With the holidays are fast approaching, the idea of community service becomes a larger fixture in the minds of many during these times of thanks and bounty. So, if you’re thinking about how to give back to the community, consider these ideas.

1. Play To Your Strengths

When it comes to community involvement, there’s an idea that service would be limited to service activities such as food drives, donations, and working at food dispensaries.

While these are all good suggestions, they don’t have to be the only service options.

Good community service can sometimes mean using your own skills and abilities for the betterment of the community. So, for example, if you have skills in organization, working at a food pantry or fundraiser might be right up your alley. But if you’ve got experience in accounting, why not offer to look over the account books of the food pantry? If you’ve got experience with carpentry, why not check to see if there’s a community garden that needs raised planters for older citizens? And if you’ve got wildlife skills, why not check with the local Scouting organizations to see if they have need of teachers and volunteer instructors?

Play to your strengths. Everyone has them.

2. Donate

It’s one of the largest staples in community service: donate things that can be of use to your community.

This one enjoys a great deal of service popularity because donations cover a wide field of offerings. Donate blood, donate books, donate clothes, donate furniture, donate cars (only if you don’t need one), donate linens, donate pots and pans, donate appliances, donate buildings (only if you don’t live in it). The possibilities can be endless because the need always exist, no matter the type of community.

And it doesn’t just mean the physical stuff, either. You can donate your time, donate your expertise, donate your skills. Donate your strength by helping the local church physically relocate furniture out of its offices. Donate your English skills by contributing news for a blood bank’s newsletter. Donate your business expertise by offering suggestions about tax strategies for a 501c3 organization.

Everybody has something they can donate. All you have to do is look around and ask what is needed. 

3. Buy Local

When the pandemic first hit, there was a large emphasis placed on buying local. This was partly due to the unknown market challenges brought about by the early days of quarantines and mandatory closures; the smaller, local businesses were in greater danger of closing their door and never reopening them compared to the larger chain stores.

While buying local can help maintain an area’s smaller, local businesses, giving these groups your business can also be viewed as a community service. By buying local, a consumer sends the message they want the business to remain as a part of the larger community. 

Chain stores and big-name businesses offer promises of a unified shopping experience, which any shopper can find comforting. Local businesses, however, offer a sense of local culture and character unique to each community. As such, maintaining them helps maintain the atmosphere prized by many communities.