Household hazardous waste poses a serious health threat to every man, woman, and child in the United States. Safe, responsible use, handling, and disposal of hazardous substances and switching to nontoxic alternatives can help protect people and the environment.

Basic community services such as health care, education and clean water are things many of us take for granted, but in impoverished areas, people often have to go without. These services require a working infrastructure of solid buildings and equipment — which simply don't exist in some communities, or have fallen into disrepair. By helping to build and repair local buildings and equipment, you can help bring critical community services to people who sorely need them.

Genetic studies of the water pollution from fecal waste in this country have found that roughly 20 percent of it comes from dogs. This water pollution promotes the growth of aquatic weeds and algae, which then limit light penetration and reduce oxygen levels: eventually, it creates a deadly environment for fish and other aquatic life, and widespread fish kills can be one result.
So next time you take Fido outside, make sure you clean-up after him too. It's such a simple and courteous thing to do, and such an easy way to make a difference for people, pets and aquatic life.

Excessive children’s birthday parties are becoming all too common. Simple birthday party celebrations with cake and a few friends are quickly being replaced by over-the-top displays of lavishness. Parents and children compete to "keep up with the Joneses." You can make a difference by helping your child have a happy, fun birthday celebration without the excess. Consider planning a volunteer project for your child’s birthday party. Your child’s birthday party will be unique and will reinforce the message that helping others is important.

More than 90 percent of the world's rhinos have disappeared since 1970; hundreds of rhinoceros species are now down to just five. Rhinoceros conservation projects are struggling to keep extinction at bay, and your effort could be what it takes to help them succeed.

Habitat for Humanity and Habitat's Global Village Program offer rewarding volunteer vacations. Use this directory to find a Habitat for Humanity project in the US or internationally.

Cyberbullying is turning computers and cell phones into weapons of personal destruction. Prevent online cyberbullies from terrorizing students in your neighborhood

Manatee Volunteer Vacations: Research and protect manatees on next vacation, with organizations such as EarthWatch, the Manatee Behavioral Ecology Program, Save the Manatee Club, and The Manatee Observation Center

Exotic birds are being mistreated. Avian rescue groups need volunteers like you to help rescue and rehabilitate these beautiful tropical birds.

How to reduce Steroid use among student athletes: step-by-step instructions for preventing students from taking steroids and performance-enhancing drugs.

How to write a letter or email to The White House, The President, The First Lady, or The Vice President, to offer advice, register agreement or disagreement, or highlight an issue that deserves attention.

Directory of Random Acts of Kindness service projects for the environment. Do a random act of kindness to reduce pollution, conserve energy, preserve habitats, promote conservation, protect wildlife, or reuse resources

The National Bone Marrow Registry is a source of hope to people fighting leukemia and other blood diseases. Every time a new name is added to the registry of potential bone marrow donors, the chances increase that a person in need of a bone marrow transplant will find the match that saves his or her life.

Protect endangered animals during a volunteer vacation. There are more than 1,000 endangered animals. Almost 500 threatened or endangered species live in the United States.

Stop torture of human rights activists and political prisoners by sending letters of protest. Suggested emails are provided by Amnesty International and Act Now for Human Rights.

The Common Cold: On average, you infect 4 people per year with "the common cold." Learn how to avoid catching colds and prevent passing them on.

By hiring an adult with a developmental disability, you'll do more than just give someone a job. You'll provide the developmentally-disabled adult with the opportunity to become part of a community, to contribute to society, and to feel a sense of pride. You'll also help strengthen a family, as financial obligations for parents get eased and they can come to see their developmentally-disabled offspring as a functioning adult.

Character. Self-esteem. Kindness. These are traits any parent would like to see in their developing child. Yet, such characteristics are not easily formed in front of the TV, computer, or video game console. In order to develop positive personality traits, young people need the chance to step outside of their own lives and help others. You can help your tween prepare for adult life and develop positive character traits by encouraging her to volunteer.

As a blood donor, you can help save up to 18 lives per year.

That's because you can donate blood 6 times annually and each blood donation is processed into at least 3 components (red blood cells, plasma, and platelets) that can save the lives of different people with different needs.

National park services around the world face enormous challenges that threaten the lives and ecosystems they are intended to protect. People who spend a vacation volunteering for a national park service have an opportunity to help preserve our national treasures for now and the future.

SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is a scientific effort aimed at determining if there is intelligent life in the universe. SETI@home allows you to take part in the search at home

Encourage teen activism at school. Coach teen activists to "do something" for a cause. Tips from DoSomething.org, YouthNOISE, Youth Venture, and Youth Services America's ServeNET.org

Factory Farm Animals: Humane living tips for people concerned about the impact of factory farm techniques (intensive-confinement, genetic alteration) on farm animals. Also covers treatment of livestock

The 'Drunk Driving Poem' is also known as 'Death of an Innocent' or 'Mom'. Around major drinking and driving seasons, please share 'The Drunk Driving Poem' with friends.

By hosting a house party for your neighborhood, you can help increase the safety of your community. With the busy lifestyles so many people lead today, neighbors rarely have time to meet, let alone socialize. Yet strong, safe neighborhoods depend on the community awareness of their inhabitants. House parties are one way to keep everyone in the neighborhood connected.

Give visually impaired children the gift of sight by donating glasses or organizing an eyeglasses collection drive for New Eyes for the Needy or Lion's Club

Build a school in a developing nation during a volunteer vacation: By constructing a school building, you'll help students to pull their families out of poverty

Do-it-yourself environmentally-conscious holiday gift ideas, plus "green" holiday gifts from Ecomall.com, Wonders of the World, Abundant Earth, Close the Loop.com, FindGift.com, EcoExpress.com, and Earth Fashions.

Encourage top management at your company to mandate supplier diversity in centralized and decentralized purchasing processes. The best supplier diversity programs are mandated from the top with more than lip-service, by installing formal programs for measuring, reporting and implementing progress toward diversity goals.

And if you control a budget within your company, make an active effort to request bids from black-owned businesses. Ideally, to be representative of the US population, 13 percent of your suppliers should be owned by African Americans.

In the three minutes it takes to read about promoting breast cancer awareness, another woman in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Most women receiving the jarring news will be taken totally by surprise, as 85 percent of women who develop breast cancer have no known family history of the disease.

Carbon monoxide poisoning can strike while you're sleeping and can kill without noticeable symptoms. Carbon monoxide is a silent killer.

Even when not fatal, carbon monoxide poisoning can cause headaches, weakness, shortness of breath, nausea, and confusion. Victims often mistake their symptoms for the flu and head to bed, failing to get out of the very building where dangerous carbon monoxide levels are causing their sickness.

Is your coffee habit helping to destroy wildlife? Unlike shade-grown coffee, most of the $4 billion worth of coffee imported by the United States each year is grown under conditions that severely damage the environment and jeopardize wildlife, especially migratory birds.

Furniture Donation: Tips for donating the furniture that you do not use anymore. Free pick-up! Your furniture donation is urgently needed by low income families.

Bike riding: By riding your bicycle instead of driving a car you save gas, create less pollution, stay out of traffic jams, and reduce the odds of road-related injuries to wildlife -- not to mention enjoying all the health benefits to you!"

Computer Recycling: How to recycle computers and other obsolete technology to maximize tax advantages from gifts-in-kind tax deductions, by donating used office equipment to non-profit organizations.

Re-use, refill, and recharge: all three help to reduce the overwhelming amount of trash that is produced each year -- trash that more often than not ends up in landfills or has other negative effects on the environment. Americans generated 247 million tons of nonhazardous waste in 1990 and tipped the scales at 409 million tons in 2001.

When you drink organic milk instead of conventional alternatives, you support organic farming methods that emphasize treating animals humanely, minimizing environmental impact and reducing the presence of synthetic chemicals in milk and food.

Bottlenose dolphins and 37 other species of these highly intelligent mammals face potential extinction. Many dolphins, including pink dolphins, black dolphins, Amazon River dolphins, and Yangtze River dolphins, are critically or seriously endangered.

The gentle nature of bottlenose dolphins and other species makes working with them and preserving their habitats an especially rewarding experience. Several conservation groups are ready to help you share that experience.

By spending your volunteer vacation at a big cat sanctuary, you can improve the lives of exotic big cats such as lions, tigers, cougars, and panthers.

You throw away 67.9 pounds of used clothing and rags each year, if you're like the typical American. Collectively, Americans discard two quadrillion pounds (that's a two with fifteen zeroes) of used clothing and textiles into the landfills each year.

