Host a holiday party and ask all your friends to bring toys as presents for underprivileged kids!

You can donate the toys to the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve's Toys for Tots program.  To request that Marines come to your party or to find a Toys for Tots drop-off location near you, visit www.toysfortots.org.

Share your leftover Halloween candy and costumes with others!  You can give your candy to a food bank, soup kitchen, or homeless shelter, and you can donate costumes to battered women's shelters and children's hospitals.

You can also mail leftover candy to Operation Gratitude to be included in care packages for U.S. troops.  For more information, visit www.opgratitude.com/atlas_ib/590t.jpg.

If you have a cell phone that you no longer use, even one that doesn't work, you can donate it to charity.

Send your old phone to the Secure the Call Foundation (www.donatemycellphone.org) to have your phone turned into a 911-use only device for senior citizens and potential victims of abuse.

If you donate your phone to Cell Phones for Soldiers (www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com), it will be sold to pay for calling cards for American troops.

You can also send your phone to Recycling for Charities (www.recyclingforcharities.com), which will sell it to be recycled and donate the proceeds to the cause of your choice.

If you have an old bicycle that you're planning to throw away or one that's sitting in your garage that you're not using, donate it to charity instead!  You can give your bike to a homeless person or to one of these organizations:

www.bikesacrossborders.org

www.bikesfortheworld.org

www.workingbikes.org

You can give your partially used, unwanted, or expired gift cards to charity!  The Salvation Army, battered women's shelters, and homeless shelters can use gift cards to buy supplies for people in need.

Here are the websites of other charities mentioned in this episode that you can donate gift cards to:

www.thethankyoufoundation.org/contribute.php

www.rmhc.org

www.chemoangels.net/Donation%20Pages/donate_giftcard.htm

On Independence Day, remember those who are serving our country overseas.  You can send cards as well as items such as food and toiletries requested by the troops to any of the following organizations:

www.adoptaunitus.com

www.boatsie.com

www.operationcarepackages.org

www.troopcarepackage.com

Have a fantastic Fourth of July!

There are more than one billion people in the world who do not have shoes.  You can donate your old shoes to any of the following charities which provide people in need with used shoes:

One World Running, www.oneworldrunning.com

The Shoe Bank, www.shoebank.org

Heart and Sole, www.com.msu.edu/pub-rel/heartandsole/

Sole Responsibility, www.soleresponsibility.org

Share Your Soles, www.shareyoursoles.org

You can also donate your shoes to Nike's Reuse-a-Shoe program, which turns old sneakers into sports surfaces for underprivileged communities.  Visit www.letmeplay.com/reuseashoe/ for more information.

You can collect the pull tabs from soda cans and donate them to charity.  These organizations might be able to use your tabs to earn money to support their efforts:

Ronald McDonald House Charities: www.rmhc.org

Lions Club: www.lionsclubs.org

Shriners Hospitals for Children: www.shrinershq.org/Hospitals/Main

You can donate your used books, magazines, videos, and DVDs to people in need of entertainment.

Drop off magazines at a home for the elderly, or give them to a hospital waiting room.

Visit www.booksforafrica.org for information about donating your old books to children in Africa, or check out www.booksforsoldiers.com to meet the book requests of American soldiers.

You can donate videos to children's hospitals, or send DVDs to soldiers through Operation DVD (www.operationdvd.net).