Creative Ways to Serve Your Community
Serving your community is one of the best ways to feel good about yourself, and its importance should never be overlooked. There are a variety of ways for you to go about serving your community, some of which are easier than others. For those who are creative in nature, it can be wise to take one of the less-common paths for serving, as this is one of the best ways to have fun while doing so. After all, serving the community shouldn’t be painful; it should be an utterly enjoyable experience.
Consider the following tips for serving your community in a creative way.
Play Music at Nursing Homes
Nursing homes can be rather sad places for residents, especially if they are sick and unable to get outside very often. You can help to lighten up their lives, however, if you have a penchant for music. Playing jazz, folk or other lighthearted music at a nursing home is a great way to give back to the community and honor your local seniors. Doing so can also help you to get better at playing your instrument, as it serves as a sort of real-world practice. Contact your local nursing homes and offer up your services to learn more about how you can help.
Contribute Artwork to Local Institutions
Visual artists may feel as if there’s little they can do to give back to the community, but this is rarely true. Indeed, you can get a lot out of contributing a piece of artwork to a local institution. Your local library, for example, would surely be interested in hanging a piece of artwork on their walls if it fits in with their motif. When contributing artwork to a local institution, be sure to let them know whether or not you’d prefer to get the piece back at some point, as establishing this up front will get rid of any hard feelings that could potentially occur.
Volunteer as a Researcher
Many research organizations are hurting for volunteers, which makes volunteering as a researcher one of the best creative ways to give back to your community. You might wish to spend time researching the best gas prices in the area, for example, as well as projected prices for the future; ohiogascompanies.com is a great resource for those living in Ohio. Jobs such as this will not only help you to give back, but will also help to expand your base of knowledge.
Giving back with creativity will make you feel great about yourself, and doesn’t have to be hard.
This was a guest post by R. Wilcox
These are great ideas, thank you for sharing them. I especially like the one about playing music at a nursing home.
Great ideas! I like the focus on using your own talents, whether music, art, or whatever, to enrich the community.
What great ideas! We take our grandchildren into the nursing homes different times of the year and they sing to the elderly. Thanks for sharing.
What great ideas! I never would have though of the research one. I’m going to share that one with my parents. They’re retired and I think they’d enjoy that one. Your nursing home suggestion made me think of a project I did with my kids during our last MOPS meeting. We had the kids make centerpieces using pixie sticks, cutout flowers and mason jars for the local nursing home to use during their valentine’s dinner 🙂
These are great ways to give back to the community. I have volunteered at our local Senior Citizen Center helping with meal preparation and delivery. I have never thought about volunteering as a researcher. I think that would be interesting. Thank you for the great post!
These are great ideas! Nursing home residents love having visitors!