Have you heard about the fantastic new Hamptons community service initiative called Project Santa Claustin?  Founder Austin Handler shares, “In short, it’s a community-based good deed crowd sourcing effort. The plan is to reach out into the local community to find people in need, and do good deeds for them.  It’s so important for my wife Jennifer and me to foster the importance of community service in our children, especially considering the grim stories that dominate the headlines today.  These are big, complex problems that require millions of dollars in aid and sophisticated coordinated efforts.  It’s hard for children to wrap their heads around that, or to see how their efforts can make a difference, but doing a simple, good deed for someone in their community is something that they can literally get their hands on and be a part of, and see the fruits of their labor.”

Austin adds, “We have a couple of projects lined up, the first of which has already received good feedback and participation [details below]. We really want to get the word out, and get more people contributing ideas for people in need of a good deed.  We’re coordinating efforts through a Facebook page. People can go on there, read about the current projects and participate if they are able to.”

People can also send a message via email to: santaclaustin@gmail.com to nominate a person in need of a good deed, something clear and simple.  It could be help for a child, an employee, a friend, a gift, clothing needed, something food-related, or an action for an elderly person, help with raking leaves, wrapping presents. It should be a simple, well-defined deed that that can be achieved by one or several people which will make a difference in someone’s life, and let them know that there are people out there willing to help someone in need.