Past Events › Awareness

America Recycles Day: One day to educate. One day to motivate. One day to make recycling bigger and better 365 days a year. Get Involved! America Recycles Day (ARD) is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products. ARD is celebrated annually on November 15.  Thousands of events are held across the U.S. to raise awareness about the importance of recycling and to encourage American to sign personal pledges to recycle and buy…

International Day of People with Disability (December 3) is an international observance promoted by the United Nations since 1992. The observance of the Day aims to promote an understanding of disability issues and mobilize support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities. It also seeks to increase awareness of gains to be derived from the integration of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life. Each year the day focuses on a…

International Volunteer Day is a chance for volunteer-involving organizations and individual volunteers to promote their contributions to development at local, national and international levels. By merging UN support with a grassroots mandate, IVD is a unique opportunity for volunteer-involving organizations to work with government agencies, non-profit organizations, community groups and the private sector. International Volunteer Day was established by the United Nations General Assembly through Resolution 40/212 on 17 December 1985. Since then, governments, the UN system and civil society…

Observed each year on the third Monday in January as “a day on, not a day off,” MLK Day is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service to encourage all Americans to volunteer to improve their communities. AmeriCorps has been charged with leading this effort for the past quarter century. AmeriCorps collaborated with the Presidential Inaugural Committee on the MLK National Day of Service.

World Book Day is a celebration! It’s a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading. In fact, it’s the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in over 100 countries all over the world.

The International Day of Happiness is celebrated throughout the world on 20 March. It was established by the United Nations General Assembly on 28 June 2012.

The International Colour Association has declared March 21st International Day of Colour. March 21st every year is the “equinox” – aequus (equal) and nox (night). Around the equinox, the night and day are approximately equally long, symbolically relating to the complementary nature of light and darkness, light and shadow expressed in all human cultures. An International Day of Colour has been considered as appropriate since colour is, thanks to visual perception, one of the most influential phenomena in people’s lives…

World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD), celebrated each year on April 2, was adopted by the United Nations in 2007 to shine a bright light on autism as a growing global health crisis. Autism is one of only three health issues to be recognized with its own day by the United Nations. WAAD activities increase world knowledge of autism and impart information about the importance of early diagnosis and early intervention. Additionally, WAAD celebrates the unique talents and skills of persons…

The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. The passage of the landmark Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and many other groundbreaking environmental laws soon followed. Growing out of the first Earth Day, Earth Day Network (EDN) works with over 22,000 partners in 192 countries to broaden, diversify and mobilize the environmental movement. More than 1 billion…

Founded by the International Code Council (ICC), Building Safety Month (BSM) is celebrated by jurisdictions worldwide during the month of May. Building Safety Month is a public awareness campaign offered each year to help individuals, families and businesses understand what it takes to create and sustain safe and sustainable structures. The campaign reinforces the need for adoption of modern, model building codes, a strong and efficient system of code enforcement and a well-trained, professional workforce to maintain the system. The…

World Environment Day is the biggest annual event for positive environmental action and takes place every 5 June. This year’s host country Canada has chosen the broader theme ‘Connecting People to Nature’ and will be the focus of celebrations around the planet. UN Environment will use the hashtags #WithNature as well as #WorldEnvironmentDay in its social media messaging around the event, which will kick off with an invitation to tell us about your favourite national park or wildlife sanctuary. World…