Do Something More-Nonprofit Spotlights & Ways to Serve Your Community

Send us Fan Mail On this episode I'm celebrating 100 Episodes of the 'Do Something More' podcast! At the end of each episode, I ask my guests to give general advice for how people can serve, volunteer, and give back to their communities. I took eight of those nuggets of wisdom and rolled them all together to mark this 100th episode. Come and be inspired and empowered and also get a...

Send us Fan Mail 'Big Brothers Big Sisters' began over 100 years ago as an alternative to the juvenile justice system when a group of adults realized they could help vulnerable kids by giving them connection and meaningful relationships. Now with over 230 chapters in the United States, they have many programs to help youth reach their full potential in a variety of ways. On this episode...

Send us Fan Mail Kenra Keddington has been a Camp Director for Royal Family Kids Camp for 22 years. These are week-long summer camps for 7 to 11 year old foster kids. Kenra says their main goal every year is to pour love and connection into each participant and give them the chance to just be a kid again.  The camps are 100% volunteer run, with some of their volunteers being previous camp attendee...

Send us Fan Mail The story of Joe Tuia’ana’s nonprofit begins after he had the opportunity to help a man in a suicide crisis and literally love him off the ledge. After that experience, he learned that there weren’t any resources for men’s mental health and suicide prevention where he lived, so he decided to start creating them. Now he runs his nonprofit the ‘I Love You, Bro Project,’ where they s...

Send us Fan Mail Deb Yokshas is a volunteer with Utah County Search and Rescue, who handle all outdoor search and rescue operations in the county. Not only is their team of rescuers 100% volunteer, but they also each pay thousands of dollars of their own money to be certified and have the right personal gear. These are people who are committed on a whole new level to helping and serving in their c...

Send us Fan Mail Training for and running a 5k can not only be a great goal to accomplish…but also a way to champion the causes you feel passionate about. Many nonprofits and other organizations use 5ks to create awareness and raise funds to support the work they do.  In this episode I’m giving tips and encouragement so that the next time you see a 5k for a cause that matters to you, you can go an...

Send us Fan Mail ‘Choose Kindness PG’ is a nonprofit located in Pleasant Grove, Utah. It all started after some citizens felt there was division in their community. They went to the city council proposing a plan to promote a culture of kindness and service in their city. It began with organizing kindness clubs in the local schools, and spread from there to community events, and now they also celeb...

Send us Fan Mail 'Fish for Garbage' is a nonprofit that was organized by a bunch of outdoor enthusiasts who noticed significant amounts of trash littering stream banks and lakeshores of popular fishing locations in Utah. They started by encouraging local anglers to collect garbage each time they went out fishing, and then began organizing official events inviting volunteers and locals to...

Send us Fan Mail Looking for a very doable but also impactful way to serve someone around you today? Consider giving a genuine compliment, to a stranger or someone you know. It doesn’t need to feel forced either. Just take the good thoughts you’ve already had about somebody else, and have the courage to share them. You can do it through text, in person, or even write them a note. I originally aire...

Send us Fan Mail Trigger warning: this episode mentions suicide Jen Spencer had spent 20 years as a meth addict and was living on the streets of Ogden, Utah during a particularly cold and bitter winter. She remembers the feeling of cold completely overwhelmed her, zapping her energy and even her will to live. During a particularly dark and broken moment, she decided to reach out to God in prayer....

Send us Fan Mail Bryan Ware was out to dinner with his family one night when he wondered, could someone do something with all the restaurant crayons kids use and repurpose them? After pondering that question for a couple years and doing a little research, he finally started his nonprofit ‘The Crayon Initiative.’ Using his manufacturing background, he slowly figured out a way to collect recycled cr...

Send us Fan Mail Giving of our time and volunteering is important and a great way to serve in our communities, but in this episode I’m switching my focus just a little bit and talking about how important it is to donate money and physical goods as well…especially to the nonprofits in our community. Donations, large and small, are their lifeblood and they are truly appreciative of any amount someon...

