Want to help your favorite NFL player and member of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) fight against school dropout rates in your community?

Pledge to become a reader, tutor or mentor, along with the 30 football players and the United Way initiative.

United Way of Metropolitan Nashville was in dire need of a new trailer to help with community outreach efforts. That’s where the local unions came in.

Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, Nashville Building Trades, Tennessee AFL-CIO Labor Council and 39 affiliated local and regional unions pitched in donations for the trailer and the artwork along the sides. The trailer was used last Thursday for United Way's Day of Action, when it delivered backpacks and school supplies to area schools for children in need. 

There’s nothing like a new pair of sneakers to start the school year off on the right foot. For children whose parents are struggling to get by on tight budgets, the Soles for Christ program in Missouri makes it possible for them to receive new shoes. 

AFL-CIO Community Services is hosting the Soles for Christ program Monday and today in their local headquarters in St. Joseph, Mo. Thousands of shoes from private donors were picked up by area children in need at the AFL-CIO building.

Berry Craig, recording secretary for the Paducah-based Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council and a professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, is a former daily newspaper and Associated Press columnist and currently a member of AFT Local 1360. Craig sends us this.

How can you help your union get better coverage in small-town media? 

First, try getting to know the newspaper, TV and radio reporters. Introduce yourself by calling them up or sending them an email with your photo. It’s a good idea to put a face with an email. Better yet, drop by for a visit. 

Pro football players and members of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) were busy during the 2012 offseason giving back to their communities. Carolina Panthers wide receiver Steve Smith pledged to donate $100,000 to help cover the medical bills of survivors of the Aurora, Colo., theater shooting; Kansas City Chiefs players helped rebuild homes devastated by the tornado in Joplin, Mo.; and Chicago Bears rookies planted trees at LaFollette Park. Read a full list of the community service work here. 

In the remote village of Lenya, located in the province of Nyanza in Kenya, only girls attend primary school. Instead of getting an education, the boys must support and feed their families by fishing in nearby Lake Victoria.

Union members teamed up with the United Way California Capital Region Toilet Paper Drive in Sacramento in recent days, netting 177,451 rolls and breaking the United Way’s Certified Non-Profit Community Partners 2011 record by more than 52,000 rolls. The toilet paper was donated to local Sacramento homeless shelters. 

This is a cross-post by Kelsey Duckett from Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 11 in Commerce, Calif., on their participation in this year’s Letter Carriers "Stamp Out Hunger" food drive.

Across the United States, 50 million adults and 17 million children lack sufficient food every single day. To combat this, the Letter Carriers (NALC), for the past 20 years, has collected and donated food from mailboxes across the country. For the second consecutive year, IBEW Local 11 donated its Electrical Training Center in Commerce as the home base for all donated and collected food in Los Angeles County.

Since 1947, the AFL-CIO and the United Way have helped families and communties recover from natural disasters--and more recently from the disastrous effects of the great recession. We continue to work together to provide services where they’re needed and when they’re needed.

In this new video, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka urges people to “give, advocate and volunteer with your local United Way.”

The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO partnered with the United Way of Erie County last week to host an unemployment resources fair for jobless workers as part of Project Back on Track, a new program intended to help the unemployed. Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Richard Bloomingdale says several more resource fairs are planned around the state.