Volunteering is always a great way to make a positive impact on society and the environment. Volunteering is usually focused more on serving the community, and less so on helping the environment. Here are a few simple yet effective ways you as a volunteer can make an impact on your local environment.
Starting a Community Garden
Community gardens are gradually fading away. If your community does not have such a place, this can be a great opportunity to establish one and manage it yourself, encouraging volunteers from all over the neighborhood. Starting a community garden does not have to be too complicated and can be achieved by simply planting beds of flowers or vegetables in an identified plot of land. Running the community garden by volunteering your time to tend to it ensures that it flourishes to the benefit of the community and the surrounding environment.
Planting Trees
Speaking of planting, trees are the basic elements that support the flourishing of our environment. They contribute heavily to cleaning the air and maintaining a conducive living environment. You can contribute positively to the environment by planting and maintaining trees within your community. The good thing with such a project is that trees can be planted anywhere, including in your own backyard, along public utility fields, or sidewalks throughout the neighborhood (depending on your community’s laws regarding this). Tending to the young trees by applying compost, weeding, and watering regularly ensures that your project can have a lasting impact.
Community Clean-Up Exercises
Everybody appreciates living in a clean environment. Unfortunately, most of our communities have not emphasized on enforcing cleanliness from a communal perspective and have left this responsibility to the municipal authorities. Volunteering your time to organize community clean-up exercises, ideally each weekend, can be a great way to rid the streets of trash and debris, and improve the overall health of your local environment.
Sometimes, we tend to focus on cleaning our environment by collecting garbage, but forget to think about local bodies of water in our area. If you have some of these near you, you may want to create or participate in programs that target cleaning neglected ponds, lakes, rivers, and even public swimming pools. Lastly, enforcing proper disposal of waste can increase the longevity of these initiatives within your community.