A Charitable Kick in the Pants: 30 Deeds, 30 Days

Monday, while you were polishing off that last Budweiser, New York City's Z100 radio host Trey Morgan was volunteering at Jerry Lewis' annual Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon. He filmed a live spot to publicize his 30 Deeds, 30 Days initiative, in which Morgan will lend a hand to 30 different organizations daily, for a month. Feel guilty for relaxing on Labor Day? Don't ... well, maybe a little.

"As it stands now, I'm not taking any extra days off [work] for the month of September. It kinda shows that if I can do it for 30 days, then Joe Schmo, who I hear is busy with, you know, two kids, a mortgage, job, a wife and in-laws coming to visit can find time [to volunteer] one day a month," Morgan told Tonic. "One of the things I'm hoping to inspire in this is to have people look at their schedules and say, 'You know, I can do a day. I can handle that.'"

Unlike most, Morgan's been blessed with a nontraditional work schedule. He starts his day when most of us are ending ours, so he can volunteer during these nonprofits' business hours. But it's not like he's working a full eight hours at each charity. Like us, he's doing what he can. It's also dependent on each cause's needs. So far, he's spent a day plastering drywall with Habitat for Humanity, an afternoon with the Food Bank for New York City stocking cans on shelves, some time dialing donors for the American Lung Association, cooked pancakes for more than 60 pediatric cancer patients and their families at the Ronald McDonald House, scooped poop at the Humane Society, helped raise money in the aforementioned telethon and rocked out with other musicians by patients' bedsides with the nonprofit Musicians on Call. Although he's already logged more volunteer hours in six days than most do in a month, the Dallas native was especially touched by working with his local food bank because of his own humble beginnings.

"Growing up, my family always didn't have enough money to put food on the table, and the holidays were always, well, it pretty tough for a while," Morgan said. "We would have to utilize the services at a like a food bank or like a local church to get food for Thanksgiving dinner. And so working at the Food Bank at New York City, and those were the, let me put it this way, I knew that I had to work for because that's something that's personal to me."

With his wife, Brooke, who Morgan calls his "great support system," he'll be blogging and uploading videos daily (see below). Brooke's even talked about forming a charitable foundation based on the 30 Deeds, 30 Days mantra, and the duo is currently shopping a book to publishers.

"It's almost an instruction manual for how to deal with some of these organizations and how to navigate the vast amount of information you're gonna be presented with when you start searching for an organization to work with," Morgan said. "It's kinda a little handbook to help you through the process of finding which charity you like, which charity you're passionate about, and then, how to get involved with that charity."

The book is a ways off from publication, but in the meantime, there are several ways you can catch Morgan's volunteer spirit. On the 30 Deeds, 30 Days website, they have links to all the charities, so you can call them up and set up a time. Or, if you're wanting to do good hand-in-hand with Morgan, he's got a suggestion for you:

"I'll be racing in the Race for the Cure for the Susan G. Komen Foundation if Tonic readers would like to go on and make a donation as part of my fundraising team, then we would welcome that, and that's a way they can get involved. Otherwise, they can just click on the link, sign up themselves, and they can join me in the Race for the Cure, and we can high-five at the end and talk about how much fun it was!"

That's on Sept. 12, for those of you who live in New York. For readers outside the city, we hope you're inspired by Morgan's do-what-you-can approach and will embark on your own challenge this September. VolunteerMatch makes it easy, just type in your zip code and voila... a list of local volunteer opportunities will appear. Almost as easy as opening a Budweiser.

Photos courtesy of Trey Morgan.