Send us Fan Mail While navigating her husband’s sudden job loss, Emily Buss wanted to still be able to provide a fun birthday for her daughters…but after looking around for community resources didn’t know how she could do it. A friend ended up anonymously sharing a list with the community, and packages started arriving on Emily’s doorstep…even down to the cute cat napkins her daughter had requeste...

Send us Fan Mail Allison Bond is 28 years old, has cerebral palsy, and lives in Lincoln, Arkansas. During the COVID pandemic she decided she wanted to do something to make a difference and started writing letters to various people. Several years and almost 6,000 letters later…she’s touched a lot of people and lives. She writes to individuals in many different situations…people in prison or serving...

Send us Fan Mail I think many of us have found ourselves in a moment where we felt like we wanted to offer our service, or help, or assistance to someone…but we weren’t quite sure what to say or do. This is a topic I have pondered and studied for the last 7-8 years. I’ve even kept pages in notebooks where I’ve written down phrases and questions I have heard others use when they were trying to offe...

Send us Fan Mail ‘Joyful Welcome’ started after the founder saw a father leaving the hospital with his new baby wrapped in his coat. She decided to start making welcome kits with essential baby items for newborns and their families and distributing them to her local hospital.  My guest, Brenda Sanford, is now the chair of ‘Joyful Welcome’. She learned about what they do at a local church meeting,...

Send us Fan Mail One of Amy Chandler’s missions with her nonprofit is to be a catapult for lasting transformation. She is the Founder and Executive Director of 'My Story Matters' and they’ve developed courses to help people take ownership of their story and have the tools they need to live with intention and create real change in their lives. Amy emphasizes that their curriculum is reall...

Send us Fan Mail Service is a great tool for building a sense of community…and we can also use our communities to serve in big ways. In this episode I’m sharing some ideas I’ve seen from different organizations and people and how they use the power of gathering people together to serve and lift  in many beautiful ways. I also give my thoughts on why using this power of community to serve with our...

Send us Fan Mail She’s been in media outlets all over the U.S. championing the ‘free range kids’ movement, and I feel honored to have the opportunity to feature Lenore Skenazy on this episode of the podcast. Lenore shares how she became the standard bearer for this idea of helping parents foster growth in their kids by allowing them to have independent experiences. We also talk about the nonprofit...

Send us Fan Mail As a culinary student at a school in downtown Salt Lake City, Jessica Lowe realized that instead of throwing out the food they prepared each week, she and her classmates could share it with the homeless people they often saw on their way to and from class. And that’s exactly what she started to do and continued to do for several weeks. After the class was finished, Jessica realize...

Send us Fan Mail Cindy Trussel describes herself as a ‘doer’ and a hard worker. She likes to solve problems and has used that tenacity in many ways to serve and lift those around her. She came to the United States from Australia with her family as a young girl and knows what it’s like to navigate a new country and culture. After raising five biological children and then adopting three more, she fe...

Send us Fan Mail It's the Christmas season and many of us are busy with to do lists and hoping to make this time a fun and magical one for our families and those around us. But today I am going to be sharing simple ideas on how you can 'Light the World' with simple acts of kindness and service. This isn't meant to be another burden or thing to add to your to do list. This is me...

Send us Fan Mail Chauncy and Kelli Johnson experienced tragedy on Christmas Eve in 2010 after a snowboarder collided with Kelli and their five-year-old daughter, Elise, while they were skiing. Elise and the snowboarder both ended up passing away, and Kelli spent several months recovering from a traumatic brain injury. It was because of these experiences and the passion they have had for skiing the...

Send us Fan Mail Everyone needs to feel at times like they matter or that what they do matters. Expressing gratitude to those around us for the ways they have helped us and inspired us can be a beautiful way of helping others feel seen and loved…but it can also be a simple and profound way to serve.  Listen to this episode to hear my thoughts on how you can craft a sincere ‘thank you’ that can tru...

Send us Fan Mail This week is unique for the podcast because I’m featuring a museum for the first time…the Springville Museum of Art. My guests Jacquelynn Sokol and Emily Larsen both work for the museum and they share some great thoughts about the power of art and the museum’s mission to make art accessible to everyone in their community. They share about the many programs the museum does, and als...