Eliminate the Word Can't From Your Vocabulary

Yes, You Can!

Remove the word “can’t” from your vocabulary and think about what is actually holding you back—fear, reluctance, pride? Once you stop talking yourself out of taking a risk or making a difficult decision, life will open up for you and so will your mind.

Yes, You Can Help! Do something nice and helpful without being asked. Take out the trash, clean the house, and visit a relative. Once you make a habit of these tasks, you won’t need reminding, you will want to do them.

Join The Toy Society: Random Acts of Kindness for Kids

Share Your Toys! Leave small, handmade toys for people to find. The Toy Society spreadslove by doing this good deed. Visit http://thetoysociety.blogspot.com/ for more information and suggestions. You can post your toy drop on the website and view other drops.  Feel free to share a picture and revel in the thought of bringing child happiness. it might also be a good idea to leave a note on the toy that lets people know they can take it. For example: “Take me home—I’m yours!”

We All Have a Story: Veteran's History Project

My dad loved to tell his stories of being in World War II and he did have many dramatic tales, especially of having saved lives and delivering a Japanese POW’s letter to his parents in Tokyo, a major act of kindness involving much risk. I really wish I had recorded these but I carry dad’s stories and share them his honor. Our elders, in particular, have much to share and life lessons we could all learn from.

The Library of Congress is gathering these by sending out volunteers to video record in the Veteran’s History Project, loc.gov.vets. To me, one of the most special aspects of this oral history project is that it is not only the “Greatest Generation,” but also even young people coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan whose stories are equally precious and just as important. I think we are learning that every generation has true greatness.

How to Participate in the Project

Participant Resources

• About Partners
• Fieldkit Companion Video
• Eagle Scout Leadership Project
• Hosting community events
• List of Founding Partners

A participant may be a veteran, an interviewer, or person donating a veteran’s collection (learn more about what we collect). Students in the 10th grade and above may also participate and there are special resources for educators and students.

Take These Four Easy Steps...

1. Print the Veterans History Project Field Kit (required forms) 
   
2. Prepare for the interview  
3. Conduct the interview
4. Send your collection to the Library of Congress (Keep a copy for yourself!)

Love Lifts You Up: Donate Your Extra Miles So Military Families Can See Each Other

If you have frequent flier miles you are not planning to use, give them to service members who have been injured in the line of duty and need to be flown to get proper medical treatment. This can also enable family members to visit.  Check out fisherhouse.org to discover all you need to know about Fisher House Foundation’s Hero Miles Program.

 Love has an enormous power to heal so sharing your unused miles stretches YOUR love a mighty long way! www.FisherHouse.org

Assist at a Local Fisher House

Please contact your area Fisher House manager:  Current Houses
NEW! Find local opportunities on our new Volunteer Opportunities page.

At our Fisher Houses, volunteer opportunities include: bringing in meals and snacks for residents, helping with general housekeeping chores, organizing goods drives such as paper product drives, cleaning supplies, laundry supplies, etc.  Also, there are often young mothers and fathers in the homes who may feel overwhelmed, our volunteers offer babysitting service and help play with the children to give the parents a break and some quiet time.

During the holidays we often have volunteers who will help with decorating, children toy drives, and gifts for those staying at the home through the holidays.  

Some Fisher Houses have a ‘wish list’ of items that the manager would like to add and/or replace in the house.  These wish lists have included large items such as children’s back yard play sets, barbeque grills, laptop computers for each room, outdoor tables and chairs, as well as smaller items such as books, DVDs, and small appliances.

We also welcome volunteers to tend to the gardens surrounding the house.  Although the homes and landscape are maintained by the military base and the Veterans Administration, both are limited in offering enhancements to the landscape.  Our volunteers often step in and plant the seasonal flowers and shrubbery to make the homes an even more inviting environment.

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This Memorial Day, Honor Living Military Veterans: www.GiveAnHour.com

Lend an Ear

Counselors can contribute enormously to our troops when the return back at the end of their service term. I honestly think my Ex-Marine dad has PTSD but that posttraumatic stress was not even acknowledged until long after the Viet Nam War and only through the activism of many.  

