Back when I lived in both New York and Florida I was pretty active in working for charities.  Whether it was bringing food to the local homeless shelter, helping out organizing a food pantry in town or at church, or working on a Habitat for Humanity build, whenever I had some spare time I liked to find a way to help out those less fortunate than many of us.  Since I moved up to Indiana a year ago, I haven't been able to find a local charity to work with yet, mostly owing to the fact that I am just so busy all of the time.  I think that rather than getting involved in big builds for Habitat or finding a chapter of a large nationwide charity to work with here, finding a smaller more local charity to work with from time to time might be the best bet for me.  It seems sometimes that when you get yourself involved with a large charity, the more than you do, the more they call you wanting more help.  That's fine, but for a graduate student just starting my second year in school, time is something that I really don't have all that much of.  I like working with smaller local charities mainly because they are very happy and especially appreciative for any and all help that they can get, no matter how much or little of a time or effort commitment that you can make.  I thought that an interesting place to go and volunteer would be a food pantry somewhere here in town, but I haven't been able to locate one.  I thought that I might be able to walk around downtown to try and explore the area and find where such an establishment would be, but up until now I haven't had all that much luck.  I also havent' gotten myself involved in any church activities since I moved up here for reasons that I've explained in a bunch of posts previously.  For more information on all that, you can search in my blog archives, rather than me repeating everything here for everyone to read again.

Anyways, I'm pretty much up in the air about this food pantry thing.  I'm just not sure if it's the best bet.  I suppose that I could try to find some people who work on Habitat builds and get involved that way.  It might not be so bad.  I could just state things right off of the bat that I can only volunteer on a given day for a given amount of time and hope that they will understand that and be happy for the effort that I am able to put in.  I think that out of all the charitable work that I've done over the years, Habitat for Humanity has been my favorite.  I remember going out to East Saint Louis, Illinois with a group from my home church back in New York the first summer that I was in college and working on several Habitat builds.  It felt great knowing that we were going to make such a difference in the lives of several families.  By the time that we had completed the first house, we had the opportunity to meet the family that would be moving into it.  It was amazing to put a smile on those individuals' faces and know that they would be directly benefitting from our time, effort, and resources.  

If you've never had the opportunity to participate in a Habitat for Humanity build, I really encourage you to scope out any builds that are currently going on or are planned in your own town.  Habitat is nationwide, and with all the needy families in our country, there is a strong chance that the organization has a presence in the town or city where you live.  You can always learn more about Habitat and what they stand for and are trying to accomplish by visiting their website.  It's just a quick search away on Google.  I think though that after talking about all this stuff about Habitat and remembering what a great experience the builds were that I participated in, I've kind of made up my mind.  I'm going to have to follow my own advice and scope out any builds going on in my town or surrounding areas.  It will be a great way to volunteer and give back to both my community and those who have less than I do.