Give

Individuals 

• Help someone with their recycling, a great way to get to know them.
• Volunteer in your community – see www.volunteernow.org.nz
• Join a Time Bank – read about one here www.lyttelton.net.nz/timebank
• Take opportunities to support and advocate for those in need – groups or individuals.
• Give a smile away!
• When coming through a road toll, pay for the person behind you too.
• While driving, stop to let a car into the traffic.
• Offer to mow the grass verge of your neighbour.
• Invite neighbours to use your tools if they need them.
• Bake a cake and share it with your neighbour or just give it to them.
• Do Adult Literacy training - help someone else participate in the community in the way they wish and develop your own skills too.
• Donate old computers, books etc to local schools and libraries or community groups.

Families 

• Volunteer as a family in your community, sports club or place of worship.
• Offer to help a neighbouring family with a big job – gardening makeover, trip to the dump etc.
• Join a community clean up day together – river, beach or park
• Participate in a tree-planting project as a family.
• Give someone a hand with a task, don’t wait to be asked. 

Communities

• Start and develop a neighbourhood Time Bank.
• If you have fruit trees pop your excess fruit out on the street with a ‘help yourself’ sign.
• Organise a ‘fruit tree audit’ within your community to map the neighbourhood resources and enable those with excess or unwanted fruit each year to distribute to those in need.
• Donate old toys, clothes etc to Women’s Refuge.
• Take dinner to new parents, or people who have been unwell. 

Schools

• Donate time to schools to help out with coaching, trips, kapa haka etc. Even if you don’t have kids!
• Students with down-time, read to younger students.
• Help with school working bees and fundraisers.
• Organise opportunities for student groups to volunteer in the community – choirs visiting rest homes, river/beach/park clean-up days.
• Make your workplace available to school class visits for learning opportunities.
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Older people

• Join a group that advocates and supports older people.
• Offer to take an older neighbour for their groceries.
• Offer to help an older neighbour with their wheelie bins on rubbish/recycling days.
• As an elder, make yourself available to talk at events, school assemblies, class visits etc.
• Join the board of a local trust or committee who could benefit from your experience.

Workplaces

• See if your company will donate any prizes for the Mental Health Foundation to raffle off during Mental Health Awareness Week to support some of their activities.
• Do some volunteering together
• Join national campaigns and rally staff to fundraise and contribute.
• Have a random act of kindness week – each person pulls the name of another staff member out of a hat to be kind to for the rest of the week
• Give a compliment – acknowledge what your colleagues add to the working environment

Working with Primary Health Care/Health Professionals

• Encourage corporate volunteering or pro bono work with community organisations within the sector.
• Find ways to help organisations in providing support to community or individuals that does not cost.