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. 

Less than a week remains before the deadline—July 31—to submit nominations for the 2012 Edna, a $10,000 award for young women making a mark in labor, women’s and other social justice movements.

The award honors Edna Berger, a pioneer for women’s rights who rose from a receptionist at The Philadelphia Inquirer to become a writer, editor and the first female organizer in The Newspaper Guild-CWA.

A question Cuahuctemoc Salinas often gets when he tells carwash customers about the poor working conditions carwash workers experience is “So why are they still working here?”

To which he replies:

They’re afraid. Jobs are sacred right now. They have to provide for their families.

Check out the AFL-CIO's new In Our Communities website feature, "A Union’s Open Heart Fuels Fight to End Childhood AIDS," here.

In the early 1990s, no research was being done on pediatric AIDS, which was killing thousands of children born with the disease every year in the United States. Cristina Pena, now in college, was among those born with HIV. When she was three, her father died, leaving her and her mother alone, “two peas in a pod,” says Pena.

“Nobody knew how to act around us. Physicians donned masks and full gowns just to speak to us. Aunts and uncles worried about sharing drinks. When my mother inquired about our future, doctors just shrugged, limited our lifespan to five years and admitted they just didn’t know enough.”

Pena and thousands more like her are alive today because of the efforts of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation—and union members at the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

Click here to find out more.

Anyone who has ever raised kids knows that in those early years, you can never have too many diapers. But for low-income families, the cost of keeping infants in an average of about a dozen diapers a day and toddlers in eight can be a major financial burden.

This week in Green Bay Wis., the Brown County United Way, in partnership with the Greater Green Bay Labor Council Community Services Committee along with 21 community partners launched the first annual Brown County Diaper Drive.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 11 has a successful mentoring program designed to help underserved communities prepare for careers in the electrical trades. 

Nominations are being accepted through July 31 for the 2012 Edna, a $10,000 award from the Berger-Marks Foundation that will go to a young woman leader in the social justice movement. Young women making a mark in labor, women’s and other social justice movements are eligible for the award, which will be presented in the fall.

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.

Tens of thousands of working families are volunteering today to improve conditions in their communities as part of the United Way Day of Action.

You can join them, from your desk or mobile, through Facebook and Twitter.