If you like sprucing things up, you can help paint a health clinic for low-income residents on Saturday, Oct. 22, or clean up a park, a historic cemetery, or a storm water pond on Saturday, Oct. 16 or 23. Help is also needed gardening and cleaning up the grounds at homes for some of our county's most vulnerable residents on Sunday, Monday, or Wednesday, Oct. 16, 17, and 19.

Want to volunteer on projects to help children? Sign up to help create comfort cases for children entering foster care on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Oct. 17, 19, and 20; assemble information on learning disabilities to be distributed to schools on Wednesday, Oct. 19, or Sunday, Oct. 23; or bring and serve brunch or dinner for children undergoing serious medical treatment and their families staying at the Children's Inn at NIH on Thursday, Oct. 20, or Sunday, Oct. 23.

Maybe you'd like to help needy families by sorting and distributing donations of furniture and clothing. If so, sign up to help on projects set for Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday, Oct. 17, 18, or 20.

There are also events that need your help. Check out opportunities to assist at booths at the World of Montgomery Festival on Sunday, Oct. 16; work as event staff for the CentroNia Gala on Thursday, Oct. 18; and support the Make Your Mark 5K on Saturday, Oct 22.

Sign up today and see the latest list of projects here; check back frequently as projects are added regularly. Let you friends know you're participating (and encourage them to do the same) by signing on to the #CSW2016 Facebook event. And share your posts and photos related to Community Service Week--before and after the event--on social media using the hashtag #CSW2016.

If your nonprofit or school would like to plan a volunteer project during the week, let us  know by completing this form. Please fill it out even if you already have all the volunteers you need, so the Volunteer Center can track all the great service being performed.

Questions? Email us or call 240-777-2600.

Many well-intentioned people look at Thanksgiving and Christmas as the perfect time to volunteer at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter. And while nonprofits that serve the hungry and homeless do need some help on those days, they frequently have more volunteers than they need--but less than they need the rest of the year!

So make this the year that you volunteer before the holidays, when your help is that much more critical. 

For ideas of where and how to get involved, search the Volunteer Center website for opportunities related to hunger or homeless, and pick one of the volunteer needs that appeals to you.

To participate, students and their guardians must attend a training session. Learn more and register here by Wednesday, Oct. 5.

Students age 17 and up--and adults of all ages--are also need to serve as paid election workers. Learn more here.

Are you age 50+ and looking to give back? Get ideas on how to enhance your life through volunteer service at a special program presented by the Volunteer Center Tuesday, Oct. 18, 1-2 pm (with Q&A to follow), at the Bethesda Library. 

Learn about the Volunteer Center's rich resources for matching you with the perfect volunteer opportunity, how to get involved on a nonprofit board, ways to share your professional skills through our Pro Bono Consultant program, and more.  Free. No registration required, but space is limited. 

For more information, call 240-777-2612.

Learn about encouraging volunteerism and civic engagement in our senior community, preventing senior scams, and spotting elder abuse at a county forum set for Friday, Oct. 21, 1-4 pm, at the Village at Rockville.

Event speakers will include Rona Kramer, secretary of the Maryland Department of Aging; State's Attorney for Montgomery County John McCarthy; Eric Friedman, director of the county's Office of Consumer Protection; and Gretchen Zekiel, manager of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program in the Montgomery County Volunteer Center. The forum will also include a resource fair featuring a variety of organizations that provide services to seniors.

Get more details from the event flyer. Or call 240-777-7906 or email County Councilmember Sidney Katz, the event's host, for additional information or questions.