Matthew Hale, an engineering student at BYU-Idaho, created Chores for Charity, an organization which offers service projects and in return asks for donations to local charities around the area.
“Chores for Charity is still pretty new but it’s basically an idea that I had to connect students to locals in the areas with service opportunities,” Hale said.
The goal of the organization is to pay it forward, to inspire people and to give people hope, and to bring students and members of the community closer together.
“Some people are reluctant to get help, but everyone deserves to be served,” Hale said. “It doesn’t matter what your finances are or how good your job, I think service can help lift anybody up.”
Hale said people think there is so much negativity. He feels people think the world is going crazy but he said he really thinks that for every bad person there are a lot more good people in the world who are ready to help and serve others.
Hale said he found his love for service while he served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arkansas.
“I saw this elderly woman raking her leaves and I ran over to her and said, ‘excuse ma’am can I help you?’ and she said, ‘no thank you, I got it.’ But I took the rake out of her hands and said, ‘No, I am going to help you.’ Later she told me she had prayed to have someone help her,” Hale said.
Chores for Charity is asking those who receive help to pay it forward by donating through the organization to a charity. However, if those who are receiving service cannot give back with money than they could refer Chores for Charity to people who will be able to help donate.
“We want to encourage the people who we serve to pay it forward,” he said. “Most people, we hope they are able to give a donation through Chores for Charity. We have five charities that we are focusing on helping right now: LDS Humanitarian Aid, Idaho Food Bank, Burnout fund for Madison County and the Rexburg Family Crisis Center and the Hammond Education fund.”
Hale said he chose these charities since they were the ones who he found that use all or almost all of the donations they receive to help those who they are trying to serve.
The organization is quickly growing as they now have more volunteers than they have service projects lined up.
“Just this last week I was able to get 35 volunteers so we have more volunteers than we have projects, so we really need help finding projects,” Hale said. “It can be anything, yard work, housework, running errands, we have one person who can do sowing projects so we can help with anything.”
If you are need of service or know of someone who needs help you can email Matthew Hale at mshale0905@gmail.com.