Strong Families Build Strong Communities One Day at a Time
 





















 

Focus on Respect Ideas

Below are some ideas for the focus on respect night.

  1. Take the family to a neighbor or friends house and clean their car inside and out.
     
  2. Take a home cooked meal to a needy family or elderly person in your area.
     
  3. Raid your closet and attic to find clothes, toys and household items and donate them to a homeless shelter or local thrift store.

Goodwill 600 6th St. NW, Winter Haven from 8am-6pm (no computers, large appliances, or bedding) 299-1486

Salvation Army 927 6th St. NW, Winter Haven from 9am-5:30pm pick up available, no fee 294-7493

Meals on Wheels Thrift Store 620 6th. St. NW, Winter Haven Wed.-Sat. from 8am-2pm 299-0834

Salvation Army Lake Wales accepts donations at 2031 Highway 60 East from 9am-3:30pm M-F. You can contact them at 679-9456

Salvation Army Lakeland accepts donations at 3915 S. Florida Ave. from 8am-5:30pm M-Sat. Sunday they have a drive thru 10am-4pm. Lakeland has a free pick up service. Any questions call 648-0047.

  1. Gather clothing from your neighbors and donate it to a thrift store.
     
  2. Clean up liter in your neighborhood.
     
  3. Take your family to a nursing home and read stories or sing songs or play games with the elderly. You will learn a lot from them.
     
  4. Surprise your parents or neighbors and offer to babysit a sibling, relative or friend.
     
  5. Make get well cards for people in hospitals or the Life Center.
     
  6. Send a letter of appreciation to a loved one or family member.
     
  7. Bake a few loafs of bread (in your bread machine while you are at work) and take them to some families in your neighborhood or church.
     
  8. Donate canned or boxed food items to the Salvation Army for their Thanksgiving baskets.

Canned veggies (corn), canned or boxed potatoes (sweet or white), stuffing mix, pumpkin pie mix, cranberry sauce, or a bread mix (even cornbread). Take to The Salvation Army at 1898 Hwy 17N. Winter Haven 8:30am to 4:30pm M-F

  1. Volunteer at Winter Haven Salvation Army soup kitchen M-F in between 10am - 2pm for their lunch. Call Diana Woodhead at 297-5107 to sign up even that morning. Salvation Army 320 Ave T NW Winter Haven.
     
  2. Bake cookies and give them to an elderly person in your neighborhood or someone you want to meet in the area.
     
  3. Cook a dinner and invite a family over to eat with you.
     
  4. Make copies of your family recipes, and give them to friends and family members. You could attach them to a baked good.
     
  5. Let someone go in front of you at the checkout line or in traffic.
     
  6. Volunteer to cook dinner, do dishes, clean up after dinner, or clean up the house.
     
  7. Make and freeze single servings of different sauces. Take a box of noodles and a bottle of juice with a package of sauce to a widow or widower or single mom so they have a ready to eat meal on hand.
     
  8. Write little love notes to your family members and leave them on their pillows with a Hershey Kiss.
     
  9. Decide that you will be loving, caring, and kind to everyone you come in contact with today.
     
  10. Ring a bell for donations for the Salvation Army (17 locations) or help out at the soup kitchen in the Lakeland. For information call Cynthia at 682-8179 ext. 235.

Further ideas:

General:

Bring a carload of newspapers, towels, and blankets to an animal shelter.

Get involved in The Guideposts Sweater Project, sponsored by Guideposts magazine. People around the country knit sweaters that are sent to needy children around the world.

Contact a museum (art, sculpture, science, children's) in your area to find out about volunteering. Museums are wonderful places to volunteer—educational and helpful.

Work with a nearby hospice. It takes only an hour or two each week and there are many ways you can help: companionship, bereavement support, office work and yard work are just a few.

Shop or volunteer at service organizations' resale stores.

Organize a food or clothing drive in your neighborhood or school and have all proceeds benefit a charity.

Assist your local Special Olympics branch with sports training, fundraising, and competition planning.

Collect used paperbacks and novels to donate to libraries, prisons, jails or shelters.

Volunteer at your local Ronald McDonald House by helping prepare meals, talking to families and taking care of the house.

Help seriously ill children and their families by working with one of the many organizations who fulfill these children’s wishes.

Volunteer at a food bank. You could collect food, help manage their inventory or distribute food to those in need.

