Volunteering to serve a meal to a person in need is very humbling. Sitting down and listening to someone tell their story and express concerns for the future is very moving.

By showing empathy, we are practicing servant leadership, building deep relationships, and solving problems through acts of kindness. It empowers those we are helping to ensure we meet the basic human needs: food, water, and shelter on every humanitarian encounter.

Knowing someone is thinking about you is a reminder you are human and valued.

Acts of Servant Leadership and Volunteering

Deployed to Iraq in 2009, our office received care packages weekly that contained letters from children thanking us for our service. Cards from non-profit organizations I never heard of offered words of encouragement from non-profit organizations.

I didn’t realize the number of non-profit organizations that were working behind the scenes providing support to our families back at home. Working long hours, late nights, or had a hard time sleeping, books and magazines were a morale booster.

Many acts of kindness were shown during my deployment. Upon my return home, it was my goal to do the same for another deployed soldier.

I wanted to learn a creative way to support non-profit organizations. Some of the household items we have can be recycled and be put to better use. Recycling and reusing can reduce social injustice, improves the quality of life for others and creates jobs.

Giving and promoting social well-being has no borders. Here are five non-profit organizations I have supported over the years.

Non-Profit Organizations

1. Magazines

I stopped paying out of pocket for magazine and newspaper subscriptions and started using airline miles. I donate the remaining points after award travel to the Fisher House. Points are used to purchase airline tickets for military families.

I fill a pre-paid medium flat rate box with magazines, schedule a pickup and have them shipped to Soldiers’ for Angels. The organization is in San Antonio, TX. It was one of the organizations that would send our office a care package full of magazines.

In the last 15 years, more than 851,000 care packages have been sent overseas to service members.

2. Rescue A Girl From Sex Trafficking

Instead of tossing used bras away in the trash, consider donating them to Free the Girls. Host a drive to collect bras at your local church or schedule a girls night out and turn unused bras into currency.

Women part of the program on the receiving end are getting the chance of entrepreneurship selling bras and contributing to their communities. A woman’s earnings lift the family out of poverty and increase gender equality.

3. End Hunger By Packing Meals

Have a brand new team and looking for a way to build trust and cohesion at work? Host a Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) MobilePack event.

Headquartered in my hometown of Minnesota (with additional locations in Arizona and Illinois), I go to see first hand how these life-saving meals were helping children around the world.

One bag contains six meals of rice and soy. In two hours, over 3,000 meals were packed.

It’s a great way to introduce children to volunteering. FMSC partners with Pelican Missions to bring volunteers across the country to visit FMSC food distribution partners to learn and participate in the distribution process of ManaPacks meals.

I went on a Food in Action trip to the Dominican Republic through Pelican Missions.

Volunteers from Illinois were looking at the pallets of meals in the distribution warehouse. The pallet they packed was there. That was a pretty fantastic moment for the group.

FMSC purchases handmade items from artisans in communities that receive FMSC meals. The pieces are available on their online MarketPlace.

Each item sold goes provides a child with a meal. A $12 magazine short necklace offers 27 meals.

4. Lend $25

Kiva was started in 2005. Its footprint is in 85 countries working to alleviate poverty. For as little as $25, you choose a borrower. Sounds easy right? There are hundreds of profiles of borrowers around the world with amazing stories asking for help.

Loans support the selling of used clothing, buying livestock, cereals or opening a beauty salon. The loan repayment is 97%. You will receive periodic updates on repayment. Upon repayment of a loan, you can donate the money or lend again.

5. Protect Human Rights

I remember as a kid, my mom would get these letters in the mail from other countries. I would say to myself, “she has a lot of pen pals.” In her spare time, she would write letters to leaders of countries accused of human right abuses for Amnesty International.

Some of the leaders would write her back to her in shock that the international community knew.

6. Help End Homelessness

Do you get excited about receiving free travel-sized toiletries from hotel stays? I do! Seeing homeless men, young women, and children sleeping on streets, benches, under bridges, I realized those travel-sized personal items I hoard and allow to pile up in the corner of my bathroom, needed a new home.

Sarah’s Circle is a non-profit organization based in Chicago, Illinois that helps homeless women to rebuild their lives by providing services necessary to finding employment, a permanent home that allows them to become safe off the streets.

The organization accepts unopened travel-size toiletry items: soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, and deodorant to name a few.

I purchase a three-pack of pre-paid flat rate medium boxes from the USPS online store with my address pre-printed on the boxes. Box and envelope sizes come in small, large, padded, and legal. I use them as a recycling container to collect my bras and magazines.

All I have to do is open up the box, start a collection of toiletries and once full, write the address down, call or go online to schedule a pickup.

Want to extend your servant leadership further by volunteering in another country?

Check out my blog post, Volunteer and See the World at the Same Time and learn how you can explore Egypt while obtaining a TEFL (Teach English as a foreign language) certification.

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