Part of our mission is to encourage volunteerism in the Marblehead community by sponsoring events that instill a desire to give back to the community. Everyone's lives are busy and we hope to make it easy and fun for you and your family to participate in community service events.

If you are interested in becoming involved, please contact us. Below are a few ways that you could help us.

• Sponsor a needy child for the annual Back-to-School and Holiday Stocking events.

• Purchase extra gifts that we could put in the stockings. This could include toiletries, school supplies, socks, hats, candy or snacks, books, games, sporting gifts, etc. Or buy extra school supplies for the backpack drives.

• Send us a monetary donation to "Community of Friends". If you would like to receive the tax deduction, then make the check payable to "Someone Else's Child Foundation", our fiscal 501c3 sponsor. We use 100% of these donations for the backpack and stocking drives. Whether it is to buy stamps for our bi-annual direct mailing campaigns, or purchasing extra gifts for the stockings or backpacks. There are no salaries. There is no rent.

• Volunteer your time with Community of Friends. We are always looking for help whether it is filling unsponsored stockings and backpacks, or helping us

• Encourage your family, friends, students, classmates or colleagues to help with a community service event. For example, you can host a stocking decorating party at your office with your colleagues. Or sign up people you know to sponsor a child.

• Lend your sewing skills by making stockings, fleece hats, mittens and scarves with materials donated to us.

• Use your creativity to work by decorating wool holiday stockings which we sell locally to raise funds for the for the Holiday Event. Past year's stockings included impressive designs such as Red Sox players, Marblehead scenes, Harry Potter, Charlie Brown, and many more.

• Donate wool blankets, old curtains, or other fabrics to be used to make holiday stockings.