"Help From Home" - Volunteer Without Leaving Your House!

Change the world in just your PJs! How cool is that? And it's true, easy and wonderful.

I received a nice email from Mike Bright who runs the Help From Home website - here is what he had to say:

I run a website called 'Help From Home' which provides information on easy, no commitment volunteering opportunities that can all be performed from the comfort of a person's home. Almost all of the 450 plus actions listed on the site will cost nothing or very little to complete and take no more than 30 minutes to accomplish. Some can even be performed in under 10 seconds without getting out of your favourite chair or pyjamas!

I run it on a purely altruistic basis with no intention of making or wanting to make any money out of it. I started it back in January 2009 and have been gaining positive feedback about it ever since.

What I'm attempting to achieve is to change people's mindset by enabling them to see that volunteering for worthy causes can actually be conducted from within their own house, rather than the more traditional approach of joining a group of people at a certain place and a certain time to perform actions that benefit others. Most of us spend a lot of time in our own home, where potentially some of that time could be devoted over to helping charities or worthy causes. If people were able to donate between 10 to 30 minutes of their time to such endeavours on a one-off, daily, weekly or monthly basis, just think how much of an impact collectively it would make into the goals and aims of initiatives that are attempting to make the world a better place to live in.

In closing then, I believe the opportunities listed on the website really can inspire people to make a difference, not only at a community level but also on a national and global basis as well.

Cool, eh? I just bookmarked it and will visit it often.

> Visit Help from Home and start doing some good!

Do you have a sublime site or story to share? Let me know at stories@sublimegoodness.com!

University Student Gets Anonymous $16,000 Check for Tuition

Pay it forward. That's what the letter accompanying the $16,000 check said to Marc Alexander:

Dear Mr. Alexander,

Enclosed is a cashier's check for $16,000. This is a gift to pay for your classes next term at Kettering. We hope that at some time in your successful future you may find someone in need and "pay this gift forward."

Amazing isn't it? Here is the deal in a nutshell:

In the midst of a credit crisis, the 23-year-old had been rejected seven times for the $16,000 loan he needed to attend Kettering University this term.

But someone out there just couldn't stand to see the star senior quit college.

The anonymous letter came to Kettering's financial aid office just days after his story appeared in The Flint Journal -- enclosed was a $16,000 cashier's check.

Just one simple request from his secret donors: Pay it forward.

"I was just blown away," said Alexander, head of a non-profit organization that helps youth. "Nothing like this has ever happened to me. This was something I'd only seen in the movies.

"It's kind of hard to even express how grateful and thankful I am. I am on top of the world."

> Read the Full Story at the Flint Journal

What are you doing to pay it forward?

*Thanks to Daily Good for the tip-off on this great story.

Share Our Strength's "Operation No Kid Hungry"

Another bit of serendipity happened today - I had bookmarked a recent Operation NICE blog post about this innovative campaign to end childhood hunger with the intention of doing a reposting here on Sublime Goodness to help spread the word. And then today, I received an email from Kari at the organization behind the campaign, Share Our Strength, asking if I would...help spread the word. So consider it done!

Here is the info:

Share Our Strength has launched a brand new campaign to raise funds to help end childhood hunger. "Operation No Kid Hungry" responds to President Obama's call to action to end childhood hunger by 2015.

Share Our Strength has partnered with AT&T to offer an easy way that you can support and participate in "Operation No Kid Hungry": Just Text "SHARE" to 20222 on your mobile device to donate $5. AT&T will match all text donations up to $100,000. Find out more at
http://strength.org/get_involved/text_donation/

For more information about "Operation No Kid Hungry" and how you can help
end childhood hunger, visit Share Our Strength's website:
http://strength.org.

There are also more ways you can help get the word out, including banners
for your blog and social networking pages here:
http://strength.org/get_involved/spread_the_word/