Therapists and mental health professionals can really help our military veterans by volunteering their own service through the organization Give an Hour (giveanhour.org) and this is extremely helpful to families of vets. Listening can change lives for the better here in a big way.

We Can All Help Protect Rare Species From Extinction

Did you know Monarch butterflies are at risk of becoming extinct?  Protect the wildlife and endangered animals. Join a preservation group or animal sanctuary to help keep our habitats and animals safe. More than 800 animals have gone extinct or extinct in the wild over the last 500 or so years, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources’ Red List — generally considered to be the most comprehensive of its kind. Pay attention and do what you can. Our diversity is what makes Earth so special and we must do all we can do preserve it.http://www.iucnredlist.org

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Try Not Complaining For a Week; Can You Do It?

Let’s Make it a Complaint Free World:

Go one day without complaining, even better, go a week. If this is hard for you to accomplish, it’s time to make some changes in your life. Think positively, live in the present, and appreciate where you are and who you are. Today is a gift, accept and embrace it.
 

Author Mark Bowen wrote a fantastic book on this very topic which I have turned too when I need a reminder, as all of do now and again. My copy came with a bracelet, a simple way to monitor how often you complain and helps you track your progress toward becoming “complaint Free.” Put the bracelet and every time you complain switch it to the other wrist. The goal is to go 21 consecutive days without complaining or switching the bracelets. It is harder than you might think and I was a bit shocked at what a complainer I turned out to be.  It was a really good exercise for me and I highly recommend it. I benefited enormously and I suspect the people around me did, too. www.acomplaintfreeworld.org

Games That Give

Instead of playing games that take you out of this world and into another, potentially violent one, play on Games That Give, http://www.gamesthatgive.net/play/. This website donates approximately 70% of their advertisement revenue. Everyone wins here.

Here is one of this week's causes:

Fund 12 Days of Research to Protect Biodiversity

Help recover overgrazed land in Cajón Bonito in Sonora, Mexico by funding a biodiversity expedition!

Cajón Bonito is one of the most important riparian habitats in northwestern Mexico and southeastern Arizona. This riparian land (land on the banks of rivers), is home to many diverse and unique species of plants and animals, like the trogon. The brightly colored trogon can turn its head 180 degrees to always keep a watch on what may be coming. Even with this amazing ability, the trogon cannot see that overgrazing has destroyed a large part of its habitat, hurting its fellow plants and animals. Twenty years ago, the Cuenca los Ojos Foundation (CLO) tried removing cattle from its protected natural area. It worked. Today, the cottonwood-willow forest in the area has made a dramatic recovery. CLO recently purchased another section of the Cajón upstream that has been badly overgrazed and requires immediate action to save its flora and fauna.

The Madrean Discovery Expedition in April 2017 compared the pristine, ungrazed riparian habitats in Cajón Bonito with the newly-acquired heavily overgrazed area. The evaluation will help develop a recovery plan for this new habitat. With your help, we can recover and restore the habitat and expand an important wildlife corridor.

Read more at https://greatergood.com/project/#guTy9TXpds6z8z6w.99

Help a Teen Girl Have the Prom Night of Her Life

Making Sure She Has a Night to Remember

 Did you know that many teen girls long to attend their high school prom but end up missing out on the sweet tradition simply because a fancy dress is not in the family budget?  Help these girls out by visiting http://www.glassslipperproject.org/

You’ll discover that you can donate your old prom dress and shoes to the delightful folks at the Glass Slipper Project, a non-profit organization that gives free prom dresses, shoes, and accessories to high school juniors and seniors.  Generosity can be very glamorous!

Let's Make Sure All Children Have Books: Give to www.BooksForKids.org

Lit Love!

Every child should learn and expand their mind through the wide world of literature. The fine folks at Books for Kids have a love of libraries and have helped disadvantaged family have libraries at home.  And you make that happen one kid at t time and one book at a time.  Pick out some of your favorites that you loved as a child and get in on the fun.

