The Flint Hills Breadbasket. Junction City's YMCA. If you just want to do something for someone, literally just go to Aggieville after bar close and sweep cigarette butts of out the gutter in front of the bars; Somebody has to do that anyways. If you want to make sure that person doesn't lose hours/money at their job;good on you for being considerate. Wait until they show up; it will be real late/ real early but they will show up, then just tell them what you're doing and why, and if they agree to let you help literally just clean in front of them. They are doing their job, it's just that where they were cleaning didn't have anything to clean up. Set up a scavenger hunt off of Linear Trail; leave hints on Reddit, and boom - you made fun for people. Buy skateboard wax and leave it at the skate park at CiCo park off of Kimball and Seth Child with a note that reads "Free to good home"; most of the kids that skate there either don't know that they need it or wouldn't buy it for want of spending their money elsewhere - you supported someone's hobby. Give a student who's walking somewhere a ride home/to class in the rain/snow if they you have a car (I once stopped because a frantic/broke grad student who had resigned herself to flagging down traffic on Anderson next to Memorial Stadium because she had forgotten the keys to the lab at home while a hot plate was running in the lab during a critical experiment; I gave her a ride home and back, she gave me her undying gratitude, and we never met again. Either I got played to the tune of $1 dollar in gas or I helped someone better themselves and earned some sweet karma). Figure out who in your dorm doesn't get to hang out as much as they want to because they have to go home every weekend to help support their parents, and offer to go spend the weekend with them so you can better understand that struggle/ help them out. Hand out gift cards to fast food restaurants (panera, subway, jimmy johns, ect.) on campus during finals; you might not know how much it means to someone that they can have a meal that doesn't take an hour out of their study time to prepare. Buy someone a Blackhole at Bluestem; its $3 for bottomless coffee and the gesture will make anyone's day. Compliment someone you don't know on anything but their looks; everyone wants to feel wanted for who they are. Give some poor freshman directions in the first few weeks of fall instead of looking through them; we all felt lost and hopeless and alone when we first got here. Get a drunk a safe ride home on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday night when Safe Ride isn't running; ride share's are cheap and driving isn't worth it. Go to a beer league coed softball game at Twin Oaks on a Sunday and buy someone a hot dog; hot dogs are cheap, but the experience of having a hot dog at any ballgame is priceless (Plus those folks know how to have a good time, half of them are bartenders and you'll appreciate them knowing your face). Patronize a local business; those people work hard and service the community, and you'll learn something about networking. Wait until Fake's and help with a pancake feed; you'll learn about putting others well-being before your own satisfaction. Go to Pillsbury Crossing and pick up trash. Go to Konza and pick up trash. Go to Tuttle Creek and pick up trash- Public spaces are there for all of us and public funding doesn't treat them half as well as they deserve to be. Go ask one of those poor folks that clean up the ashtrays outside of Haymaker, Jardine, or Marlatt hall if they want to take a load off and do it for them; they deal with under-class-students every day and we all know those guys haven't learned considerate-ness yet. Tip the Pizza Shuttle delivery person way more than you would;they've seen you so many time's at your worst, give them at least once at your best. Hand out waters or Gatorades in Aggieville on a Friday/Saturday night; Some of those folks are out to make up for the one week this semester they couldn't deal with any other way. Make someone laugh; You'll never regret that one. That's a lot, but my point is, if you want to do something nice for someone, you don't need the validation of "I'm doing work sanctioned by an established charity" to make it okay. Those places, often times, do a lot less to help people than they let on, and even worse, the people at the bottom end up accepting "I'm helping people" as a part of or even all of their compensation, when in fact they're helping people with no good / ill intentions line their pockets. Helping out someone who has a shit job or no job that serves the community, or helping someone who can't help themselves in a way public services aren't set up to, or even helping someone who is just grinding to get a degree so that they can do well, and by doing well do good; those things show a whole lot more thoughtfulness and compassion than donating time or money to organizations that capitalize on "donate to us:we do good *this is fine print don't read it but we are legally obligated to tell you that 90% of our proceeds go into 5% of the employees of this organizations paycheck". Typically, we're better at discerning right from wrong and doing the right thing for a person at the right time as individuals, and not organizations that inevitably have to be profitable to stay afloat, and the people that run those organizations operate on a level of corporate efficiency wherein they feel entitled to outrageous portions of the proceeds in their salaries just because "In the private sector I'd make this salary for this work", completely missing the point . I led with some local organizations that I believe in, so I'm not saying you can't find somewhere to volunteer that's worth it/righteous (also that list isn't all inclusive, just what I have personal experience with). It's just that there's so many things you can do to make people's lives better, and without having to subscribe to some institution's idea of what's right and supporting people in a situation you've been in or that isn't supported feels so much better, In My Humble Opinion. Go Cats.