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Your project can be as
large or as small as you wish! Look around your community and see what
needs to be done. Or let the Idea
Generator help you find a project idea to help your community.
After participating on
Oct. 26, please send in an entry form so
you will be counted among the millions of volunteers and be considered for
an award.
Who
takes part in Make A Difference Day?
Anyone. Young and old,
individuals and groups, anyone can carry out a volunteer project that helps
others. It might be as ambitious as collecting truckloads of clothing for
the homeless, or as personal as spending an afternoon helping an elderly
neighbor or relative. USA
WEEKEND features volunteers and their projects in articles and photos.
PROJECT IDEAS, INCLUDING IDEA GENERATOR
How do awards help charitable efforts?
Each year in April,
hundreds of good deeds done on Make A Difference Day are selected for
honors, headlines and charitable donations.
$10,000 to 10
projects
Make A Difference Day supporter Paul Newman, as sole owner of Newman's Own,
donates all his profits and royalties after taxes for educational and
charitable purposes. Mr. Newman will donate $10,000 each to 10 selected
projects.
These 10 honorees, plus hundreds of local
honorees, will be spotlighted in an April 2005 issue, coinciding with
National Volunteer week, and here on this Web site.
What
are the rules?
If you want to
participate, just help someone else on the next Make A Difference Day,
Saturday, Oct. 26, 2006.
If you cannot
participate on Saturday for religious reasons, you may do your project on
Sunday.
If you volunteer
regularly, great! On Make A Difference Day, give an extra push to your
ongoing volunteer activity. For example, expand your regular tutoring by
creating a special event for the students, such as a trip to the library
where they volunteer, or the recruitment of new students.
If you don't volunteer
now, here's an occasion to get started. You could clean up an elderly
neighbor's house, or organize your block to replant and repair a local
park. You could visit lonely, institutionalized kids or the elderly. You
can join in on someone else's project listed on this Web site.
If you need more than
one day for your project, still plan to do a good part of your volunteering
on Make A Difference Day. For example, if you are rebuilding a community
soup kitchen, you may have to do some wiring the week before or some
painting the week after, but a significant part of the construction needs
to take place on that Saturday.
If your volunteers are
together only Monday-Friday (such as schools and workplaces), still plan to
do a good part of your volunteering on Make A Difference Day. For example,
if students collect food for the homeless during the school week, get a
special group of students and teachers together on Saturday to hand-deliver
the food to homeless people or a shelter. If it rains or snows, Make A
Difference Day goes on. If your project is outdoors, have a contingency
plan, or forge ahead.
If you are an employee
of Gannett, The Points of Light Foundation or USA WEEKEND carrier newspapers,
you are invited to participate in Make A Difference Day, but you are
ineligible for awards.
If you are selected to
receive an award, you must sign releases. The top-10 honorees participate
in an awards ceremony and, in the past, have attended events in Washington, D.C.,
during National Volunteer Week in mid-April.
If you are not in America,
we still invite you to participate. Thousands of employees of multinational
corporations have volunteered on Make A Difference Day. A large group of
Moskovites participated a few years ago. U.S. military personnel
stationed overseas are regular Make A Difference Day volunteers too.
If you participate but
don't send in an entry form, we can't consider you for awards and can't
count you among the millions of people who simultaneously reach out to help
others.
Articles taken
from www.makeadifferenceday.com
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