Help others learn to read; literacy volunteers act as tutors who help illiterate children and adults learn this important skill.

Learn how to create a web site and volunteer your services to a small charity or organization which does not yet have one.

Work with a local environmental group by participating in clean-up projects & recycling programs, planting trees, maintaining parks or promoting eco-friendly products.

Volunteer at a hospital in your area. Hospital volunteers often file and retrieve documents, help visitors and visit with patients.

Contact your local library and offer to assist with re-shelving books, running children's programs, mending books, checking books in & out or answering phones.

Ask a local teacher what supplies his or her class needs most and then donate them.

Hold a canned food drive and then deliver the goods to a soup kitchen.
Have a Yard Sale, Bake Sale, Lemonade Sale, etc. and donate some or all of the proceeds to a good cause.

Contact your local Red Cross or Salvation Army to offer your assistance. Volunteers are extremely vital during times of disaster.

Donate items to be sold at charitable resale stores.

Volunteer for the political campaign of a candidate you support.

Find ways to use "volunteers" who are required to do community service hours by the local court system.

In your neighborhood:

Plant flowers in the town center.

Establish an annual “Neighborhood Night Out Against Crime” event in coordination with the National Crime Prevention Council.

Identify and prioritize your neighborhood’s problems and then tackle one or two at a time.

Organize neighborhood clean-up campaigns twice a year.

Give away free flowers or seeds in the spring.

Get the schools involved with the community; encourage teachers and students to volunteer for neighborhood clean-ups and flower plantings.

Put out flags for the 4th of July in neighborhood front yards or the town center.

Become active in the chamber of commerce.

Organize a garden walk.

Get businesses involved in a crime-watch initiative. Get phone numbers of all participants to notify them of a crime in the area so they can be on the alert.

Organize a homeowners association or community group and then form committees for projects the neighborhood wants to implement.

Help your neighbors with some task around the home; rake leaves, mend the stairs, etc.

Organize a block party or community picnic. Ask each resident to bring food, have local merchants donate items to raffle and ask a local radio station to send a DJ.

Repaint a playground.

Sit as a member of your city capital improvements task force.

Organize a summer cleaning or painting of the local school.

Encourage local businesses to “adopt a street” to care for.

Work with the local sheriff or chief of police to establish a community policing unit.

Outdoors:

Engage your green thumb; whether you're an avid gardener or just don't mind getting dirty, consider urban gardening. These programs take vacant lots and transform them into places where communities can grow flowers and vegetables.

Work with a local city or state park volunteer program. You can do any number of things—trail construction and maintenance, trash clean-up, flower or tree planting, etc.

Get involved with Rails to Trails, an organization that’s creating a nationwide network of bike trails from out-of-service railroad tracks.

Work with Habitat for Humanity, an organization that has built more than 200,000 homes worldwide—no prior construction experience needed.

Homeless individuals and shelters:

Give a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Carry fast food gift certificates.

Buy someone a sandwich or some fresh fruit.

Bring someone a clean blanket in the winter.

Help prepare or distribute meals.

Work behind the scenes in the business office.

Help organize a food drive to stock the pantry.

Collect clothes for residents of the shelter.

Deliver a "brown bag" lunch directly to the homeless.

Offer to pick up donated items for your local homeless shelter.

Children:

Adopt a school and tutor students in math or reading.

Ask your school or childcare if they have a favorite charity or have children with needs that can be met through some generous donations.

Make and stuff a teddy bear for a needy child.

Ask at your local YMCAs/YWCAs or Boys & Girls Clubs about volunteer opportunities from childcare to sports coaching.

Set up an online tutoring program with a local district or classroom.

Take a lonely child with you when your family goes to the movies.

Sponsor a Little League team where there wasn't one already.

Create handmade knitted, crocheted, and sewn cuddly animals, dolls, puppets, or other handmade toys for children in the hospital.

Speak at career day at an elementary school.

Seniors:

Take your pet to the local senior center.

Read to residents at your local nursing home.

Play chess or checkers with an elderly person regularly.

Lead activities such as free weights, aerobics, stretching, or yoga at a senior center.

Help an elderly neighbor rake leaves, shovel snow, or do home repairs.

Visit with residents at a nearby nursing home.

Enlist retired seniors to watch your community during the day. The AARP sponsors the TRIAD program to help seniors help prevent crime.

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