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“Our highest priorities in life are to love God and to love our neighbors” (Russell M. Nelson, “Teach Us Tolerance and Love,” Ensign, May 1994, 69).
100 Service Ideas for the Holidays
100 Service Ideas for the Holidays
Smile to people as you walk by them.
Give a sincere compliment.
Call a friend you haven’t talked to in a while.
Go through and leave nice messages on Facebook posts.
Donate a little extra to humanitarian aide on your tithing slip.
Leave an encouraging note in the soup aisle at the grocery store.
Go through your closets and look for things to donate.
Visit a nursing home and sing Christmas carols.
Offer to babysit for a couple that could use a night out.
Write thank-you notes for Church leaders.
Pray for peace on earth.
Make a Christmas package for missionaries serving from and in your area.
Leave out a basket of addressed, stamped envelopes in your ward building for the missionaries in your ward.
Write your testimony in a Book of Mormon and give it as a gift.
Rake leaves or shovel snow.
Organize a food drive.
Hold a holiday treat bake sale and donate the money to your favorite cause.
Buy thick, warm socks and stuff them with packaged food. Pass them out to homeless people in your area.
Bring a crockpot to work and make homemade hot chocolate for everyone.
Ask your Bishop and Relief Society President if there is a family who could use your help.
Do your ministering visits.
Pay for the meal of the car behind you at the drive-thru lane.
Leave some extra quarters at the laundromat.
Fast for someone in need.
Donate your talents! Offer a free dance class, photoshoot, meal, or whatever you can.
Leave a big tip when you eat out.
Give someone a hug.
Ask someone how they really are. Listen.
Scrape the ice off someone’s windshield.
Donate blood.
Share your testimony of Christ’s birth on social media.
Instead of asking for Christmas gifts, ask for charitable donations of money or goods.
Adopt a soldier this Christmas.
Make fleece blankets and donate them to a hospital.
Invite someone who may be lonely over for dinner.
Extend forgiveness to someone you has wronged you.
Clean your house.
Do chores without being asked.
Go to a local park or community area and pick up litter.
Start recycling.
Help someone put up their Christmas decorations.
Ding-dong-ditch treats on someone’s doorstep.
Take a family name to the temple.
Introduce yourself to the people in your neighborhood.
Hold the door open for someone.
Refrain from saying unkind words.
Let your family members or friends have control over the remote.
Give a glowing report of your co-workers to the boss.
Support a local business with your patronage.
Be kind to yourself.
Those who work in the mail and post industry work extra hard during the holidays. Leave a treat & kind note in your mailbox or deliver a Christmas card to your post office or package carrier.
2. Pray to know who could use your help this Christmas season.
Join (or start!) a local interfaith choir and put on a Christmas concert for your community.
Send a Christmas packages to a missionary serving in the MTC over Christmas.
Leave $10 (or more) in a dollar store with a small note. Imagine how far $10 might go for a family in need trying to make ends meet by shopping at a dollar store.
Help someone put up their Christmas lights.
Do errands for someone who is homebound. Getting out can be hard for many people, especially those who are physically or mentally ill. This can be made worse by bad weather. Offer to do some simple errands, such as picking up groceries or offering rides.
Adopt a pet from an animal shelter. If you have the ability, many pets need a loving home for the holidays.
Bring someone to the airport for their Christmas flight.
Christmas is a time for connection. Visit a nursing home or assisted living community and offer to help the elderly set up social media accounts that may help them connect with their younger family members. You can even come back and teach small classes on how to use social media. This especially great for youth activities.
Donate your unused airline miles to the Make-a-Wish foundation to help cover airfare for needy families during the holidays.
Volunteer as a “pickup service.” Many people want to donate items, but they have a hard time transporting things. Offer to pick things up and drop them off at the proper donation spots.
Purchase Christmas gifts through Amazon Smile. The service allows you to give back while purchasing items as you normally would through Amazon. You can choose certain charities or local organizations can even set up their own give-back accounts.
Share a funding page on your social media accounts.