Fortunately, there are many resources to which you can donate these clothes to make sure they reach the women who need them rather than find their way into already-bulging landfills.

Greyhound rescue programs exist to find homes for racing dogs who are not fast enough to win. Greyhounds are one of the oldest breeds of dog known to mankind, and have long been revered for their speed and beauty. Unfortunately, because of that extraordinary speed, greyhounds are used for dog racing, a career that leaves even the most successful racing dogs homeless after just a few short years; many are euthanized when they start to slow down. By volunteering in a greyhound rescue effort, you can help give racing dogs another chance at life.

In low-income districts, school supplies are a luxury that many classrooms go without. A few months into the school year, teachers are presented with a small paper bag of limited, mismatched school supplies and are told to "make do." Often, they must purchase the supplies needed to run the classroom out of their already meager paychecks. In fact, teachers spend an average of $659 out-of-pocket on school supplies every single year. When they don't have the money, teachers must choose between giving their students an inferior education and taking more drastic measures. More than one frustrated teacher has been found spending hours at the copy machine, running off thousands of pages of illegal black and white copies so that their students can read a book.

Don't let old books waste away. Little good comes from unread old books stored for years on shelves, or in attics, or at the back of basements. Like most people, you probably have a collection of old books that you've outgrown, or no longer need for school or work, or received as a gift but don't plan to read.

The only thing worse than an unloved book in your home is a discarded book in a landfill. Although there are no definitive statistics of the numbers of old books that are thrown away, we do know that approximately 50 million tons of paper and paperboard bloat our landfills each year.

Hair donation is a simple way to provide a child with locks of love. If you have a ponytail that is 10 inches or longer, you can donate hair so a child who's lost theirs can look more like themselves.

Natural cleaning products offer environmentally sound, cost-efficient alternatives to the toxic and potentially lethal household cleaning products used in many homes today. Use of these natural options is especially critical as most traditional cleaning products eventually contact the air, water, and/or soil, where they can cause significant and irreparable harm to animals, plants, drinking water, and food supplies.

Wild Horses and Burros Volunteer Vacations: Sanctuaries and research efforts to save wild horses and burros need your help to make sure that these legendary animals continue to survive.

Stop bullies by learning how to recognize the signs of bullying, educating others, and intervening to stop children from being bullied.

Environmental education for children is critically important and should start before school begins. Early environmental education experiences help shape children's values, perspectives, and understanding of environmental protection.

Protect sea turtles on a volunteer vacation: Save sea turtle habitats and nests. Endangered and threatened sea turtle species include the loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, olive ridley, hawksbill, green, leatherback, and flatback.

Teen suicide is a devastating epidemic that destroys young lives, shatters families, and leaves a wake of sadness and confusion for those left behind.

Yellow Ribbon Cards can help prevent teen suicide by giving young people a tangible way to ask for support. When a teen is feeling depressed or unable to cope, he simply hands the card over to a trusted adult. The information on the card helps the adult know how to respond to the troubled teen. To date, over 2,500 teen suicides have been prevented with the help of Yellow Ribbon Cards.

When you stay at a green hotel, you help reduce the tremendous negative impact that hotel use has on the environment.

"Green hotels" include any hotels, motels, and inns that use energy and other resources in environmentally responsible ways. These green hotels utilize renewable resources when possible, make efficient use of nonrenewable resources, and ensure that many byproducts are reused or recycled.

Migratory birds are an awe-inspiring sight when they flock high above us on their way to distant lands. But their numbers are dwindling, largely because of the sweeping effects human beings are having on the planet. By making a few changes in your garden and community, you can help increase the odds that migratory birds will arrive safely at their destinations.

Lifebooks can help foster care kids recognize their individual worth. A lifebook is a scrapbook-like creation that records a child's life, how he entered foster care, her experiences with different families, and her feelings along the way. Lifebooks are unique in that they document the journey, both good and bad. These books record the love shared by their birth families, their foster families, and other people who pass through their lives.

Humane education: By teaching a child to be kind to animals, you reduce animal abuse, animal cruelty and even domestic violence. Find out how to teach kindness to animals.

Reading is becoming a lost art. Twenty-one million Americans can't read at all, 45 million are marginally illiterate and one-fifth of high school graduates can't read their diplomas, according to ReadFaster.com. Fewer than half of American adults read literature.

