We all want to help out but doing it with no money can be tricky. Here are a few ways to help your community without needing to drain your wallet.
It’s pretty common as a college student to have to watch how much you’re spending every week or month. School isn’t cheap, and neither is paying for where you live on top of things like groceries and such. It’s understandable that college students want to help out their communities but don’t have the money to do so. If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. To help combat this problem for those called to help, we’ve come up with a few ways to help your community without spending money.
Donate Time Volunteering
You don’t need money when you have free time to spend instead. Volunteering your time is one of the best things you can do with your spare time. There are a lot of different ways to use your time to effectively help out your community, such as:
- Serve food at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen
- Spend time at an elderly care facility to provide companionship
- Help out at a pet rescue center
- Enroll in a big brothers or big sisters program and help out a young child
These activities will rarely cost you anything upfront and they do real good in your community. Your campus should have plenty of opportunities like these for you to get involved in.
Donate Yourself To Save Lives
A great way to help your community without spending any money is to donate things such as blood and plasma. There are even places that will pay you for donations of plasma. This is a very simple procedure that only takes a little bit of your time but goes a very long way to helping others. Your donation of blood or plasma could mean the difference between life and death for someone. Getting to help that much for just a small bit of needle pain is a great tradeoff.
Donate Your Possessions
Look around your dorm or apartment—you’ll probably find at least one thing that you don’t really need. You may find something you don’t even like anymore. Rather than toss these sorts of possessions in the trash, you can instead donate them to someone that will get more use out of them. Places like the Purple Heart Pickup will even come right to you, so you don’t have to go anywhere. Consider donating things such as:
- Décor pieces you no longer use
- Extra cooking utensils
- Gently used clothes
- Extra shoes