National Volunteer Week

April 27 - May 3 is National Volunteer Week 2008, and there's no better place to start than VolunteerMatch. Nonprofits can post volunteer opportunities there, and volunteers simply enter their ZIP code to receive up-to-date listings of local volunteer activities in their neighborhood. You can filter opportunities based on your areas of interest (arts, culture, the environment, sports, etc.), and there are even opportunities to volunteer "virtually" by working from home. Here are some examples:

• Be a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters in Albuquerque, NM.
• Pick up some groceries for a senior or disabled neighbor in St. Paul, Minn.
• Bike through the rolling hills of Kentucky for MS in Louisville, KY
• Restore indigenous oyster habitats in Charleston, SC
• Help with marketing initiatives for the visually impaired in New York City, NY
• Deepen your appreciation for life as an ecospiritual intern in Madison, Wis.
• Experience the process of mural/public art development in San Antonio, Texas.
• Become a Camp Yosemite Ranger in Indianapolis, Ind.
  

Special thanks to our friends at VolunteerMatch for giving us the heads up on this important week.

Happy Earth Day!

Each year, the April 22 Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. Here are some things you can do today to make a difference:

1. Keep America Beautiful finds solutions in communities across the country for preventing litter, reducing waste, and beautifying communities.
2. Green Dimes has a new FREE service to help eliminate up to 90% of postal junk mail and catalogs.
3. Join the Arbor Day Foundation for $10 and you'll get 10 free trees sent to you (or a friend) that are ready for planting. They're also guaranteed to grow or be replaced free of charge.
4. Whole Foods Market has a cool Whole Earth Generation site on YouTube. It's a user-generated collection of videos by kids under 18 talking about what they're doing for the environment.
5. A 2006 report by the University of Chicago found that adopting a vegan diet does more to reduce global warming than switching to a hybrid car. If you're not ready to go 100% vegan, how about giving up meat one day a week?
   
6. Here's a quick tip with a huge impact: start using your own re-usable bottle of water when you're working out - plastic bottles take 1,000 years to decompose! (Update: Sanjiv from GreenDimes says check out Sigg eco-friendly water bottles)
   
7. Pay your bills online. It saves paper, helps prevent deforestation, lowers administrative costs for businesses you work with, and there will be one less car driving to the post office.
8. Talk to your kids about Earth Day, and do something together to help them contribute.
   

Best School Ever

What started as a "pirate supply store" by best-selling author Dave Eggers, has become an extraordinary new vision for creativity in education. Check out Eggers' inspirational TED Prize wish video for an overview of how it happened and how to get involved. His new website, Once Upon a School is a step by step guide designed to help YOU lend your innovation and creativity to schools in your neighborhood. You can browse the ideas on the website and find one to take on, or create your own project and get the help you need to make it come to life.

Pet Lovers Unite

You may have seen Oprah's recent show on puppy mills, the unhealthy and cruel environments where 99% of dogs and cats purchased at pet stores start out their lives. Many of us were inspired to donate to the Lange Foundation featured on Oprah. The Lange Foundation has a wonderful gift program -- your $75 donation will save a cat or dog from the LA City Animal Shelters, and the recipient receives a photo of the pet you rescued along with their personal story. We think it's just about the best gift you can give any animal lover. There are many other no-kill animal shelters across the nation that also deserve our support. Check out Hearts United for Animals, a national no-kill shelter, sanctuary and animal welfare organization dedicated to the relief of suffering. There are so many thousands of great cats and dogs out there that want and deserve a good home. Remember, if you believe in treating animals humanely and with compassion, rescue your next animal from a shelter or buy from a reputable breeder, but do not buy from pet stores. You can join the campaign to shut down the puppy mills by visiting Prisoners of Greed.

What's New on the Space Station?

It's easy to forget that we have a global community of astronauts living, working, and making news in space right now. Just last week, Europe's robot freighter the Jules Verne hooked up with mankind's orbiting International Space Station completely via auto-pilot. Auto-docking technology is considered a key to assembling spaceships in orbit for long-term missions, such as to Mars. Space station news may feel "out of sight, out of mind," but if you want to really experience the ISS up close, check out the Discovery Channel's HD Theatre. In what we think is the most amazing use of high definition television, Discovery is re-airing "Space Station Live" in HD program. This is your chance to see an extraordinary live walk-through in HD from the space station. If we can have live video conversations in HD with astronauts on the space station, it's only a matter of time before we can talk to astronauts on the moon and beyond. You can also check out NASA's HD video gallery to see HD footage of the moon, the Endeavour and Atlantis launches, and life in Zero-G.

We Can Solve the Climate Crisis

If you believe that global warming is an urgent, but solvable problem, join the We Campaign, a powerful nonpartisan movement of concerned citizens founded by Nobel Prize Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. This practical site offers information on clean energy economy, adoption of renewables, enhancing energy efficiency, and making personal choices to stop global warming. Join the We Campaign, spread the word, sign the petition for a global treaty on climate change, and be an advocate for change. Site includes great list of success stories -- real people making a difference.