If you haven’t seen the prolific public service announcements yet, you will. This month, be on the lookout for TV stars like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Masi Oka, and Rainn Wilson singing the praises of service and volunteering through a new Web site, iParticipate.org. In fact, all sorts of celebs are offering up personal stories on the impact of service, including former bad-boy Mark Wahlberg, who wrote an essay on making a difference for troubled youth.

Why the spotlight on service? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate at which Americans volunteer is around 26 percent, and it hasn’t increased in 40 years. Talk about a sad stat – especially when everyone has something to give.

So the long-range, multifaceted iParticipate campaign, led by the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) – the leading charitable organization of the entertainment industry – seeks to promote a new way of thinking about service and persuade millions more Americans to volunteer regularly. After all, they say, great change begins with small choices, and one decision to change leads to others.

If you don’t know where to serve, click into iParticipate.org, which simplifies the process of finding volunteer opportunities in your local community. Opportunities are categorized in one of five key areas of service: children and education; community health and wellness; environmental conservation; financial security; and support for veterans and military families. You can register a project for Make a Difference Day, October 24, or you can volunteer any day of the year. EIF has even provided grants to key organizations in order to help build capacity to accept, train, and deploy volunteers.

Once you decide where you’ll volunteer, the site enables you to recruit friends to join you in service. After all, reports the BLS, nearly half of all people who volunteer started because they were asked by someone they know.

Benefits of Service
Though the people you’re serving are the obvious beneficiaries of your commitment, they’re not the only ones who receive a reward. When you get involved and enrich the lives of the people in your community, you strengthen your own wellbeing. Doing good for others enables you to live a longer, happier, healthier life. After all, studies show that those who volunteer early in life experience greater functional ability and better health outcomes later in life.

And volunteering doesn’t need to exist independent of your current activities. In many organizations, employees are actively involved in company-sponsored community service. Corporate community service is a great way to forge bonds with co-workers and supervisors as you become united toward a common, higher goal. Helping the less fortunate can bring a level of compassion and empathy that’s often missing in the workplace. Plus, volunteering can make you a more focused and motivated employee, which always pays dividends in your professional life. You may even decide to take it a step further, and explore a career that gives back.

If you want to change the world, this is one place to start. I participate. Do you?

-Robyn Tellefsen