Do-Gooder-y Challenges

Do-Gooder-y (“Teach one hundred and one terminally ill children how to crochet a teddy bear.”)– The emphasis here is on personal interaction with those in need. Money focus is okay if we have to raise it, or the result of a more personal involvement. On the other hand, we would like to have goals that make an “actual” difference, as opposed to just feel-good goals.

• Train a seeing eye dog.  Also, train another non-canine animal of your choosing to do the same things a seeing eye dog would be trained to do.  -UNGOR
• Raise $10,000 for planned parenthood.  -98%898
• Organize a game of baseball while in your foreign country of choice. The goal is to re-evaluate what America means through the “All Time American Sport.” The players should not all be of the same gender or age. This is do-goodery aspect is spreading something good about America.  -XVII
• Listen to the life story of a homeless person. -NOOD
• Plant 500 trees!  -FALUP
• Do 75 combined hours of community service in at least 3 different countries.  -BARAG
• Befriend an elderly person near death and create a biography.  -**ABC
• Break an animal out of the zoo.  -GERNE
• Work at a homeless shelter for 30 days (doesn’t have to be consecutive) including 2 National Holidays.  -LAANK
• Cook a meal for a homeless person once a week for a year.  -**ABC
• Cure cancer and AIDs. -008.5
• Take a homeless person out to lunch once a month for a year.  -UNGOR
• Pick up every piece of trash you see for a year.  -NOOD
• Take an accepted animal (dog usually) to nursing homes for visits once a seek for a year.  –G2W2                   .
• Register 300 Americans to vote.  -98%898
• Donate enough blood to fill your own body.  -LAANK
• Read to or do puppet shows (original plays) for    children in hospitals for a year.  –G2W2
• Shower for only 3 minutes at a time for six months.  Measure the amount of water you save.  -SEVEN
• Pay it forward on a regular basis – buy a drink for a stranger (or for a friend), pay a couple’s bill at a restaurant.  -444?
• Join a protest.  –NOOD
• Commit to less packaging.  Seek out bulk sections and bring your own containers.  Refer to Captain Planet at opportune moments.  -444?
• Have you seen our fair or not so fair city after this onslaught of rain, wind and leaky trash trucks?  I challenge you guys to go out with bags and collect as much litter of any kind you can and see who can help our environment the most! (Does not have to be Baltimore, can be any city you are in)  Afterwards, create a 3D sculpture/design out of the trash, take pictures of it and post it with your interpretation of what you made!  -ULGO
• Shop exclusively at goodwill for the next 6 months.  -GERNE
• Find homes for 12 animals from an animal shelter.  -BARAG
• Go to a prison and teach a group of inmates how to write their life stories.  –G2W2
• Convince ten people to sponsor an artisan broom from the Mount Rushmore Broom Co. in Iowa City. Each broom would cost $97, and would be made for an Iowa City business of their choice (limited to places within driving distance Iowa City only because such brooms would be impossible to ship). Examples of businesses that might appreciate a mounted broom include: Prairie Lights, Public Library, The Writers’ Workshop, Natural History Museum, Individual Writers or People, Coffee Shops (the brooms are beautiful), The Raptor Center; etc. But the do-goodery part is this: Each $97 purchase would be put into a fund that will go to a charity or individual of your choice. (Which means that if you get ten people to sponsor one broom each, then the total sum would be just short of $1000, to be given to some good or well-deserving individual, family, Charity (not Stebbins), or small business anywhere in the world. (The mounted Brooms would have a little sign next to them, with the name of the person or business you got to sponsor it.)   –SQUONK
• When you have the energy, smile at everyone you pass on the street.  Try even if you don’t.  -444?
• Learn how to knit if you do not already and make 20 red scarves to send to the cancer society.  Altogether or 20 each if you are feeling ambitious.  The scares must be red, lightweight soft material, 3-5 inches wide and 50-54 inches long.  You can contact Marilyn Smedberg-Gobbett for more info 443-854-8333, reddress05@verizon.net .  This is for the Women Heart National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease and you can your free heart health action kit at http://www.womenheart.org/kit   -ULGO
• Teach empathy to your students (and peers).  Create opportunities for young people to work with younger people and acknowledge different perspectives.  -444?