Leave a jar out to collect change on the counter. Give the change to your Bishop at the end of the month to give to a family in need.
Write your employee a thank you card detailing all the ways they impacted your company for the better this year.
Bring your own bags to the grocery store to help the environment.
Donate your used technology to a community center or non-profit when you upgrade.
Build a curbside food pantry. The idea is to create a small pantry of free food anyone can take at any time. Most mount a small shelf on a post and place it in their communities, outside parks, business, and even homes. People leave food when they can donate and take food when they need it. General items placed inside include canned goods and small toiletry items. Want to learn more? Just search “Little Free Pantry” online.
Let someone go ahead of you in line.
Learn more about mental health and how to support those who suffer.
Purchase these special Christmas booklets from Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf and give them to five friends as a gift. They’re especially good for those not of our faith.
Carry some roadside assistance tools in your car, such as chains, cable jumpers, and extra snowmelt. Keep your eyes open for a chance to help someone with car troubles.
Accept service from others. It can be hard to let others do good for us. Accept it with a grateful heart and try to magnify that kindness in your own life.
Start the car for a spouse or family member so it will be nice and toasty when they need to leave.
Offer your seat to someone. No matter where you are traveling for the holidays, look out for the chance to offer your seat to someone, whether it is on a bus or in an airport terminal.
Donate new or used books to your local school system.
If you go out for a meal during the Christmas season and receive excellent service, take the time to note your waiter’s name and tell their manager what a great job they did.
Use a website like this one to create a custom piece of jewelry as a gift. It is especially good for those grieving during the Christmas season.
Visit the sites of LDS bloggers and influencers trying to share goodness this Christmas. Let them know how much you appreciate their efforts.
Help someone reach a life goal. You can be a workout partner, read someone’s work, provide honest feedback, and a great cheerleader.
Learn a life-saving skill, such as CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, or using an Automated External Defibrillator (AED).
Study how Jesus Christ served individually or as a family throughout the month of December.
Interview a family member about their life and experiences for your personal family history.
Call your parents (or anyone who raised you) and thank them for their hard work and sacrifice. Tell them about some specific experiences that touched you and helped you become the person you are today.
Put away your phone for an entire Sabbath day.
Support refugees in your area. Learn about who is in your community, what their needs are, and how you can help them. You can learn more about serving refugees in your area here.
Foster new friendships by throwing a Christmas party. Invite those who may feel alone or be new to the area. No matter what you do, try to get to know those in your home better.
Volunteer to teach in Primary so a sister can attend Sunday School or Relief Society.
Want to donate rice to third-world countries just by playing a game on your phone? Check out this website then!
Sit down and make a list of the things that are most important in your life. Prayerfully ask yourself how you can give more of your time and attention to these things.
Help someone who is unemployed by offering to look at their resume and help them practice with their interviewing skills. You could also offer to give them a ride to an interview to save on gas money or give their name to anyone in your network who may have an opportunity for them.
Ask your local missionaries if there is anyone they are teaching who needs some service. You can offer to have a dinner and lesson in your home, go out caroling with the missionaries, or simply reach out in fellowship to any visitors in your ward.
For one day (or another amount of time) offer only prayers of thanks.
Let go of any guilt and shame you may be holding onto. Forgive yourself.
Make the decision to act on promptings immediately, especially those that would benefit someone else.
Prayerfully decide someone in need and ask if you can give them a priesthood blessing.
Make a child’s day extra special by taking them on an outing they would enjoy. At the end of the day, talk about how much fun they had and how other children aren’t always so blessed. Ask what they would like to do to pass on the joy and fun to someone else this Christmas. Help them act on it.
Create goals to carry the spirit of Christmas with you all year round.
Use the hashtag #LIGHTtheWORLD on social media and invite others to serve.
Help Needed to Support Refugees
Help Needed to Support Refugees
Dears Sisters and Brothers,
The First Presidency has said:
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are deeply committed to living the two great commandments to love God and love our neighbor. We feel tremendous joy in helping all of God’s children, no matter where they may live in this world.
