Green fingers can help the whole community. “We know volunteering in a prison setting isn’t for everyone,” Ryan says, “but we also have roles in the community to help people directly with learning or to help our area teams with administration and data collection.” There is training and support and you are accompanied on your first prison visits. “Our prison volunteers train and support prisoner mentors to work one-to-one with learners,” says Karen Ryan, director of prison delivery.Īt the moment, the trust particularly needs volunteers in central and eastern England. The Shannon Trust helps them to help one another throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Help prisoners with readingĪbout 50% of people in UK prisons struggle with reading. It’s scientifically impossible to be anything other than thrilled when someone else deals with the bins. Be a bin heroįull? Take it out rather than leaving it for someone else in your home. If there isn’t one locally, why not start one? 9. If you are handy with a sewing needle, bikes, carpentry, electricals or computers, your local repair cafe would almost certainly be delighted to have your help.
#Random kindness series#
Repair cafes are booming and, as the BBC One series The Repair Shop shows, they can be a great source of joy. If you have a warm coat in reasonable condition, find a drop off point and pass it on to someone who needs it. Give a coat to Calaisĭuring winter, Care4Calais needs coats for refugees in northern France, where 2,000-plus sleep rough.
Label it so passersby know what’s what, and that it’s all free. Inspired by the Incredible Edibles movement, create a “propaganda bed” – an easily accessible pot or bed planted with herbs and vegetables for people to help themselves. If it’s wet, put it in the sun otherwise deposit it on a high-nectar flower such as buddleia or sunflower, wait a while and if that hasn’t helped, offer a little sugar water (two tablespoons of white granulated sugar to one tablespoon of water, left on a spoon or in an eggcup). Learn to revive a tired or struggling bee. Illustration: Marcos Montiel at Synergy/The Guardian 5.
Sugar water can work wonders for tired bees. Help can include picking up or unpacking corporate donations, delivering to most in-need clients and even assistance with social media. Remember, you can donate time as well as goods: “Food banks are busier than ever and very grateful to anyone who can spare a few hours on a regular basis,” says Ellie Lambert of the Trussell Trust. I follow my local, the Collective Sharehouse, on Instagram, where it posts requests for urgent help. The best way to support food banks, though, is to find out what they need from day to day. On top of the obvious non-perishable foods, the Trussell Trust says donations of toiletries, laundry and washing-up stuff, baby supplies and sanitary towels and tampons are always welcome. If a homeless person tells you they are having difficulty accessing medical facilities or with other practical issues, the Big Issue suggests alerting StreetLink, which connects rough sleepers with services they need. Some people want to chat, some don’t – just be respectful. It needn’t be anything heavy: ask how their day is going and if there is anything they would like or need help with. Generally, having a chat with someone on the streets is a nice thing to do and often appreciated. Buy a Big Issue when you can – but also talk to your seller Check the map at, register as a volunteer and you will be ready when help is needed in your area. The Cinnamon Trust provides support for elderly and terminally ill people who need urgent help to walk their pets so they can keep them. To donate quickly, the best appointment availability is at the 25 permanent donor centres across the UK. If you can’t get an appointment immediately, don’t worry: your donation will be vital whenever it’s given. Sign up at .uk, call 0300 1232323 or use the NHS Blood app. Everyone eligible is welcome, but “we urgently need more blood donors of black heritage”, says Rob Knowles of NHS Blood and Transplant (they are more likely to be able to help the increasing number of patients with sickle cell disease).
#Random kindness free#
Give bloodĮach donation can save up to three lives and you get free biscuits. You won’t get that kind of win-win from a gym membership. So you can help others and feel better yourself all at once. But what all these acts have in common is that they will make you feel good: research shows that being kind make us happier. I hope there is something for everyone: some require commitment others need nothing more than the ability to boil a kettle. To make this list of suggestions, I explored acts of kindness given and received, acutely needed and fondly remembered, with Guardian readers, charities, friends and family, marvelling at how much quietly industrious kindness goes on around us.
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