In fifteen minutes or less, you can make a difference by promoting reading with children and teens. Influence a child to pick up a good book -- it just may change her life.

Homeless men and women are part of an expanding, often faceless community. When we come in contact with a homeless person, we may feel repulsed, annoyed, even angered as we avert our eyes and think, "Why don't they do something to help themselves?" or "If I look them in the eye, that'll just encourage them to ask me for money" or "They choose to be homeless."

Frequently, it is our lack of understanding about the complexities of homelessness that fuels our prejudices and fears about homeless people. Somehow, that gives us "permission" to act less compassionately towards a homeless person -- who is, after all, a human being just like us.

With the loss of a home comes the loss of a person's sense of safety, belonging, and self-esteem. Fortunately, you can make a difference in the life of a homeless man, woman or child

Homelessness has been rapidly rising over the last two decades. The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty reports that up to 750,000 Americans are homeless every night, while there are only 250,000 spaces available in overcrowded homeless shelters. Sometimes, entire families become homeless, with no place to go, other than the streets.
If you're like most people, you get annoyed when someone asks for a handout. Perhaps you're apprehensive to assist because you think, "they should get a job", or "they're not going to do anything with the money but drink it or smoke it". Fortunately, you have the luxury of frowning down on the less fortunate, rather than living in their shoes.
Frankly, the homeless have had more than their fair share of 'no' for an answer. There is a way that you can give them the 'yes' that they have been seeking, but probably not expecting.

Use of the Heimlich Maneuver could have saved 95% of the choking victims who died in the past year.
Every day, some people die from choking, while other people choke and live to talk about it. In fact, temporary throat obstructions occur so frequently that choking victims are often ignored until it is too late.
Next time you hear someone coughing, take a minute to check what's going on; the person may be displaying the universal "choking sign". If you learn how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver safely, you could save a life.

Not all acts of kindness have to be directed at the less fortunate. In fact, everybody needs a little boost from time-to-time. Perhaps your boss is lonely at the top, or your friend is long lost, or your coworker feels unappreciated. You can make someone's day, by sending them a free, electronic greeting card, known as an eCard. eCards take just a few minutes to choose, personalize, and send. Yet your few minutes of effort can do a great deal to lift a friend's spirit. Just like traditional greeting cards, some eCards consist of a basic drawing and inscription, but many new eCards now feature music and humorous animation. You can choose from prewritten eCards that need only a signature, or you can personalize the cards to your heart's content.

Move wild bird feeders away from windows. Find out how to assess your windows and placement of bird feeders, including hummingbird feeders, in your yard.

Toy Donation Tips: Find where to donate toys and games for sick and needy children, with toy donation addresses for the Salvation Army, Toys for Tots, Ronald McDonald House, and Artists Helping Children

National Volunteer Week is for busy people too. Hectic lifestyles and unpredictable schedules don't need to be a barrier during National Volunteer Week, because Charity Guide enables even the hardest working people to volunteer -- from wherever they are and whenever they want.

Remedies for the Common Cold: How to Protect yourself and others. Did you know... on average, you infect 4 people per year with "the common cold". Learn how to avoid catching colds and prevent passing them on

Clothes Donation: Find out how to conveniently donate clothes and shoes to The Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, or Goodwill Industries. Plus, links to clothes donation pick-up information and drop-off locations.

Information on charity shopping portals, such as GreaterGood.com and iGive.com. Via Charity Shopping Portals, many of the internet's best known stores are willing to donate a portion of their sales to charity.

Battered women: Recognize the signs of domestic abuse and find out how to convince a battered woman to seek help. Learn the dynamics of battered woman's syndrome and domestic violence.

Animal testing alternatives: Searchable cruelty-free product directory and free, pocket-sized cruelty-free shopping guide. Animal testing is not required to prove cosmetics and household product safety, according to the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act.

Vegetarian Dishes: How to eat more vegetarian meals and use vegetarian substitutes; changing a little at a time. Enjoy vegetarian recipes (e.g. tasty vegetarian chili) while saving animals and the environment.

Volunteer vacations at chimpanzee sanctuaries to save chimps from extinction. Join chimpanzee and monkey conservation efforts in Africa, Europe, and the United States.

Reforestation Volunteer Vacations: Turn deforestation into reforestation by saving natural forests from logging, clear-cutting and burning. Restore tropical rainforests and dry forests via volunteer reforestation projects.