Happy Valentine’s Day, readers! Thank you for taking the time to find out more about what our good neighbors in the nonprofit sector are doing for our local communities!

Readers, The Village Visionary is celebrating 6 months of existence! Now seems as good a time as any, (especially on the day we celebrate love!) to pause and consider ways that we, as individuals, can love our neighbors in our cities and neighborhoods. The year 2020 is still fresh, and if it was one of your goals this year to get involved in the community or find a new way to give back, you’ve come to the right place! In this post, we’re going to examine 11 ways that we can sow seeds of love in San Diego County right now!

1)  Sponsor the membership of a disabled individual to the Adapt Functional Movement Center.

Adapt takes a holistic approach to aiding persons who are dealing with a variety of disabilities such as Parkinson’s Disease, ALS, Transverse Myelitis, TBI, Cerebral Palsy, ALS, and other such conditions, to recovery and an abundant, fulfilling life. You can read about what they do to accomplish this in our very first Village Visionary post. If you have the means, providing a sponsorship to their center for a client is a wonderful way to give back!

2) Support your local performing arts scene and attend a performance of The Circus Collective’s show

“For the Love of It” THIS WEEKEND in San Diego! The Circus Collective is an amazing group of aerial and circus artists that produce phenomenal, unique, gorgeous productions in a fresh way that cannot be experienced anywhere else. Read this blog post to find out more!

3) Stencil a storm drain.

I Love a Clean San Diego, an organization that has been around for over 60 years, is committed to seeing a litter free and zero waste San Diego become a reality. One of the ways they are tackling this ambitious mission is by partnering with Think Blue to educate the public about storm drain pollution and urban storm-water runoff. You can help, literally, with your own two hands by ordering a stencil kit for $25 and getting to work! Watch this video to find out how, and read this post to learn about what else I Love a Clean San Diego is up to!

4)  Join a K9 Search and Rescue Team

Search Dog Resources is a volunteer K9 search and rescue team that is always looking for more volunteers and their dogs to help aid law enforcement when called upon to find lost persons! It’s a volunteer position that takes a lot of time and dedication, but it is so rewarding, and a great way to bond with your dog, too! SDR is also always looking for new places to train for various real-life scenarios, so if you happen to own property that would be a suitable place for such training, consider that as one unique way to give back to the community! Call Search Dog Resources at: 888-720-1959.

5)  Help build a bridge between law enforcement and the public

by attending a Game Changer event. Game Changer is an organization with a brilliant solution for the current tensions that exist between law enforcement and the communities they serve, in order to create a peaceful, collaborative relationship between them. Read more about the movement and the next event happening near you!

6)  Volunteer as a MealConnect driver for Feeding San Diego!

Feeding San Diego is an organization working toward a hunger-free and healthy San Diego, where one in eight people is food insecure. Their new MealConnect platform is one way that you can help in your free time by delivering food from suppliers to Feeding San Diego partners, but it’s not the only way you can help out with this important mission! Check out this post for the scoop.

7)  Gather your friends and head down to Mexico to help build a home for a family in need!

Spectrum Ministries is an organization that began in Clairemont, San Diego in 1980 with a mission to share God’s love with our neighbors in Tijuana. The organization now has deep roots in various communities in TJ, coming alongside churches in those communities to help out in various ways. One of those ways is helping out with building homes, and it’s a great way to spend a Saturday! Find out more about Spectrum here.

8)  Are you a dog trainer? You can volunteer your skills and expertise with 4Paws4Patriots,

an organization that introduces disabled American veterans and first responders to rescued dogs, and trains them together to become service dog teams. If you’re not a dog trainer but you love dogs and you love vets, there are plenty of other ways to volunteer as well! Learn all about it in this post.

9) Host a parking lot party for clients of Dreams for Change’s safe parking program!

These folks are facing housing insecurity, but have found a temporary refuge in this parking program. Gather your friends, bring some popcorn, set up a projector screen, and host a drive-in theater experience for them! Or, bring some board games and have a game night! Dreams for Change offers people experiencing homelessness a lot of other services as well, including free tax prep. If you are a tax professional who is able to donate your time and expertise, they could use it! Read about what else Dreams for Change is doing here.

10) Donate to and shop at TERI’s Inspired Resale Nonprofit Boutique.

This not only helps to protect our environment by reducing, reusing and recycling clothes and home goods, it also provides support to TERI and its clients. TERI is on a mission to change the way the world sees and interacts with individuals with special needs, as well as to help provide an enriching life for those individuals. They have a LOT going on (such as equestrian therapy, pictured below) and many ways to get involved. Find out more here.

11) Tutor or coach kids at the ABC Youth Foundation,

a place where the inner-city youth of San Diego can come and learn how to “step out in life with their best foot forward; without cowardice — but with courage and dignity.” ABC is headquartered in a boxing gym, but it offers much more to the youth of the community than boxing lessons. Founded by boxing legend Archie Moore in the ‘50’s, this organization has established a legacy of love and leadership in San Diego. Read about it here.

As you can see, there are plenty of wonderful and unique ways that YOU can get involved in your San Diego community TODAY! And it doesn’t stop here! Keep reading as The Village Visionary continues the exploration of the wonderful things our local nonprofits are doing to sustain, support, improve and enrich our communities here in San Diego and Orange Counties. Also, if you find yourself drawn to any of the organizations featured above, I’d love to hear about how you plan to get involved! Please introduce yourself in the comments!

If you like the images accompanying this story and would like to explore how visual storytelling could help your organization share the heart of its mission, please visit my website, www.soulvoyagerstudios.com, or send me an email at soulvoyagerstudios@gmail.com. To receive each blog post in your inbox when it is posted, as well as regular content regarding visual storytelling and inspiring ways to make a difference in this world, subscribe to his blog below!