Let's Create a Plastic-free Future

Here's a helpful comprehensive guide to creating change in your community with several kinds of actions you can take. These range from learning and sharing your passion for this issue to passing legislation in your city. Get started today to create a plastic-free future!

1. Learn, share and join

The first step towards action is knowledge. Are you a member of a community group that is eager to learn more about how they can protect our oceans and communities? Maybe your child’s teacher is looking for ways to teach kids about environmental protection? Our toolkit has powerpoints and tips for giving a presentation—you can even host a movie night!

2. Be heard in the media

If you want to make change in your community, start with local media! Local newspapers, blogs and magazines are a great venue for getting the word out. In the toolkit, we walk you through how to write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper and how to get it published.

3. Help create plastic-free supermarkets and restaurants

Nowhere is the dominance of single-use plastics and wasteful packaging more obvious than at the local supermarket. Make waves in your community by working to get a local supermarket to reduce their use of single-use plastics.

4. Get restaurants to ditch single-use plastics

Fed up with all the plastic straws and utensils at fast food places and cafes? Join the growing movement urging establishments to get rid of throwaway plastic products.

5. Lobby for local legislation

All over the world, towns, cities and villages are standing up for a plastic-free future by implementing local bans and laws restricting the use of throwaway plastic. Be part of this movement by working with your neighbors to get your local government to do the same.

Greenpeace and MCS (Marine Conservation Society) Mull Beach Clean at Kilninian Beach with pupils from Ulver Primary School, Isle Of Mull. Greenpeace brought its ship the Beluga II on an expedition of scientific research around Scotland, sampling seawater for microplastics and documenting the impact of ocean plastic on some of the UK's most precious marine life.

6. Organize a local cleanup and #BreakFreeFromPlastic brand audit

Everyone loves a cleanup event, so why not take it to the next level? Get your community together to clean up a local beach, park, or riverbank—but don’t stop there. Go through the single-use plastics collected and identify which companies produced them. Let’s hold corporations responsible for their plastic waste!

7. Start a community group!

You don’t have to go it alone. We have a lot of work to do, and we’ll get a lot further—and have more fun—together. Get some friends and neighbors together for a plastic-free future!

Excited to get started? Check out the full Million Acts of Blue toolkit to find out more about how you can work in your own community to end single-use plastics.

A Very Very Very Fine House: Volunteering with Habitat for Humanity

Volunteer to help build a house through Habitat for Humanity http://www.habitat.org/, a non-profit organization that builds and repairs houses so that families have a safe and affordable place to live. Maybe you’ll even meet former President Jimmy Carter and you can hammer up a front porch or something and discuss world peace together.

Who have you affirmed today?

The noted psychologist and philosopher William James, also brother of novelist Henry, said that the core human emotional need is affirmation. People want to be truly "seen" and acknowledged. This is pretty easy to do by listening and paying attention.

Ask, “How are you?” and mean it!

Ask someone how their day is going and make their reply into a conversation. Sometimes people want to talk more than they let on and your interest will show them you care. One day, you’ll get the chance to tell some kind-hearted person exactly how YOU are. Your answer to that question might not always be pretty but it will feel wonderful to be heard.

Ask someone how their day is going and make their reply into a conversation. Sometimes people want to talk more than they let on and your interest will show them you care. One day, you’ll get the chance to tell some kind-hearted person exactly how YOU are. Your answer to that question might not always be pretty but it will feel wonderful to be heard.

A Lesson I Learned From My Mom for Mother's Day

 I witnessed my mother tithe at church when I was a child and noted she did so with pride. I was also not unaware that she “did without” and did not get herself new purses or clothes or anything so she could take care of my sisters and me and be able to give her little bit of extra pocket money to the church. I learned about self-sacrifice and also about living from your values in this way. Experiment with tithing. There is a universal law of tenfold return. This means that when you give freely, your return is tenfold. You don’t give to get the return; you give freely, and what you give flows back to you tenfold. Particularly in terms of money, many of us think the law of attraction doesn’t apply. It does. Money is simply energy, and when you allow the energy of abundance to flow through you, then money and other resources continue to flow to you. When you stop the flow of abundance out of fear, anxiety, and worry, the flow of money stops. During the next six months, experiment. Whenever you get money, before you pay any bill, take 10 percent and give it to something you believe in. What is most important is that you give with an open heart.