It is therefore with great concern and compassion that we observe the plight of more than 70 million people around the world who have fled their homes seeking relief from violence, war, or religious persecution.
We encourage Church members and friends to respond appropriately and legally, to help create welcoming communities by volunteering their time, talents and friendship to individuals and families who are integrating into our societies. (Official Statement, 2 December 2019)
In an effort to help refugees in our area, our Stake is sponsoring or supporting several opportunities:
First, please visit Just Serve to find service opportunities that fit different schedules. You can sign up for these projects directly on the website.
Second, there is a specific opportunity, in partnership with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), to become a HOME team for an individual refugee family. While our Stake is not directly sponsoring families, the Stake presidency is inviting any member who is willing and able to sign up to help. Sister Nancy Waterbury (IRC volunteer & Stake Relief Society local refugee coordinator) is organizing teams from our stake to sponsor individual refugee families resettling to the Richmond area. Potential activities include:
Welcome them at the airport
Set up their apartment and provide them their first meal
Take them/teach them how to grocery shop
Help enroll kids in school
Teach cultural nuances
Help them get to appointments until they have a car
Practice English and budgeting
Visit the library or a sporting event
Help them obtain employment
Most importantly, it would be to become friends with a new family. Volunteers will be provided support and training to walk them through each step. The commitment is no more than two hours per week per volunteer or family for six months. Each team is also asked to come up with a financial gift to the family to help subsidize their initial housing costs. Fundraising ideas will be given to help each team meet that obligation.
There are also several behind-the-scenes volunteer opportunities, including:
Find local housing options
Collect donated goods for starting a household (e.g., kitchenware, linens, etc.)
Fundraise for/donate to the family
There are information sessions available for further details. As with all opportunities to serve, we encourage stake members to do whatever you can to help but also to use wisdom and not run faster than you have strength (see Mosiah 4:27).
If you would like to learn more, please fill out the following form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeux1MJ7YKIln7JZFr8h8yHmDQPYgdplZ6utiXXL25zU9nEsw/viewform?usp=sf_link
You are also welcome to forward this information to friends and neighbors, all are invited to participate! We look forward to working together to help families in need fully resettle into their new lives.
Regards,
Richmond Virginia Stake Relief Society Presidency
Contact Us:
Contact Us:
Jan Anderson
Richmond Virginia Stake
JustServe Specialist
At JustServe, we believe that nothing should get in the way of organizations and volunteers coming together to do good things for the community, so we help make this happen for free.
JustServe.org is a website where the volunteer needs of organizations may be posted and volunteers may search for places to serve in the community, providing opportunities to help those in need and enhance the quality of life in the community.
JustServe is a service to help link community volunteer needs with volunteers and does not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation in posting projects or in encouraging volunteers to serve according to our guidelines.
Hands On Greater Richmond, handsonrva.org, says their mission is "to support an inspired network of passionate people and powerful causes to make meaningful change in the community." Their vision is "a world where all individuals discover their power to make a difference and are equipped as active, engaged citizens." Please see their about us page for more background information.
Sister Jennifer Haines from the Innsbrook Ward, who serves on our Public Relations Committee, shared with me that "we have been working with HandsOnRVA more than JustServe since they have been around the Richmond area longer and they have more service opportunities listed.... If we really want people to serve, HandOnRVA is currently the better place to look."
Sister Cindy Fentriss of the Midlothian Stake spoke at our recent Bi-Stake service activity and here are a few thoughts she shared:
"In early May, I attended the Virginia Service and Volunteer Conference where I met with those who work in government and for non-profits across the state. At a round table discussion on faith-based volunteers, I let my group know I was a Latter-day Saint. A woman from Blacksburg immediately spoke up about how great the members are in her community and that they can always be counted on to help. I felt pretty happy with this feedback. In the next breath, the woman standing next to her who is from Jewish Family Services here in Richmond said,” I would never have thought to contact your church for help. I thought you only served your own members.” I saw others at the table nod in agreement.
