing and taking out the recycling to the curb. I’m all about reducing that carbon footprint, so I always use reusable bottles, Tupperware, and make sure anything that is recyclable gets recycled.
- Donate Old Clothing– Cleaning out our closets is beneficial for you and those that receive them. Whenever I go through my clothes, I see things that I might need someday, for that one event that might happen. Instead of hoarding your clothing and unused toiletries, why not donate them to a local women’s shelter? Go online and research the best ones, making sure they are reputable. Women’s Shelters is a great resource for finding shelters to donate to. I never suggest doing a volunteer project or working with an organization that you haven’t thoroughly researched.
- Donate School Supplies– With the new school year starting, I have seen so many advertisements for school supply drives. I love volunteering with children, so I also really love being able to help kids get a great education at local schools. This one is easy; just stop in the school supply aisle next time you’re grocery shopping and drop them off at a classroom or find a school supply drive near you!
- AmazonSmile– I definitely think this extension is overlooked. I’ve recently started using AmazonSmile for all of my eligible Amazon purchases (and we all know I use Amazon all the time). The pricing doesn’t change, and there are no extra charges. AmazonSmile donates 0.5% of your item’s price to the charity of your choosing, which may not seem like much, but every little bit counts and it really adds up!
- Send Care Packages– This is a really fun and easy way to volunteer your time, especially because you can pick things up for the packages while doing your daily errands. Care packages can be sent to soldiers, families affected by natural disasters, hospital patients, and so on. The possibilities are endless! To see some neat ideas for care packages for troops, click here.
For more ways, you can volunteer head to Culture Maps Charity Guide here
Learn more about Opt For Optimism here
