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March is the perfect month to shift your outreach endeavors into high gear. When you can pull your eyes of the television set and the potential overdose on all things basketball, why not put at least as much energy as you did into filling out your brackets into drafting a few plans for spring outreaches?

Here are a few easy to do outreaches that are perfect for March:

Basketball Court/Net Replacement Outreach

First look for a public basketball court that needs to be cleaned up. Start by sweeping up broken glass and picking up the litter. Nets, even those made of chain, don't last very long on public courts. Stop at Sporting Goods store and buy a few replacement nets. While you are at it, pick up a few multi-surface basketballs, air pumps, and needles to give away to people. If you have a few athletes in your group, it is very effective to then invite folks to join you for a quick game. After a few moments, take a break and open up the coolers full of ice cold Gatorade.

Mobile Pop-A-Shot

This is a fairly easy and inexpensive outreach to put together. You do have an initial investment in buying a few games, but they can be used for block parties, or other purposes. They will fit quite well, in fact most times two games side by side, in the back of a pick-up truck. If you have some talented people, they can design and make there own frames out of quick to install PVC joints and a nylon tarpaulin. Now you have a mobile carnival game. Pick up some cheap prizes or candy from a company like Oriental Trading so that you can give prizes. This is always a very popular outreach around the time of the NCAA tournament.

Battery Give Away

Twice a year we adjust our clocks and local fire departments take advantage of this time to remind people to check the batteries in their smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms. March 14, 2010 is the time to spring forward. This is a great time to go out as a small group and give away the batteries needed to do this. Most people rarely keep nine-volt batteries. If you live in the Midwest or southern tornado alley, you can also go out and offer small battery kits to refresh the emergency radios and flash lights people keep on hand for storm season. Think of the peace of mind you hand out when you do this for people.

Umbrella Outreach

If the weather in your neck of the woods is rainy, you and your small group can go out and do simple SE that is very inexpensive, if not free. If you don’t already have a large umbrella, go out and buy a few extra golf umbrellas and keep them in your car so that the next time stormy weather hits you are ready to make it into an opportunity to help others. You want the types of umbrellas that allow a couple of people to be protected at once and not be rained upon. You can hit the downtown area and look for folks waiting on taxis and busses while trying to take cover under overhangs, of even worse an unfolded newspaper. In suburban areas you can hit the department stores and malls. People with bags, or even more challenging, bags and children, trudging through parking lots riddled with puddles while carrying all of the above are not having fun. You can change all of that with this simple gesture of kindness. Greet them as they leave the store with a smile and an umbrella. You can offer to help carry their packages, but remember that most customers will not readily relinquish their packages to a stranger unless they are very tired. Your aim is to help them become relaxed as much as possible.

Baseball, Apple Pie. . .

Sporting venues are fantastic outreach opportunities. In fact, the crucial elements of what we have come to call Servant Evangelism were essentially meshed out one afternoon at a Cincinnati Reds game.  You can read the story HERE. As March slides into April, we will have MLB Opening Day. If your small group really wants to serve a bunch of people in an easy way just go to the store and buy several cases of water and small snack sized bags of popcorn, peanuts, and candy. Set up a few blocks from the stadium, being careful not to infringe on licensed vendors and give away bottles of water, peanuts and others snacks. You can use connect cards, or even better include game schedules or scorebook grids with information about your church, small group or organization.

Ken Glassmeyer is the Editor of Serve! Magazine.  He has been doing SE outreach in the midwest for over twenty years.  Ken is the author of a number of PDF guides available at Kindness Resources including the latest:  "Tactical Kindness." You can contact Kindness Resources LLC for more information on having him come to your church to coach, speak or consult.