How to make volunteering fun and flexible

AARP’s Create the Good program provides volunteers with a variety of ways to give back

Guest post by Mimi Castaldi
Vice President for Volunteer Engagement, AARP

I like giving back to my community, but I hate getting locked down or doing things that I find boring. Helping others can be meaningful and fun and flexible. Millions of Americans, including those who already give back, want to do more, but a regular volunteer “slot” isn’t for them. It just doesn’t work in their lives.

That’s why AARP launched Create The Good, a resource for finding ways to get involved and help others on your schedule, whether you have 5 minutes, 5 hours or 5 days to spare.

Here’s how it works

• Check out volunteer opportunities in or near your zip code. Create The Good features a searchable database of more than 200,000 volunteer opportunities — everything from reading to children and the visually impaired, welcoming home U.S. troops or helping at a soup kitchen and delivering hot meals, to visiting nursing home residents, walking dogs, gardening and even serving as a museum docent, along with much more.
Help a friend or neighbor cope with extreme heat, start a community garden, hold a used book sale, send books to the U.S. troops, prepare for an emergency, save money while shopping or improve their lives in other ways.
• Find volunteers for your project. Not only can you search for activities in or near your zip code, but you can also look for other volunteers to help you with projects you organize.
• Do good things on your own. We also offer more than 30 how-to guides and 10 videos to help you help others. These easy-to-use guides walk you through simple steps to help a friend or neighbor cope with extreme heat, start a community garden, hold a used book sale, send books to the U.S. troops, prepare for an emergency, save money while shopping or improve their lives in other ways. More than 20 guides are available in Spanish.
• Tight on time? Check out our 5-minute ideas for giving back to your community in virtually no time at all: Easy things like giving up your seat on the bus so a family can sit together, sending a thank-you note to your local police or fire station or calling to check in on a neighbor.

Staying in touch with the community

Sign up for Create The Good to get a monthly newsletter full of volunteer opportunities, inspirational stories and tips for giving back to your community.

Create The Good also has a large social presence with more than 8,000 Twitter followers and 6,000 Facebook fans. Continue the good conversation by liking us on Facebook and following us on Twitter! Need inspiration? Head over to our YouTube page for our How-To Toolkit videos and a few funny viral ones as well.

We also recently launched a new contest and sweepstakes called “Create the Good Win and Do Good Contest and Sweepstakes.” You can win something for yourself and something for your favorite charity. Just go to Win & Do Good for English, or Gane y haga el bien for Spanish. There are two ways to participate:

• PLAY: Play the Volunteer Match Game once a day through Nov. 18 for a chance to win two $25 gift cards – one for you and one for the charity of your choice.

• SHARE: Submit a short personal story about your experience helping others for a chance to win up to $15,000 for your favorite charity!