Every Cardinal Key Chapter has dry periods, when no one can think of a new and exciting service project. Never fear, we are here to help! We’ve complied ideas from chapters across the country in hopes that it might inspire your chapter to get out and serve your campus and community in a new way.
Ideas for Service Projects:
When available, we provide a link where you can find more information about large scale service opportunities.
- Support a local nursing home through playing games, or “adopting” grandparents
- Send care packages to deployed military members (contact your local military installation, reserve unity, or Give 2 the Troops
- Collect food for:
- A local food pantry
- Boy Scout “Scouting for Food”
- National Association of Letter Carriers “Stamp Out Hunger”
- Simulate homelessness in a prominent place on campus or in your community and collect donations (food, toiletries, shoes, blankets, coats)
- Hold a Book Drive for a local library
- Partner with other campus service organizations for larger projects, or coordinate a large service day for the entire campus
- Adopt a portion of road through Department of Transportation Highway Cleanup (search for your state’s DOT Adopt-a-Highway program)
- Tutor or read to students in local schools
- Sort clothes for the Salvation Army or Goodwill
- Help with Blood Drives
- Sort food for food banks
- Help with voter registration
- Collect Clothes for:
- A local women’s shelter
- A Coat Drive
- Fire Victims
- A Prom Dress Drive (there are many others – search for one near you):
- Work with Habitat for Humanity
- Participate in the Great American Cleanup
- Perform Random Acts of Kindness:
- Hand out candy to people standing in long lines (e.g. buying or returning books at the beginning or end of semester)
- Hang out in residence hall laundry rooms or at laundromats and do laundry or folding
- Deliver cookies to late night shifts of campus security, police, fire station, emergency room workers, residence halls workers, etc
- Clean bathrooms in residence halls
- Pump gas for people in inclement weather
- Collect coupons and then tape them to products in stores
- For more ideas, check out Random Acts of Kindness’s idea page