Green Options » volunteering

Yoga Journal Conference Offers Scholarships for Teachers that Change Lives

Lucille Chi — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:27:54 +0000

Yoga Journal is pleased to offer a scholarship program for those that need assistance attending this winter yoga conference in San Francisco. This scholarship program is intended for yoga teachers, with limited income, who currently teach (and volunteer) yoga to underserved populations within their community.

Yoga Journal shares how practicing yoga changes lives daily. These upcoming “Share Your Yoga” conference scholarships are intended to support the participation of yoga instructors that earn a low-income that is active in contributing their unique teaching abilities to those that can not afford it. Below are the application instructions.

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Kids for Peace Invites You to Take the Great Kindness Challenge

Heather Dunham — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 03:12:52 +0000

Out of the mouths of babes… Leave it to a group of children (Kids for Peace) to come up with this incredible, life-affirming, peace-spreading, goodness-sharing idea.

For one day — August 8, 2009 — children around the world are invited to perform simple, yet important, little acts of kindness. Their goal this year is to have one million children participate in the Great Kindness Challenge.

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Target: A Call To Service

Kelli Peterson — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:51:04 +0000

Very rarely do brands get it right when inserting themselves into historic moments in time. Brand-building generally only works around events where advertising is expected and even then it is, at best, tolerated as part of the environment.

Advertisers do pretty well with sports. In fact advertising has been woven into and is actually a part of the entertainment experience now. But events marking history, events that speak to the core of our humanity rarely provide solid platforms to convincingly reach out to audiences and failed attempts often do more damage than good. However, Target’s simple message to promote volunteering in honor of Martin Luther King Day not only managed to be classy, but it ingeniously captured the spirit of the times.

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Recycling for Change: Epic Change uses a pay-it-forward approach to saving the world

Gennefer Snowfield — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:59:13 +0000

If you’re going to change the world, wouldn’t you like it to be epic?

Stacey Monk, Co-founder and CEO of Epic Change, does, which is why she and Sanjay Patel decided to launch their unique approach to sparking social change by converting people’s “epic” stories into financial resources they can use to improve their communities, their lives – and the world.

Rooted in the best practices of successful businesses and charities, their somewhat novel approach to funding uses donations to provide interest-free loans to finance community improvement efforts, which they repay by generating revenue-driving projects based on each epic story, and then recycle by duplicating those ideas in other communities, effectively spreading hopefulness and change to everyone their program touches.

I had the opportunity to talk with Stacey to dig a little deeper into their change model, and this impassioned former management consultant with a degree in Public Policy from the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University boasts an impressive resume, but her most compelling attribute by far is a genuine desire to promote positive change and a dewey-eyed hopefulness that makes me believe she can.

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How to Volunteer Abroad On the Cheap

Gavin Hudson — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:59:36 +0000

Too often, volunteering abroad seems to come with a big price tag. If you’ve looked into international volunteering programs, you’ve probably noticed that most of them expect you to pay through the nose just to volunteer your free time and effort. These programs have their merits. However, if you’re living or traveling abroad and willing to go out on a limb, you can find great international volunteer opportunities without the cost.

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The VJD Daily Tip: Good Travels

Vital Juice Daily — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:51:51 +0000

Editor’s note: Looking for a travel experience a bit more exotic (and meaningful) than the traditional trip to the beach or lakeside resort? Our friends at email tip service Vital Juice Daily have some suggestions today.

If you’re jealous of Angelina Jolie’s exotic globetrotting to save the world, you might consider a volunteer vacation (Brad Pitt not included) … help yourself while helping others! What could be better than that (besides Brad Pitt)?

1. Make it count

With Global Volunteers, you can teach conversational English in Italy; paint, build, and repair buildings in Costa Rica; care for at-risk children in Romania; revitalize communities in small American towns; and much more. Global Volunteers’ goal is to “wage peace by facilitating mutual international understanding,” and that sounds pretty good to us!

2. "Swank"y travel

Last summer, Hilary Swank volunteered at an orphanage in North India with United Planet, an organization that creates international volunteer programs. They offer trips lasting from 1-52 weeks in 50 countries worldwide. Check out their new initiative to help battered women and their children at a shelter in Guatemala.

3. Volunteer as a family

Cross Cultural Solutions offers weeklong Insight Abroad trips to take as a family. This unique program exposes children to a different culture and provides an incomparable opportunity for them to learn the value of hands-on volunteerism. Trips are offered in Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru and Russia … perfect fodder for the inevitable “What did you do during your summer vacation?”

4. Make it green

Starting to worry about how all that international air travel will impact the environment? Through Climate Friendly™ you can buy energy credits to offset the emissions from your flight. A simple emissions calculator lets you figure out exactly how to offset the carbon trail of your travel (and make Al Gore proud!).