10 Tips for Nourishing Service

by Mom It Forward on February 28th, 2011 | No Comments »

This week's Season of Service challenge involves serving through nourishing. This denotes either giving people, plants, or animals the substances they require to live, grow, or remain fit and healthy, encouraging or strengthening a feeling or idea, or helping something to grow or develop.

10 Tips to Nourish People Things Around You

Here are 10 bite-size ideas:

Read "E" Is for Ethics: How to Talk to Kids About Morals, Values, and What Matters Most by Ian James Corlett to encourage the development of your children's growing value systems.
Look up your ancestors on a site like Ancestry.com or by asking your parents or grandparents about them. Strengthen your connection with, or at least learn about your family's past.
Babysit children of the members of the PTA board at your child's school while they attend their meeting, so that they can nourish and strengthen the environment of your child's school.
Make a pet calendar to sell as a fundraiser for your local humane society, maybe even selling advertising to pet stores and vets. Have a contest in which people submit pictures of their pets.
Print out the Seafood Watch pocket guide from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and buy what seafood your family consumes from the "Best Choices" list, which details the kinds of fish caught or farmed using environmentally friendly practices. By doing this, you support healthy, abundant oceans.
Report any graffiti you see in your area to the city as soon as you see it. Data shows that removal within 24 to 48 hours results in a nearly zero rate of recurrence. Help the positive site of your community show!
Volunteer to help cook in the God's Love We Deliver kitchen, which is a leading provider of meals to people who are too sick to shop or cook for themselves in all five boroughs of New York City, Newark and Hudson County, New Jersey.
Volunteer to help deliver meals to one home-bound senior in your area through Meals on Wheels.
Host a Diversity Dinner. Invite 4 or 5 friends over and ask them each to bring a dish from a country, religion, or ethnicity they are from, have visited, or would like to increase awareness of.
Smile at 10 complete strangers. It has been said that "kindness is the fuel of community and that true community is the one stable foundation of human...connectedness." To that I would add that connectedness is one of the defining characteristics of a good human.

How Will You Give to Others This Week?

What other ideas do you have for giving to others by?
How has nourishing others made a meaningful difference for you this week?
How have others given to you this week and what difference has that made in your life?

How Else Can You Make a Difference This Season?

Make a meaningful difference this season by taking the Season of Service (SOS) Challenge. Here's how you can participate:

Commit to do one act of kindness/service based on the week's challenge.
Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week's challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.