You may not hold the secret to preventing global nuclear proliferation, but that doesn’t mean you can’t become a catalyst for positive change. Benevolence doesn’t require you to have the answer to all of the world’s ills, only that you be willing to take actions that lead to positive results in the lives of others.

If you want to change the world but you aren’t quite sure how to, here’s a list of five ways you can make a difference in the world, starting right in your local community.

Blood: everyone has some, and some people are in dire need of more. You could literally save a person’s life by making a deposit at your local blood bank, so there’s really no excuse not to donate blood. If you become squeamish at the sight of a hypodermic needle, close your eyes or direct your attention elsewhere while the phlebotomist draws your blood.

Underprivileged youth, senior citizens, and those suffering from limited mobility could always use a helping hand. You can make a big difference in the overall day-to-day quality of a person’s life by assisting him or her with a task they may not otherwise be physically able to do alone.

If you have an elderly neighbor that has trouble hauling their trash and recycling bins to and from the curb each week, take a few moments out of your day to help that person.

Many charitable organizations depend on the local community to provide hands-on assistance to achieve the organization’s goals. Churches, food banks, senior centers, and animal shelters always need an extra set of hands, so don’t be shy about reaching out to organizations in your neighborhood.

A community’s public parks, recreation areas, shorelines, and roadways always look much nicer when the residents band together to complete a beautification project. Gather a group of like-minded friends or family members to assist you in collecting trash, planting trees and flowers, or trimming overgrown vegetation so you can keep America looking beautiful.

Spending your hard-earned dollars with locally based businesses is a great way to make a difference in your local community. Locally based retailers depend on the community to keep their businesses alive. When you shop local, the money you spend strengthens the community because a portion of those dollars goes on to support other businesses owned and operated by people living in your area.

Choosing to eat at a restaurant owned by someone in your community strengthens your community’s tax base and the symbiotic nature of locally based businesses and the residents that support those business’s endeavors.

Homeowners often ask us if they can use bleach to clean and disinfect their hardwood flooring. Using bleach as a household cleaning agent is a cost-efficient way to disinfect the bathtub and keep your socks looking bright and clean, but bleach is a highly caustic chemical; using it to clean your delicate hardwood floors could cause serious, irreparable damage to your floor’s delicate finish.

A quick Google search will turn up a trove of information on just about any topic you can think of, but just because someone posted it on a website doesn’t necessarily make that information reliable, accurate, or truthful. Some self-proclaimed home improvement aficionados tout bleach as an effective method for pickling certain species of unfinished wood.

If you’re trying to lighten reclaimed banisters, moldings, or chair rails, bleach may work for those specific purposes; however, using bleach to lighten or pickle your hardwood flooring will weaken the wood’s fibers, making your flooring more susceptible to damage caused by foot traffic.

Some people claim using steam is the best way to clean a hardwood floor. Steam may work to remove dirt from the surface layer, but steam will cause the wood to swell and contract, which could lead to unsightly gaps between the planks. Additionally, steam may cause your flooring to peak, creating a trip hazard that might send you or a loved one to the emergency room.

The best method to maintain hardwood flooring’s beauty is inexpensive and easy; all you need to do is remove your shoes as soon as you enter your home.

The treads on your shoes pick up tiny rocks and other abrasives that will inevitably cause unsightly scratches and dents on your hardwood flooring. Removing your shoes and maintaining a regular sweeping schedule—always with the grain, never against it—is the best way to keep your floor’s finish looking beautiful and scratch-free.

When your flooring is in need of a more thorough cleaning, we recommend using the Bona hardwood floor cleaning system. Wilhelm Edner, founder of Bona, made floor wax as a means to supplement the income he earned selling coffee in Sweden back in 1919.

As demand for Bona’s products began to grow beyond the European marketplace, Bona started to expand its existing product line. Ninety-nine years after Wilhelm Edner made his first sale of floor wax, Bona’s award-winning line of sealants and cleaning products are available to consumers throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and South America.

When you want your floors to have the very best protection, maintain them with one of Bona’s floor-cleaning solutions. For more information on Bona’s superior cleaning products, visit bona.com/en-US/.

Standing tall at 2001 15th Street in Detroit, Michigan, are the abandoned remains of the once bustling Michigan Central Station.