So which is it? Are we simply focusing all of our time and energy on our efforts inside the church? Are we participating in some way in our community? The answer is yes and yes. For the most part, we do some of both. But after listening to others at this conference, what I learned is that we need to lengthen our stride and look for ways in which we can get involved more fully in our community."
Please consider this organization's website when choosing When, where and how to server in our community.
Providing Care for children and families affected by domestic abuse
Providing Care for children and families affected by domestic abuse
The stake is committed to making a difference in the community where we live. The Carol Adams Foundation (CAFI) is a well-vetted local organization making a substantial difference in the lives of families rocked by domestic violence. They are always looking for volunteers who can help. There are many options and the commitment time is extremely flexible. For more information:
Contact Tishaun Harris Ugworji, Carol Adams Foundation Volunteer Coordinator at CAFiVOL19@gmail.com or (804)322-9270.
(Note: The information should also be available at justserve.org in the near future.)
Want ideas for how you can serve others? Here is a list of activities you can do by yourself or with others. This list is just a starting point to help you come up with your own ideas for serving. Some activities may require you to obtain proper permission first.
“Why Doesn’t the Church Do More?”
“Why Doesn’t the Church Do More?”
Occasionally—as in 1985 when we joined in fasting to raise money for African hunger relief—the Church responds to world problems. But many have wondered why the Church, with its human resources, does not do so more often.
For the most part, the Church uses its resources to meet its basic mission. This mission has been defined as threefold: (1) to preach the gospel, (2) to redeem the dead, and (3) to perfect the Saints. With missionaries to train, temples to build, and an ever-increasing number of new converts to teach, the Church has left to us as members the responsibility to solve many problems in our communities. “We believe that to do otherwise would … be to divert the Church from its basic mission,” said President Spencer W. Kimball. (In Regional Representatives’ seminar, 31 Mar. 1978.)
The wisdom in this philosophy is suggested by the Lord’s parable of the good Samaritan: The man left half-dead on the way to Jericho had immediate needs. Could the help he needed be dispensed by a charitable organization or social institution? No; he needed immediate help of the neighborly sort—the kind that could be given only by a single person passing along the same road. The one who saved his life was a lone Samaritan, one who was willing to help without regard for religious differences. (See Luke 10:30–36.) Making the lesson of the parable explicit for his listeners, the Lord said, “Go, and do thou likewise.” (Luke 10:37.)
Many problems in our world can be best and most effectively solved in a similar way—by neighbor helping neighbor, reaching beyond circles of family and church affiliation. Even great problems can be diminished when those who follow Christ look around them, and—seeing those in need—choose to help.
Guidelines for helping
Guidelines for helping
In September 1968, the First Presidency encouraged Church members to reach out. This has become a classic statement on the subject of community service:
“The growing world-wide responsibilities of the Church make it inadvisable for the Church to seek to respond to all the various and complex issues involved in the mounting problems of the many cities and communities in which members live. But this complexity does not absolve members as individuals from filling their responsibilities as citizens in their own communities.
“We urge our members to do their civic duty and to assume their responsibilities as individual citizens in seeking solutions to the problems which beset our cities and communities.
“With our wide-ranging mission, so far as mankind is concerned, Church members cannot ignore the many practical problems that require solution if our families are to live in an environment conducive to spirituality.
“Where solutions to these practical problems require cooperative action with those not of our faith, members should not be reticent in doing their part in joining and leading in those efforts where they can make an individual contribution to those causes which are consistent with the standards of the Church.
“Individual Church members cannot, of course, represent or commit the Church, but should, nevertheless, be ‘anxiously engaged’ in good causes, using the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ as their constant guide.”
Related Scriptures:
Related Scriptures:
Doctrine and Covenants
Doctrine and Covenants
Doctrine and Covenants 58:26–29
26 For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.
27 Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;
28 For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.
29 But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned.
Book of Mormon
Book of Mormon
17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.
26 And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.
New Testament
New Testament
39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
Resources:
Resources:
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