Due to factors such as unemployment, poverty, the lack of affordable housing, and countless others, countless families across the country are left without homes and food every year. Click here for more statistics on this growing problem and see below for ways you and your family can help.

•  Help serve food in a soup kitchen
• Conduct a canned food drive
• Collect clothing/hygiene supplies/toys/paper products/blankets to give to a shelter
• Cook casseroles to be served at shelters
• Inspect and sort canned food
• Make sandwiches and bag lunches for homeless children or a shelter
• Organize snacks for walkers during fundraising events
• Teach computer or other job-building skills
• Make welcome baskets for new Habitat for Humanity homeowners
• Grow a vegetable garden and donate some of the food to a shelter
• Glean fresh produce for food pantries
• Collect clothing for goodwill
• Conduct toiletry, mitten, or book drives
• Collect art and school supplies for homeless children
• Sponsor a birthday party for a homeless child
• Have a meal or other benefit to raise money for a shelter
• Research homeless issues with your family and help your friends and neighbors understand the problem as it relates to your community
• Contact and write letters to governmental leaders about the problems surrounding homelessness in your area
• Participate in a Walk or Run and gather pledges to raise funds for food banks and pantries who are feeding the hungry
• Pick up donations and deliver them to shelters
• Make fleece tie blankets
• Adopt a family: give gifts anonymously or holiday gifts, have a friendship with them, have barbecues together
• Share a musical presentation, talent show, or dramatic production
• Work, plant, water, weed and/or harvest in a community garden
• Plan a meal, purchase ingredients, and prepare food for a small group of residents or a family in transitional housing

Find a volunteer opportunity in your community

Do you have another idea for us? Let us know! Send an email here.

Have you had a great (or perhaps not so good!) volunteering experience with your family that you would like to share? Fill out our volunteer reflection form, and we might showcase your experience and reflections on our website!