If you are looking for a way to help your community — and we hope you are always looking for a way to help — we have two possibilities that are almost painless and could make a huge positive impact on people's lives.

First is the effort by the Marshall Elks Lodge to collect coats to give to children (and, we suppose, adults too) who otherwise cannot afford one.

The goal is 90 coats for the drive and, with the drive ending next week, only 45 coats have been collected to date.

Marshall, we can do better than that, much better.

Most of our homes have a coat or two put back in a closet that may not fit any more or that might be out of style. It is this simple: Grab the coat, take it to the lodge at 411 E. Austin Street downtown.

The coats should be in decent condition, of course. A child wearing a donated coat might feel a bit embarrassed to begin with. We don't need to send them to school with a raggedy coat.

We believe Marshall can help the Elks Lodge not just make the goal of 90, but exceed it. Look in your closet today and pull out that lightly used coat we know is there and take it down. The entire process will take you less than half-an-hour and it will do someone a world of good.

This will be time well spent.

Or, if you absolutely don't want to dig through your closet, you could always make a cash donation. Whatever fits your circumstances, but you don't even have to spend a dime to help and clean your closet at the same time.

We'll update you on the progress once the drive is done.

Another simple way to help comes this weekend and you get entertained and fed at the same time.

The Marshall Mavericks basketball team will host a scrimmage at 5 p.m. Saturday at Maverick Gymnasium to benefit the Marshall Food Pantry.

Admission to the game that will give you a preview of the team is a canned food donation — we suggest you bring more than one can. A small sack of cans is much better.

Then, after the game, the team will treat fans to hot dogs. What could be better than this?

Not only do you get to help the food pantry, but you also get to see the team and support our local high school students.

We hope you don't miss the opportunity to do either of these things.

They're easy and painless ways to do good in our community.