If people of good will, good health, and a liveable family income devoted a couple of hours a week to community service or civic engagement, it would be a different world for all of us.  Kids who need tutoring or mentoring would have the extra support they need; neighbors would find the time to support one another; civic activists working to build more vibrant, just, and sustainable communities would have the volunteers they need to be successful… and much more.

 There are many ways that ordinary people can get involved.  Check out VolunteerMatch, Points of Light Engage, or your local volunteer center or United Way.  Google what you want to do in your community:  “volunteer mentor near me”, “volunteer environmental work near me,” etc.

There’s no shortage of work that needs to be done in communities across the country!  Volunteering by itself won’t solve our major civic challenges like economic inequality, racism, climate change. a dysfunctional civic culture, or lack of affordable health care, but it can connect people across class, race, ideology, and neighborhood and build the “habits of the heart” that will help us all learn to work together to make a better world.

To give you a sense of the many ways that you can get involved in making a better world, here’s the list of volunteering categories from VolunteerMatch: