Act Together for Good
Learn more about making an impact, April 26 through May 5, 2024
What is Secular Week of Action?
Secular Week of Action (SWoA) unites compassionate communities to organize service events based around shared values, connect volunteers to impactful projects in their own towns and neighborhoods or online, and celebrate what human beings can achieve together when we dedicate ourselves to ethical action. Let's support each other in building a more empathetic and just society for all.
SWoA 2024 is Friday, April 26 to Sunday, May 5!
Why Do We Need a Secular Week of Action?
SWoA celebrates the power of community and action. For ten days each year—encompassing the National Day of Reason on May 4th and the National Day of Prayer on the first Thursday of May—the secular movement rallies together to organize and join inclusive responses that address social problems and promote the welfare of humankind. SWoA puts our values of critical thinking, empathy, and responsibility to work to support each other, our environment, and our communities.
Take Action!
Here's a useful planning guide and below are some ideas for actions you can take with a group, your family and friends, or as an individual. All actions help with needed change.
Organize Supply Drives and Distributions
Providing food and basic needs to unhoused and food insecure people is a direct way to have a positive impact on their health and well-being. Before inviting people to contribute, find out from the beneficiaries about their urgent needs so you collect the most useful items. Shelters are often asking for essentials like toilet paper, soap, warmth items, and menstrual hygiene products. Search for a shelter or Feeding America food bank in your area. (Supply Drive Guide link coming soon).
Build a Free Little Library or Pantry
Free little libraries and pantries provide access to essential resources throughout the community. Little libraries help lower barriers to reading and also to books celebrating diverse voices. Little pantries are an easy way for neighbors to help neighbors by providing free food and hygiene supplies. (Free Little Library or Pantry Guide link coming soon). Also check out the Little Free Pantry website and the Little Free Library website for more resources.
Deliver Meals for Vulnerable Neighbors
Donate to or volunteer with Meals on Wheels America or with a local mutual aid group to get nutrition to people who need it.
Start a Community Garden
Community gardens help green your community, restore native plants, and produce can be donated to help address food insecurity. Our Community Garden Guide will help you get started.
Craft for Good
Crafters can support people by making needed items and donating them directly or through local shelters, hospitals, senior centers, etc. Unhoused people can use sleeping mats and reusable bags any time of year. Shelters and giveaways often accept warm weather gear all year long to be prepared when the cold weather hits. See our Craft for Good Guide that includes craft ideas.
Create a Mutual Aid Group
Start a neighborhood/organizational mutual aid shared Google Doc, social media group page, or Google Form for people to share their needs and how they can help.
Fundraise for a Shelter, Food Bank, or other organization
Nonprofits across the country could use your donations to help them fill the holes that restricted and in-kind donations leave. Find fun ways to fundraise for your local nonprofit. (Fundraising Guide link coming soon) Search for a local shelter or Feeding America food bank.
Plant Trees
Planting trees is one of the most impactful ways we can address climate change. See our Plant a Tree Guide.
Park or Highway Cleanup
Cleanups are easy and popular service events for all ages. See our Park Cleanup Guide for tips.
Donate Blood and Advocate Against Donor Exclusions
Blood banks need a larger supply of eligible donors, ready and willing to help. Everyone in your group can sign up to donate individually or you can organize a blood drive. Despite high demand for blood, millions of U.S. residents cannot donate due to a discriminatory policies that exclude men who have sex with men. See our Blood Drive Guide to organize a donation event and learn more about how blood donation advocacy.
Get Out The Vote and Advocate on Important Issues
Help people register to vote and get ready for future elections by knowing where to go, what issues will be on their ballots, and where to look for more information. Share your knowledge on issues you care about and encourage people to sign petitions like those at Humanist Action Headquarters.
Host a Storytime
Reading stories out loud is a meaningful activity appreciated by children, people with vision issues, senior citizens, and more. Gather a team to offer reading buddies or a storytime event at a school, library, hospital, nursing home, or cafe.
Volunteer with a Local Organization
If you don’t have a lot of time and/or people to organize your own event, rallying your group to volunteer with a local organization is a quick and easy way to have an impact. Get in touch with a local organization and find out what their process is to do group volunteering.
Help Smithsonian with Resources
Help make historical documents and biodiversity data more accessible by transcribing field notes, diaries, ledgers, logbooks, currency proof sheets, photo albums, manuscripts, and biodiversity specimens labels.
Support Project Implicit Research
Help researchers learn the best ways to break down stereotypes by taking tests about attitudes, stereotypes and other hidden biases that influence perception, judgment, and action.
Join Online Volunteering
Online volunteering can be done from anywhere in the world as an individual or gather your group to make it a social event. United Nations volunteers contribute directly to the work of development organizations. Through Zooniverse you can participate in online research projects of all kinds, from classifying galaxies to counting penguins to transcribing manuscripts.
Important Tips
Brainstorm
Discuss activity ideas with your team to decide next steps and timelines.
Get Organized
Choose an organizer who will delegate tasks and prepare for backup.
Stay Safe
Keep up with the latest info from your local public health department.
Check your sources
Communicate timely and accurate information from credible sources. Help counter stigma and discrimination.
Team up
Consider partnering with other local groups.
Safeguard your money
Have multiple people collect and record when and where money is spent or distributed.
Bigger Isn't Always better
Events can still be successful with a small dedicated team. Any help makes a needed impact.
Report your impact
Help us celebrate the impact we have when we all act together! When your action is done, remember to report on it so we can share SWoA's total impact.
Spread the Word
Share Secular Week of Action Website
Help raise the visibility of the secular community and SWoA events by sharing our website link.
Engage with Secular Week of Action Facebook Page
Like our Facebook page, tag @secularweekofaction in posts about your actions, and share our content to let your friends and followers know about SWoA.
Post pictures
Let's see your individual and group actions! Share with us and post online to inspire others. See our Taking Great Pictures guide.
Network with other groups
Like, follow, and share other volunteer groups' SWoA activities to support one another’s work. It's a great way to make connections, share ideas, and attract more attention to SWoA's success!
Use the hashtags #SecularAction #SecularValues and #WeekOfAction
Secular Week of Action Coordinated By
National Partners
SHARE YOUR ACTIONS!
Secular Week of Action Events 2024
Atheists United
04-19-2024
12:00 PM PT
On the third Friday of each month, Atheist United organizes a food distribution in partnership with the LA Food Bank and Sunday Assembly outside our offices. We need 15-25 volunteers to help us assemble, sort, organize, and pack over 3,000 lbs of donated food for those in need. We begin setting up right at 12pm (noon) and work straight till our last food package is handed out, usually around 5pm. As atheists, we rise by lifting others. Help us put our values into action. Join us!
2535 W Temple St.
Los Angeles
CA
90026
USA
Food or Supply Drive
Jefferson Humanists
04-27-2024
10:00 AM MDT
As a way of making a contribution to improve the environment, Jefferson Humanists' Humanists Helping Humanity (HHH) group is doing our second ever gardening event to go along with our Seed and Feed event. We will be giving away seeds, but this year, we will also have a speaker to give us information and helpful hints about growing a successful garden. Come join us at Jefferson Unitarian Church (JUC) on the back patio. We will also provide some refreshments to go along with the fun of a little gardening.
Jefferson Unitarian Church
14350 W 32nd Ave
Golden
CO
80401
Houston Oasis
04-27-2024
08:00 AM (Central)
This volunteer event will be helping maintain the tree nursery at Exploration Green. About Exploration Green: In Southeast Houston, dedicated groups of volunteers are transforming a defunct golf course into an innovative stormwater detention center and green space. Exploration Green provides an integrated, natural solution for catastrophic seasonal flooding holding up to 500-million-gallons of stormwater while also serving as a nature preserve and recreation area. Located near NASA's Johnson Space Center, this 200-acre urban green space provides the community with countless opportunities to explore, offering 40 acres of both wetlands and permanent detention lakes, home to over 1,000 native species. Please wear sturdy shoes or boots and bring your work gloves and a refillable water bottle if possible. Tools will be provided.Tree Nursery volunteers ensure the “pipeline” of donated trees from Trees for Houston provides viable trees for planting on the phases as they are completed. Activities include unloading shipments of trees, re-potting trees to larger pots as they grow, weeding the pots and the surrounding mats.No previous experience is required. We will train you!
1719 Neptune Ln
Houston
TX
77062
USA
Environmentalism
HumanistsMN
04-27-2024
10:00 AM (Central)
HumanistsMN is partnering with Open Arms, a Twin Cities-based non-profit that provides healthy meals to critically ill Minnesotans and their families. We are "sponsoring" the Open Arms' "Abundance Farm" at 668 Victoria Street in St. Paul, providing volunteer gardeners as well as funds for site improvements. This event is a two hour shift involving from six to twelve volunteers supervised by a master gardener from Open Arms. Our volunteers will perform such tasks as weeding, prepping beds, planting, harvesting, and mulching. Volunteers need to sign up ahead of time with Open Arms before arriving at the garden site. Please see the Meetup announcement for instructions on this process and other event details!
668 Victoria Street
St. Paul
MN
55102
USA
Local community organization or cause
Atheists United
04-28-2024
04:00 PM
Calling all atheists, humanists, artists, hearties, and scallywags in greater Los Angeles! We’re hosting a pirate-themed art exhibit and party for you and your friends! Hosted by the Atheist Street Pirates (a project of Atheists United), the event will feature a gallery-style exhibit highlighting over 150 illegal religious signs captured by the Atheist Street Pirates, original art by local artists, and a unique silent auction. Enjoy free snacks, wine, and music as we celebrate our community and its advocacy. Our event is also an Atheists United fundraiser with a goal of raising $3,000 for programs that support atheist community building and advocacy in California. Please consider a donation today. Pirate-themed attire is encouraged, but not required. Limited street parking is available. Please consider taking public transit or carpooling. Free parking will be made available at Center for Inquiry Los Angeles, which is within walking distance of the venue. Vaccinations required. The venue is indoors. We recommend attendees take a Covid test before attending to maximize safety and please stay home if you’re experiencing any cold, flu, or Covid symptoms, or have been around others who do. See you there! Send questions and media inquiries to Evan@atheistsunited.org
2234 West Temple Street
Los Angeles
CA
90026
USA
Advocacy/political activism
Jefferson Humanists
04-28-2024
4:00 PM MDT
Existential Climate Change: Using science, philosophy, and psychology to comprehend the future of humankind on a warming planet by Jonathan Stickel Human-caused climate change severely threatens humanity and Earth as we know it. For several decades, the accepted approach for mitigating climate change has focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What we need to do, climate activists claim, is to avoid using energy where we can, use existing energy more efficiently, and convert energy sources from fossil fuels to renewables. Although these conservations and technical solutions are available, for a cost, they are not being implemented nearly fast enough. Considering the potentially massive magnitude and scope of climate change, assuredly altering human life and the entire Earth in profound ways, it is worth taking a step back and looking at climate change with a broader lens. Drawing on knowledge from science, philosophy, and psychology, Stickel will examine the likely outcomes of climate change, why so little progress is being made to mitigate it, and what it means if we fail. Dr. Stickel is a Director of R&D at Carbon America, a startup company developing and deploying carbon-capture technology. He has 20+ years of national-lab and industrial experience leading and performing R&D for carbon capture, energy sustainability, biofuels, and biopharmaceuticals. He has co-authored more than 40 journal articles that report on the results of these research programs. Jonathan has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Davis. Also at the April Chapter meeting, HHH will support the Denver Health Departments Spring Hygiene Drive. The drive helps stock the GIVE Center, a free community resource for anyone in need. The GIVE Center serves roughly 500 people each month by providing community resource referrals or by providing necessities, like hygiene items. All the items the GIVE Center distributes come from donations - without you, we can't help our neighbors in need! Needed are: Bar Soap/Body Wash,- Shampoo/Conditioner (2-in-1 or 3-in-1), Body wipes, Tampons/Maxi Pads, Lotion, Sunscreen, Deodorant, Floss, Toilet Paper, Shaving Cream/Razors, Laundry Soap/Dish Soap, Hand Sanitizer, First Aid kits (band-aids, gauze, antiseptic).
Jefferson Unitarian Church
14350 W 32nd Ave
Golden
CO
80401
Environment & Supply Drive
04-29-2024
05:30pm
Join local DMV humanists for a fun get-out-the-vote postcarding party! We’ll provide the supplies and sample messaging. You’ll provide your time and energy to help us reach as many future voters as possible. Happy Hour deals on food and drink (including non-alcoholic beverages) available 4-8pm. This event is part of Secular America Votes and Secular Week of Action.
Across the Pond Restaurant & Pub
1734 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington
DC
20009
USA
Atheists and Other Freethinkers
04-30-2024
4:00 PM PT
The Davis Community Meal project serves meals to the hungry, the poor, the indigent, the outcast. It happens in bucolic Davis city, so near to us, where compassionate citizens have developed a secular solution for the problem of hunger, and need our help. So join us, join us in this effort! Your reward will be an opportunity to meet new minds and hobnob with your freethought friends, a likely free meal, jazzy music, and the rosy heartsglow of benevolence. Also, seriously, it's a blast! Cooking? Dish washing? None required. The Davis Community Meals team will perform all the food prep and kitchen work. Our job is simply to set up chairs & tables, serve, smile, put things away at the end, and clean a bit (with a minimum of mopping). Extra points if you can arrive for setup, but if you can't, that's OK, any help is good help. Setup begins about 4:30 pm, food service about 5:45. At 6:30 we clean up the hall.
St. Martin's Episcopal Church Hall
640 Hawthorne Lane
Davis
CA
95616
USA
Food or Supply Drive
HumanistsMN
05-01-2024
08:30 AM
Christian nationalism is taking its toll across the country: limits to reproductive freedom, attacks on trans students, book bans, efforts to damage our public schools, political leaders who say they are following God’s instructions, and more. Let’s show up in force to say Not in Minnesota! The National Day of Reason was initiated by the American Humanist Association and other secular advocates to counter the National Day of Prayer. Let’s be sure our Minnesota policymakers hear as much from us as they do from the prayer advocates. Learn more here: https://humanistsmn.org/em-events/national-day-of-reason-breakfast-and-reception-show-up-for-secular-government/ Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/national-day-of-reason-at-the-capitol-show-up-for-secular-government-tickets-852934960427?aff=oddtdtcreator
Minnesota State Capitol
75 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard
St Paul
MN
55155
USA
Advocacy/political activism
Secular Houston
05-01-2024
05:00 PM
Secular Week of Action is from April 26 - May 5 this year, and we are really excited to participate yet again with our fellow secular groups in town! Come out to a super cool establishment and help get some folks registered. If you are a VDVR, your help will be greatly appreciated. This is as much a social gathering as it is an activist one, so come on out and have some fun 🙂 If you want to know what other volunteer events are available for Secular Week of Action 2024, check out the Houston Oasis Meetup/website for other options.
1517 Alabama St.
Houston
TX
77004
USA
Advocacy/political activism
American Humanist Association, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Secular Coalition for America
05-01-2024
06:30pm
The American Humanist Association, together with the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Secular Coalition for America, would like to invite you to join us virtually for the inaugural Congressional Reason Reception! This event will take place on Zoom on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 from 6:30pm to 8pm. Expect an evening of comedy and lots of fun, with a robust speaking agenda featuring Members of Congress and keynote speaker Kate Cohen! Representatives Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin will be presenting first-ever awards, including one “honoring” this year’s worst violator of separation of church and state. You may register for virtual attendance on Zoom https://bit.ly/CRReception24.
Washington
DC
USA
Advocacy/political activism
Humanists of West Florida
05-02-2024
11:00 AM
We have a growing homeless population in Pensacola. It rains nearly one out of three calendar days yearly. The non-disposable ponchos are invaluable protection for persons and belongings. This reduces need for medical care and improves quality of life.
Alfred-Washburn Homeless Center
31 Murphy Lane
Pensacola
FL
32526
USA
Health and Safety
Houston Oasis
05-04-2024
10:30 AM (Central)
We will distribute essential items to the needy on May 4, 2024, that we previously collected at our Sunday gathering in April. Meet us at 10:30 AM to set up and handle the distribution. Local group Houston Atheists will be joining us for this event. #HumanHandsSolveHumanProblems We will most likely set up on the sidewalk under the freeway. We need about a dozen volunteers and we expect to be done in thirty minutes to an hour. Street parking is about $2-$3 an hour. Download the Park Houston app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play store to pay for street parking. Please note: We will not be collecting donations at the event.
1999 Commerce Street
Houston
TX
77002
USA
Food or Supply Drive
Houston Oasis
05-04-2024
01:00 PM (Central)
Volunteer with secular community Houston Oasis at the Houston Food Bank to make secular people visible in places where we are needed the most! The Houston Food Bank utilizes volunteers six days a week at the main warehouse. DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES Varies with the makeup volunteers for shift. Most of the projects at the warehouse involve inspection, sorting, and repackaging of donated food items for community distribution. Volunteers MUST be at least 6 years old and supervised by parent or guardian throughout the shift.
535 Portwall Street
Houston
TX
77029
USA
Food or Supply Drive
HumanistsMN
05-11-2024
10:00 AM (Central)
Time again for our semi-annual highway cleanup. This is a great opportunity to show Humanists at work in the community. We pick up trash between mile markers 38 and 39.5 on I-35W. Bags and reflective vests will be provided. Participants should bring a pair of work gloves and wear clothing and footwear suitable for working outdoors. This event will be held unless the weather is prohibitive--for instance, thunderstorms or extreme heat. A large turnout means we finish sooner and have more time to socialize, so please join us!
Holiday Station Store
7488 Lake Drive
Circle Pines
MN
55014
USA
Environmentalism