• Buy a round for your local bar.  -YUNTR
• Write a (~10 minute) children’s play, create costumes, and rehearse. Then, tour local hospitals to perform for sick children. -OLnAG
• Help the honeybee. An example: plan and plant a garden/area that attracts and helps sustain the bee. Or something else that helps the bees.  –ANK1
• Help one willing homeless person get a job, and make sure he or she is going to keep it.  –SQUONK
• Buy a box (or bag or however they come) of umbrellas wholesale. The next time it rains, hand them out to people who are a) wet, b) in the process of getting wet, c) afraid of getting wet.  -SEVEN
• Strike up a correspondence with a prison inmate  -OLnAG
• Eat only food that was grown/raised within 60 miles of you–If it didn’t come from within 60 miles of you, you CAN’T eat it– for one month.  -98%898
• Find a homeless veteran a home and a job.  -SHRBBB
• Make a 10-20 minute documentary about how you changed somebody’s life (the change should be from their perspective).  -FALUP
• Cook whatever food you like and give it out to 200 people in need.  This does not have to be all at the same time/location or even the same food (can be spread out)  You can even volunteer at a homeless shelter to make food there and hand it out, but I was thinking of baking/cooking at home but either way works!  -ULGO
• Give of yourself to the young as you travel. Collect their stories and write them with humor/compassion/honor.  -@@()()
• Write a letter to the editor to a different small town newspaper every day for a year protesting frack.  -**ABC
• Spearhead a “Wash the Homeless” day.  -008.5
• Find a creative way to support Japan  in the Tsunami recovery.  -FALUP
• Give of yourself to the elderly as you travel. Collect their stories and write them with compassion/honor.  -@@()()
• Clean your room. As you are cleaning, fill five trash bags (the large ones) with stuff (not trash). When you are done cleaning, look around your room, and fill one more bag. Donate the bags to a church thrift store.  -SEVEN
• Hug a stranger every day for 30 days straight.  -CMQT
• Participate in at least three non-violent protests for something you feel strongly about. Get to know people at these events.  -OLnAG
• Help build a house for Habitat for Humanity.  -UNGOR
• Help build a house for someone in need (Habitat for Humanity, etc.)  -LAANK
• Give a stranger a flower (yeah, it’s easy, but think how nice it is to get a flower from a stranger!!!).  -GERNE
• Entertain children in a sick ward for at least an hour.  -LAANK
• Train a seeing-eye-dog.  -YUNTR
• Start a recycling program on St John that actually works.  -008.5
• Document that the difference between the effects of your actions and  . . . and what feels like are the effects of your actions.  write a piece (book, article, etc.) about how to close the gap between those things.  -SEVEN
• Build 10 blue bird nesting boxes and erect them.  –ANK1
• Have A Personal Meal With a Person Who Has No Home: To complete this task, you’ll have to find a homeless person at a place that is not already a homeless shelter or soup kitchen, and invite this person to a meal with you (perhaps at a nearby restaurant or food stand). Report back to me with at least one thing you’ve learned from hearing this person’s life story. Doesn’t have to be profound – it can be as simple as “don’t ever try heroin.”  -888ER
• Get a foster dog.  –SLYLS
• Visit and speak to someone who you have helped using kiva.org.  –SEVEN
• Find a dying plant and revive it.  -SLYLS
• Create a community event (for whatever community you are a part of) that supports and features the local artistic talents of the people. Create an experience of warmth, safety, and friendliness. Help people find and share their voice. -OLnAG
• Be a friend somebody who looks like they are down on their luck and could use a friend.  -YUNTR
• Volunteer for a week or two for Habitat for Humanity.  –ANK1
• Successfully find a prostitute a new line of work.  -SLYLS
• Plan and throw a b-day party for 3 different of your choice and start a fund productive for each person (i.e. college fund for person with low economic status) that cannot be accessed until the future: a. any child,  b. any adult, c. disabled person, d. 16 year old, e. child living with one parent, f. terminally ill person, g. orphan, foster child 8 yrs. or older, h. homeless person, i. person with no family (i.e. nursing home resident), j. person with low economic status, k. someone who doesn’t speak English  – BARAG