Konyuhiv hostesses: how female volunteers in the Lviv region made 13,000 canned meat and two tons of dumplings for our defenders

In a rapidly gentrifying Mexico City neighborhood, two artists refurbished an icon and set up an altar for Santa Mari La Juaricua, a saint to protect residents from eviction. The saint raises awareness and acts as a reminder about housing issues and the icon has been taken up by the residents and has been used in processions and protests.

It turns out the old adage of knowing your neighbor really can help make your neighborhood safer. A study of more than 250 cities found that a key factor behind a drop in crime in the last 20 years was the mobilizing of citizens by nonprofit organizations like block clubs. In Milwaukee these “urban guardians” have helped bring communities together and foster safer spaces that also address urban blight.

Paul Sinton-Hewitt, founder of the charity Parkrun, never set out to create a revolution. All he wanted was a low-pressure space to run. Now, his organization supports over 1,600 community running events around the globe, with an expected one million participants by 2023. This is part of a trend of “people’s innovation,” or the idea that innovation can come from users rather than just executives. Parkrun exemplifies the inclusive spirit of people’s innovation and the positive impacts it can spread all around the world.

Jane Cavarozzi, an entrepreneur and activist, started Dirty Girl coffee to “support economic development and women’s advancement in the small, depressed villages around Appalachian Ohio.” She lives in the town of Glouster and is respected for living local and working local, as opposed to being an outsider problem-solver. Though her coffee company is just one small step forward, she works closely with community groups to move economic development initiatives for the region forward.

Deep canvassing goes beyond talking points, encouraging empathetic dialogue. The New York-based organization, Changing the Conversation Together, trains volunteers in the practice of deep canvassing. Instead of just focusing on a candidate’s talking points in an effort to mobilize potential voters, deep canvassing promotes conversation, listening, and empathy. Canvassers are taught to relay a personal story, a message of love, as a way to connect with the people they meet.

Upon seeing a need for educational resources to support the out of school transition due to the COVID-19 outbreak, two high school seniors in the San Jose area stepped up to fill that gap. Sarika Sriram and Uditha Velidandla coordinated 90 volunteers to offer free tutoring in a range of school subjects. So far, over 350 students have benefitted from these comprehensive online learning sessions.

Activists in Berkeley, California, are filling in what they say is a gap in homeless services during the coronavirus outbreak. Volunteers are safely delivering food and other supplies to those without shelter.

The Women’s Collective is a nonprofit that works with more than 10,000 subsistence farmers in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu to promote food security using millets, a crop resilient to drought and climate change. For Pavitra, one of those farmers, she began cultivating the ancient grains in 2015 and now has more than enough food to feed her family year-round. However, there’s a lack of public investment in millet production and machinery. And there’s no unified effort to create demand for millets: Some state governments lead the charge and in other states, it’s led by grassroots organizations.

A New York-based nonprofit called Students for a Free Tibet is training Tibetans in "how to stage nonviolent protests." This effort, in conjunction with other Tibetan NGOs, has helped activists in Dharamsala, India to become "more organized, media savvy and technologically sophisticated," which in turn has increased the number of people who have come together to participate in the nonviolent protests.

Volunteer citizen seismologists in Haiti are collecting data on earthquakes and aftershocks with equipment provided by researchers to better understand seismic hazards and fault locations in the country.