The Michigan Central Station closed it’s doors to the public back in 1988. This weekend, however, a very rare event is taking place.

Ford has recently purchased the station, and it’s doors are opening to the public once again for this upcoming weekend only!

On Friday, June 22nd, Ford is opening the main lobby so the public can step inside the Michigan Central Station for free tours. The event is all weekend long, so you have three days to stand is one of Detroit’s most iconic structures before it’s renovation.

The dates and times for entry are as follows:

During the event, you’ll find an exhibit Ford is hosting in collaboration with the Detroit Historical Society and many different interactive activities including:

There is parking available next to the station at 2280 17th Street, but the lot is expected to fill up fast, so get there earlier if you plan on parking in the lot space.

For extra information, you can find it on Ford’s event page here.

This is the only weekend that you will be able to step into the Central Station before the renovations begin. It’s not every day that you get to see one of Detroit’s most iconic buildings the way it was left.

If by any unfortunate chance you don’t get to make it out to the event, Ford put together a virtual Michigan Central Station tour video you can check out.

With Father’s Day approaching and in honor of all the father’s out there, we’re sharing a few facts about Father’s Day that you may not know about.

You read that right. Father’s Day originated on June 19th, 1910 by a lady named Sonora Smart Dodd.

One of six and raised by a single father, Dodd visited multiple organizations like the YMCA and local churches to gather support for her idea. As we can see over a hundred years later, she was successful.

The holiday continued to spread and received its official celebratory date on every third Sunday of June.

There were some men who believed the holiday was an excuse to try and domesticate manliness and a gimmick to increase marketing sales tactics.

In the 1920’s and 1930’s, people came together in an attempt to stop both Father’s Day and Mother’s Day altogether. Their preferred holiday would be known as Parent’s Day.

Unfortunately for them, the Great Depression derailed their efforts as struggling retailers desired to use Father’s Day as a sort of “second Christmas” for all the men. This was their best time to promote gentlemanly accessories such as hats, neckties, pipes, and tobacco.

Father’s Day became an official holiday by law with a signature from President Nixon. The officiation took place in 1972.

According to a few statistics, necktie’s are still the most popular gift to give your pops. Plus, what gentleman doesn’t want a nice tie to complete his business look?

More than a whopping 87 million cards are given each year to fathers around the world. That number of cards makes Father’s Day the fourth-largest card giving holiday of the year.

Dads, keep up the great work. You’re an integral part of the family, and your role as a father is important.

Anyone who has renovated a home before can attest to the fact that making significant upgrades can turn into a very costly endeavor in no more time than it takes to blink your eyes. Many homeowners try to save money by going the do-it-yourself route only to realize that they bit off more than they could chew.

Some homeowners cut corners by purchasing entry-level materials that end up disappointing them when the product fails after six months. Consumers often ask if it is possible to buy cheap flooring that looks expensive. Unfortunately, the answer to that question is a definite no.

When you purchase new flooring, think of it as purchasing a new car; the good ones aren’t cheap, the cheap ones aren’t good, and you can’t buy a new Maserati for the same price as a used Mazda.

If you’re looking to make a quick aesthetic fix on a rental property or a flip house, it may not make sense to pour thousands of dollars into a home improvement project. But if you plan to stay in your current home for any length of time, you’re better off seeking financing options or saving your money until you can afford a reputable product and have it installed by a professional flooring company.

If you’re unsure of how to differentiate between a good flooring product and a cheap product, your best bet is to do your homework on the manufacturer and the warranties that company uses to back their materials.

Say you’re planning to change the flooring in your bathroom or your kitchen and you’d like a luxury vinyl product, but it isn’t in your budget right now. Cutting corners by installing a cheap peel-and-stick tile from your local big-box store isn’t going to give you the kind of results you’re looking for, and you could wind up with a big mess on your hand if the adhesive on those tiles begins to fail.

Another way to be sure you’re buying a good product is to explore options with a shop-at-home flooring retailer based in your community. One of the benefits of using a shop-at-home company’s services is that you’ll be able to look at flooring samples in the comfort of your own home, at a time that’s most convenient for you. Look for a company in good standing with the Better Business Bureau, and be sure that they back their work with a written lifetime installation warranty.