Just like my mother's open heart. 

Love Your Mother Earth: Precycling

Be a Precycler:

 First, try to recycle all the product packaging that the item comes in, from the cardboard box to the plastic sleeve. Buy fewer but better-quality products to ensure you won’t end up with a makeup drawer filled with stuff that doesn’t live up to its promises. And finally, check out companies like Terracycle  (www.terracycle.org) that offer recycling programs for things like mascara tubes and lotion bottles. Make better choices and outsmart waste!

Create a Life List

Instead of writing up and crossing things off of a “bucket list,” create a “life list.” Let your hopes, dreams, fears, and thoughts spill out of you and into this list. Next to each entry, write down how that emotion or fear makes you feel—does it hold you back or empower you? This task will put you on the road to self-discovery. Knowing who you are is important in order to have relationships with others. Know thyself.

Today Is Mother Ocean Day and Here's How You Can Help Her

Look into volunteering to clean up your local beach. With pollution in our water and in the sand, help make these local hot spots safer for people and the environment! If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, check out All One Ocean to see when you can help http://www.alloneocean.org/community-meeting-beach-clean-up/

Every Tree You Plant Is Good for the Planet (and us people!)

In 1872, J. Sterling Morton came up with the idea that every year a special day should be put aside for tree planting. Thus he founded Arbor Day and that year over a million trees were planted in Nebraska. Probably now, more than ever, we need to honor Arbor Day, which is usually celebrated on the last Friday in April (some states choose different dates depending on their weather for best tree planting times).

Trees hugely improve the quality of our lives. They provide shelter and food for our wildlife, clean the air, absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, they mask noise, prevent soil erosion, provide paper and wood for fuel and buildings, all this plus the joy and wonder of such a majestic and wonderful plant. Just imagine walking into a park or driving along the highway and there are no trees!

Celebrate Arbor Day by logging onto www.arborday.org and finding out what you can do in your area. Save a tree by recycling paper. Plant a suitable tree in your garden or neighborhood and dedicate it to someone special.

Giving To Those Who Are Willing to Give Their Lives

For Services Rendered

Send a letter to someone in the local law enforcement, coast guard or international military giving thanks for their hard work and dedication to our country. It’s simple and will be greatly appreciated. Go to www.LetsSayThanks.com

Stories Are Not Just For Bedtime

Read a child a story. Introducing children to the world of books while their young will help boost their imagination and intelligence (and will also strengthen your bond). Whether you are babysitting, reading to your own child, or volunteering at a library or hospital, this deed goes a long way.

Unplug (and Recharge!)

Forego using technological devices today. Texting your friend, watching your favorite show, checking your email—all can wait until tomorrow! Turn off your devices and turn on your senses! Read a book, cook a meal, and enjoy the outdoors by taking a walk or tending to your garden. Technology distracts us from the real world, occupying our attention with game applications, chat rooms, social media website, commercials, and so on. Want to know what’s going on in the news? Read a newspaper. Be aware of the here and now by finding activities that don’t require electricity or a battery. Make your own entertainment!

True Love Does Not Require a Diamond

Precious gems and metals leave a horrific trail of pollution and human rights abuses. Not much more needs to be said about this one without getting into some seriously depressing territory, but we cannot discuss jewelry without acknowledging that many people pay a steep price in order to mine, produce, and export precious metals and all those shiny little rocks we coyly call “a girl’s best friend.”  There are so many ways to show your love and no suffering should be involved. Ever.

Healing the Eyes of the World | KarmaTube

Healing the Eyes of the World | KarmaTube