Volunteer Suggestions for Austin, TX

The holiday season is coming around and with so much goodwill in the air many people feel the need to help those less fortunate by volunteering in their community. If your community happens to be Austin or the Austin area I have a list of opportunities for you.

1) Meals-on-Wheels
This organization bring hot meals to the elderly home-bound. The best part of this is that you get to interact with incredibly kind people who don't get a lot of chances to see and talk with people. It's very nice knowing you've brightened someone's day. It also has several shoot-offs that you can volunteer with. They also have a portable kiosk that delivers meals on the street to homeless people.

2) Keep Austin Beautiful
If you're not so good with people but love nature, this is a great place for you to volunteer. They work very hard to keep Austin clean and they also work very hard to make sure that there is legislation in place that protects the environment from guck spewing factories. Another part of their work is promoting usage of public transportation to decrease vehicle emissions.

3) Community Partnership for the Homeless
This is pretty much what it sounds like. They do all they can to help the homeless. This includes providing food, shelter, mental counseling, helping them gain job skills, and everything inbetween. Most of these people are everyday normal people who are having a run of really bad luck and just need help getting back up on their feet.

4) Any Baby Can
This organization helps parents of children with disabilities. They provide educational classes for the parents to help them address their child's special needs. They also train volunteers to care for the children so that the parents can have time to run errands and even give the husband and wife a night off once in a while. They also have another branch of the program called the Ceden Family Resource Center that provides parenting classes for at-risk parents and basic educational tutoring for people of all ages, young, old and inbetween. They need people to do this tutoring and everybody is qualified.

5) Austin Humane Society
As it starts to get colder it gets harder for the animals too. The Humane Society is a wonderful place to volunteer if maybe you aren't so good with people but you love animals. The sad thing about animals being homeless is that if they're homeless for too long they get put down. The Humane Society does it's best to avoid this at all costs which means they need to be constantly finding people to adopt the animals. They need people to adopt animals, promote adopting animals, and simply care for them while they're at the clinic.

6) Capital Area Food Bank
The food bank takes donations of food staples such as rice, beans, canned fruit and vegetables for low-income earners who need a little help. There are so many people that this place helps and they need so many positions filled that because of their non-profit status they can't afford to pay.

7) Safe Place
This is an amazing organization. They provide a safe haven for victims of domestic and sexual abuse. They provide all sorts of social services for battered women and their children who may have been caught in the cross-fire. They run a 24-hour crisis hotline and also offer counseling and shelter for all victims as well as running educational programs in the community.

8) Operation Turkey
This occurs once a year on Thanksgiving. It started as one man giving Thanksgiving left-overs to a homeless man on the street and has evolved over the course of several years into bigger concerted effort that has even crossed state lines.

9) Coats for Kids
If you have any new or gently used coats you can drop them off at any Jack Brown Dry Cleaners and they are donated to low-income kids that can't afford new coats. It's incredibly easy and only takes a moment out of your day.

10) Asera Care
This organization is actually a multi-state organization that has offices in Austin. They provide visiting services for hospices. Volunteers go to a designated hospice to visit a resident and they talk or read books or any number of things. This can be a great relief for close family who are feeling overly stressed and it also provides a great comfort for the resident and is rewarding for the visitor.