Spread the Love
18 ways for students to make someone's day.

1. Send "thinking of you" cards to some guys and girls in your youth group who need cheering up.

2. Surprise Mom by offering to do this week's grocery shopping or laundry.

3. Have dinner ready when your parents come home from work.

4. Call your pastor or youth pastor and volunteer to help out around the church for a few days during your summer break.

5. Surprise a missionary family from your church. Get your youth group friends together, buy some gifts and assemble a package to send to the family. (Contact your pastor or youth pastor for ideas on what to send.)

6. Take pictures of your family and e-mail digital copies (or mail prints) to your grandparents or extended family members who may live far away.

7. Spend a Saturday or a day of your summer break volunteering at your local food bank, soup kitchen or Salvation Army shelter.

8. Spend a day at the zoo or a park with your little brother or sister.

9. Smile and say "Hi!" to someone you don't know.

10. Send "thank you" cards to a few of your favorite past teachers—including teachers from your elementary and middle school years. Tell them what you enjoyed most about your time in their classroom.

11. Offer to help an elderly person in your neighborhood with yard work or even just bringing in the groceries.

12. Walk your neighbor's dog.

13. Treat a friend at his or her favorite coffee shop.

14. Buy your mom a single rose.

15. Get together with some church friends and deliver homemade snacks to new members of your youth group.

16. Spend an afternoon visiting residents at a local nursing home.

17. Wash your parents' car without being asked.

18. Don't stop now. Look for little ways to make somebody's day every single day.

Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Ignite Your Faith magazine.