75 Hour Challenge: Help build a stronger community

Take the challenge!

In honor of the United Way of Greater St. Louis Volunteer Center’s 75^th anniversary, we’re issuing a challenge to the people of greater St. Louis.

Below is a list of more than 125 ways you can Give Today, Help Today by investing time into your community. Some projects take just 10 minutes and some may take weeks; some are for adults, some for families and some just for kids. Everyone who completes 75 volunteer hours by National Volunteer Week 2009 (the end of April) will receive a special certificate of commendation. That’s committing less than two hours a week!

Sign up

Sign up for the 75 Hour Challenge today. If you've already started, remember to fill out project reports to track your hours and tell others your stories on our 75 Hour Challenge forum. 

Project guide

Get some project ideas below, or download the 75 Hour Challenge Project Guide.

Project focus: education/youth 

Project focus: financial stability/income 

Project focus: physical and mental health 

Project focus: improving your community 

Ideas for youth 

Ideas for the holidays 

Resources 

Project focus: education/youth 

1. Work with a literacy program to tutor children or adults
2. Collect used books and donate them to a local library, jail or shelter
3. Call your local library and volunteer to help reshelve books or run a children’s program
4. Sign up to tutor a child after school
5. Contact a local community center or mentoring program and see where they need volunteers
6. Give a tour or talk at a museum
7. Teach a group of local kids how to play a sport
8. Stuff backpacks with school supplies and deliver them to local schools
9. Become a mentor
10. Chaperone a field trip for school children
11. Become active in your PTA
12. Volunteer to be a troop or scout leader
13. Organize a sing-along at a children’s hospital
14. Create a family story hour and read to children in your neighborhood
15. Organize a “making music” afternoon for kids in your neighborhood – help them make instruments out of coffee cans, bottles, beads, etc.
16. Collect art supplies for kids in shelters or hospitals
17. Organize a field day or health fair with a local school or your neighborhood to get kids active and exercising
18. Work with an agency to organize an outing for a group of children to a sporting event, museum or for a picnic
19. Teach computer skills at a literacy center, community center or shelter
20. Sponsor a birthday party for a homeless child
21. Fill a diaper bag with items for new mothers and donate to a crisis pregnancy center
22. Invite children over to bake cookies, then deliver them to a local nursing home or other families in your community
23. Record your favorite book on tape for a child who is visually impaired or for a literacy group
24. Attend a school board meeting, or invite a friend or neighbor to attend with you
25. Donate a newspaper subscription to a local school
26. Allow a high school student to shadow you at work and show them how you apply the things you learned in school

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Project focus: financial stability/income 

1. Help prepare, deliver or serve meals at a homeless shelter
2. Organize a food drive with your coworkers or school
3. Collect clothes for residents of a homeless shelter or shelter for abused women
4. Knit a baby blanket for an expectant mother or newborn
5. Do a thorough “spring cleaning” and donate gently used clothing, household items and more to an agency in need
6. Bring a bag of groceries to a shelter
7. Help build a home or shelter
8. Take a homebound or elderly friend on a fixed income to lunch or dinner
9. Organize a coat drive in the winter and donate to a homeless shelter
10. Deliver meals to homebound people
11. Sort canned goods at a food pantry
12. Help a child open a savings account
13. Donate new or gently used professional clothes to an agency assisting individuals seeking employment
14. Volunteer with the Gateway EITC Community Coalition in early 2009 – help low-income families prepare their tax returns and receive earned income tax credits
15. Ask your bank if they offer free checking and savings accounts to low-income families
16. Help a recent immigrant improve his or her job options – meet regularly to help improve their English

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Project focus: physical and mental health 

1. Give blood
2. Visit someone in a hospital or nursing home
3. Knit a scarf or blanket and deliver it to a homeless shelter or hospital
4. Sign the back of your drivers’ license to donate your organs
5. Volunteer for a suicide or crisis hotline
6. Drive homebound residents to doctor appointments, the grocery store or to visit friends
7. Volunteer to read to or entertain children in the hospital
8. Start a walking group for friends, coworkers or neighbors
9. Certify your pet as a “good citizen,” and then bring your pet to a nursing home to spend time with residents
10. Start a vegetable garden and donate part of your harvest to a food pantry
11. Organize or help out with a “senior” prom at a nursing home
12. Find out if healthy snacks are available at local schools
13. Buy pedometers for your friends and have a friendly “most-steps-in-a-day” competition
14. Collect personal care items (shampoo, deodorant, toothbrushes, feminine hygiene products) and donate to a local women’s shelter
15. Join an Out and About Adventure for people with disabilities

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Project focus: improving your community 

1. Not sure where to start? Join United Way’s St. Louis Cares.
2. Pick up trash in a park near your house
3. Volunteer to walk dogs or socialize cats for a local animal shelter
4. Mow the lawn, rake leaves or weed a garden for an elderly or disabled person in your neighborhood
5. See if any playgrounds need sprucing up, and offer to paint or fix equipment
6. Start a neighborhood watch program
7. Provide foster care for new kittens or puppies until they find a permanent home
8. Volunteer to teach a class at a local community center
9. Donate old musical instruments to a charity or community center
10. Plant a community garden
11. Take a volunteering vacation or mission trip with your place of worship
12. Check in on an elderly person – offer to make them lunch, play a game or just sit and talk
13. Tell someone you know about 2-1-1
14. Collect pet supplies and donate to a local shelter
15. Go on a brush-clearing hiking trip to keep park trails in good condition
16. Collect sports equipment and donate to a local school, shelter, community center or after-school program
17. Make and deliver a meal for a new mom and family
18. Help an elderly person write letters or e-mails to friends and family
19. Start a recycling campaign at your office or school
20. Help set up for an event at your office, school or a cause you care about
21. Help your company set up a United Way Days of Caring project through the United Way Volunteer Center
22. Send a United Way e-card (coming soon!)
23. Volunteer with a friend at a United Way GenNext service project
24. Offer to help a local charity with office work
25. Sign your United Way pledge card
26. Set up a fundraising event like a talent show, race or other event and run it through United Way’s Tributes program (coming soon!)
27. Have a garage sale and donate the proceeds
28. Do maintenance work for a local school, shelter or place of worship
29. Organize a “beauty day” for a women’s shelter and give manicures, makeovers or haircuts
30. Sign up for a 5k, half-marathon or marathon to benefit a cause. If you’re not a runner, offer to help with the registration or refreshment areas.
31. Work with other volunteers to help make United Way funding decisions by joining an allocations or grants panel
32. Join a board or committee through BoardLinkSTL

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Ideas for youth 

1. Start a recycling campaign at school
2. Clean out your toys to donate to an agency in need
3. Become a pen pal to a hospitalized child
4. Create some artwork to bring to a hospital or shelter
5. Have a yard sale, bake sale or lemonade stand and donate the money you earn
6. Organize a car-washing or yard-cleaning day in your neighborhood
7. Put on a play or puppet show for your neighborhood
8. Visit a nursing home and play games with some of the residents
9. Read a book to a younger sibling or friend
10. Make homemade pet treats and donate to a local shelter
11. Make cards to send to a nursing home, veteran’s hospital or children’s hospital
12. Have a food drive scavenger hunt – go around your neighborhood looking for specific items like canned baked beans, macaroni and cheese, tuna or peaches.
13. Donate video games or DVDs for kids in hospitals
14. Hold a car wash for your neighborhood
15. Offer to paint, decorate or plant a garden at your school
16. Research an issue in your community that you care about: homelessness, recycling or hunger, for example
17. Make a no-sew blanket out of fleece and donate it to a shelter
18. If you have long hair, get it cut and donate it to children who have cancer or other medical conditions
19. Organize a teddy bear drive to donate to a local hospital or shelter
20. Visit a nursing home, look through photo albums and listen to the residents’ stories. Take your photo together to add to their album.
21. Tell a friend about your volunteer experience
22. Read a favorite story into a tape recorder or onto your computer, and give it to a nursing home, library or friend
23. Offer to pick up a neighbor’s newspapers while they’re out of town
24. Rake leaves, shovel snow or sweep the porch of a neighbor
25. Greet new kids at a school function or community activity
26. Plant flowers in your neighborhood park
27. Organize a group of friends to clean up your school’s playground during recess
28. Walk a neighbor’s dog as a favor
29. Offer to help your teacher or librarian after school – you can create a bulletin board, clean the blackboards, put away books and more
30. Make a coupon book with offers like “Expert dishwasher,” “Free room cleaning” or “No-whine night,” and give it to your parents
31. Bake cookies to bring to school, your place of worship or a neighbor’s house

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Ideas for the holidays 

1. Wrap a few small gifts and bring them to a shelter or prison
2. Adopt a family through United Way’s 100 Neediest Cases program
3. Serve meals at a homeless shelter on a holiday
4. Decorate the common area of a shelter, group home or nursing home for the holidays
5. Bake holiday treats for a neighbor or your workplace
6. Send holiday cards to military overseas, a nursing home or a hospital
7. Sing holiday carols at a local nursing home or school

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Resources 

• To find a Volunteer Center-certified agency: call 1-800-VOLUNTEER
• To find a volunteer project with St. Louis Cares: call 1-800-VOLUNTEER
• To find an agency that will take donations of goods or services: call 2-1-1 (Missouri) or 800-427-4626 (Illinois, cell phones), or check online at www.211missouri.org 
• Download the holiday volunteer guide in the late fall
• Download the United Way Guide to Summer Volunteer Opportunities for Youth

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United Way is the region’s center for volunteering. Our Volunteer Center, established in 1933, is one of the oldest Volunteer Centers in the nation and has met the national standards of the Points of Light/Hands On Network.