In honor of Children’s Day (May 5th), a Japanese holiday celebrating kids, Restaurant chain Benihana is holding a art contest for kids. For every art piece submitted they will donate $1 to St. Judes Hospital. So download the form at Benihana’s site by clicking here and have your child decorate, color and design to their heart’s delight. Then submit the form at your local Benihana between April 4th and May 5th.

On May 5th 100% of the price of your Children’s Meal purchase will be donated to St. Jude.

This will take you about five seconds, and you can help a feed a dog in a shelter! Fan Pedigree’s Adoption Drive on Facebook by clicking the link and for every fan Pedigree will donate one bowl of food to a shelter in need.

Simple, easy, so why haven’t you done it yet?

Every year 200,000 children are born with a severe cleft condition that leaves them unable to eat, speak, socialize or smile. Too often their parents can’t afford the costly surgery to help their children out. That’s where Operation Smile comes in. Operation Smile is an organization that provides surgeries for these children, giving them the chance to smile and lead a normal life.

Celebrity Jessica Simpson has been working with Operation Smile for seven years and in her new reality series “The Price of Beauty” she’s taking a trip to India to meet Meena, a 13 year old girl who suffers from a cleft lip and cleft palate. The episode, which airs March 29 on VH1, will document Meena’s journey as volunteers from Operation Smile perform an operation to correct Meena’s condition.

How Can You Help
Operation Smile and VH1 are encouraging viewers to share their smiles during this season of “The Price of Beauty.” As part of the Smiles for Smiles campaign, people are invited to upload photos of their own smiles, which will become part of a mosaic composite featuring photos from the show. For every photo uploaded VH1 will donate $1 to Operation Smile. Visit www.vh1smile.com to upload photos, check out other smile mosaics and donate to Operation Smile.

Want to Do More?
Visit www.operationsmile.org and read about the various ways to get involved and donate to the organization.

(Photo: Jessica Simpson, Meena and Ken Paves – Photo from Operation Smile)

Doing something good doesn’t have to take a lot of effort, and you’ll be surprised how much this next one will mean to the person you do it for. How many times have you spent time and effort to give someone a gift and never heard thank you? Well, I’m sure you’ve been guilty of not saying thank you either – so today take 10 minutes and write an email or an actual card (gasp!) and say “thank you”. It could be for that fuzzy sweater you got for Christmas or it could be for someone just being your friend.

Today’s task: Write a thank you note (either electronically or an actual note).

Time Commitment: 10-15 minutes.

Extra Credit for Little Effort: Dig up a teacher, professor or mentor from your past and tell them how much they’ve meant to you.

Extra Credit! Write 1 Thank You note every day this week – you’ll be surprised how much your attitude will change by the end of the week.

If you do this, leave a comment! We’d love to hear how you did something good today!

With the recent economic crisis, food donations to soup kitchens, shelters and food banks have been extremely low. So do something good this weekend and clean out your pantry! If you’re like me there’s some great food in the pantry that hasn’t been touched for a couple months. So put all of it in a bag and drive it over to a local charity that can put it to good use! While you’re there, clean up your pantry too! Great way to start out the new year!

Today’s task: Clean out your pantry and give your extra food away!
Find your local food bank first and call them to see if they accept donations.

For example, my local food bank accepts: dry, shelf-stable, refrigerated and frozen food items; prepared foods; foodservice items; personal care and cleaning products; office supplies and equipment; mislabeled and unlabeled products; obsolete promotional items; and bulk and damaged products.

Search using these sites:
http://www.secondharvest.org/
http://www.efsp.unitedway.org/EFSP/wc.dll?EFSP~FundedStates

Time Commitment: Depending on your pantry from 20 min to 40 minutes. Make sure to give it a good sweep and wipe down when done!

Extra Credit for Little Effort:
Email friends/family and let them know about this!
Follow http://twitter.com/foodbankmetrodc (a food bank in Washington DC) to keep up to date on news and what you can do to help the hungry.

Extra Credit!
Donate some funds!
US – http://feedingamerica.org/ (Even $1 feeds a lot!)
UK – http://www.foodchain.org.uk/

Plant extra food in your garden and donate (check out http://ampleharvest.org/ to know where to donate fresh foods).

Volunteer at your local food bank! Call them up and ask how you can help.

[Please let us know if you know of some other great websites and resources!]

As part of our celebration of 2010, I’m starting a series on things you can do that require only a little effort or a little time to help the world! Do something good today, you’ll be surprised how happy it makes you feel!

Today’s task: volunteer! Sign up for a volunteer job in your area (you can search by zipcode/city) and complete a day for a free ticket to a Disney park. Search at: http://bit.ly/8qTbWr

Time Commitment: About 10-25 minutes to search and apply for a position. Volunteer assignments I saw are between 2hrs – 5hrs. Many of them you can schedule around your own time.

Extra Credit for Little Effort: Email friends/family and let them know about this! Do something good and get a great reward.

Extra Credit! Can’t go to a Disneypark? Donate your free ticket to a charity! That’s doubly good!