On this page, you will find links to all our mini-episodes we call Serving SHORT Stories!
Serving SHORT Stories 13: Moving the Needle
May 23, 2025: In these two little stories about creating beauty in the surroundings of people in need, Carlton Deal, the founder of Serve the City, emphasizes how simple projects can move the needle in people’s lives… and help them perhaps to see their own beauty.
Serving SHORT Stories 12: From Privilege to Purpose
May 8, 2025: Giving time to volunteering can change the course of your life! That’s what happened to Nicolo Sgreva, the representative for the UPS Foundation in Europe. In this story, Nicolo tells us how volunteering around the world led him into his present job, and how he sees volunteering benefiting his UPS colleagues.
Serving SHORT Stories 11: A Celebration of Dignity
April 24, 2025: This heartwarming story comes from our very first podcast episode, set at a Community Dinner in Lisbon in April 2019. A young volunteer came up with a creative way to support the Community Dinners, that also caused people often treated as worthless to see the dignity in themselves.
Serving SHORT Stories 10: Giving Back to Move Forward
April 10, 2025: Early on, Serve the City had to learn the lesson that people in need were also people with something to give! Shannon Deal, the producer of Serving Stories, tells how a group of Afghan migrants in Brussels helped teach us the valuable lesson that volunteering is for everyone—no matter their situation.
Serving SHORT Stories 9: The Kindness of Strangers
March 27, 2025: Ronan Coffey, the National Director of Serve the City Ireland (pictured at far right), recounts to us how sometimes strangers can help a stuck person when family can’t. In this picture, he is with a group of volunteers who did a decluttering project in a hoarder house, similar to the one in this story.
If you want to hear a full-length episode in which Ronan tells us about STC Dublin’s decluttering work, listen to: Sparking Hope for a New Start.
Serving SHORT Stories 8: De-Junking Your Heart
March 13, 2025: Melinda Means of STC Berlin recounts a heartwarming story from the very beginning of her experience with Serve the City, at our Serving Stories Live event. This story shows that no matter how much we think we are giving others through serving, we always gain much more. (Melinda is pictured at right, with Berlin City Leader Christine Thumm.)
If you want to hear another episode featuring Melinda, listen to Humility: Mopping Mayors and Stumbling Stones.
Serving SHORT Stories 7: When Your Doorbell Rings
February 27, 2025: In this episode, we hear touching story from Rev. Annie Bolger, a chaplain a Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Brussels. Holy Trinity hosts the Community Kitchen, a close partner of Serve the City there. Annie tells us how the church has changed through opening its doors… and encourages us to do the same.
If you want to hear the previous episode also featuring Annie, listen to: Partnerships: Activists, Assemble!
Serving SHORT Stories 6: These Mugs are Green
February 13, 2025: Andre Mar and Austin Silva Mota, from Serve the City Lisbon, told us this story at our last Serving Stories Live event. It happened during Covid with a group of people in a homeless shelter who had joined a learning community called “Academy of Change.” One of the volunteers presented issues concerning the environment, and men responded by changing their own environment…
Below are some photos of another outcome of the workshops led by Andre—a brand called “Somos Pessoas” (“We are People”). The translation of the first picture is: We are people… experiencing social exclusion whose goal is to use their abilites to impact society and the local community.
Hear more from Austin Silva Mota about this group and the environment on: Friendly Neighbourhood Heroes.
Serving SHORT Stories 5: The Three Little Bigs
January 30, 2025: In this episode, we hear three mini-stories from Christine Thumm, leader of STC Berlin (pictured at right) that all took place in the the same elderly home. And we learn how three small acts of service had a really BIG impact!
If you want to hear another episode about serving in this same elderly home in Berlin, check out Generosity: What You Can See Out Wenceslas’ Window.
Serving SHORT Stories 4: A Shoebox Full of Love
December 12, 2024: This short story was told to us by Carlton Deal, Serve the City founder. At right, you can see some volunteers from the Brussels Christmas Shoebox project in his story delivering gifts to local charities.
Serving SHORT Stories 3: Sharing Kindness, One Stone at a Time
November 28, 2024: Above you can see Kindness Stones made by STC Gold Coast (Australia) Core Team member, Shan Berserik (front and reverse). In this short story, Shan told us how she makes these stones at the gathering sessions for Serve the City Community Days, and also gives the opportunity for other volunteers to craft them if they want, using paint pens. Check out her two little stories of how these stones had an impact on both recipients and those who made them!
If you want to hear another episode about Serve the City Gold Coast, listen to “Just Keep On Going!”
Serving SHORT Stories 2: Just Start With a Card
November 14, 2024: This story of hope, called “Just Start With a Card,” was shared by Ingeborg Dijkstra from STC Maastricht, at our Serving Stories Live event in 2023. Ingeborg is in the middle of the photo… serving (as always).
If you want to hear another episode about kindness in Maastricht, check out “Hope: Making Connections in Maastricht.“
Serving Short Story 1: All We Have Because We Did NOT Have the Gym
October 28, 2024: Our first mini-episode features a story about the very first Serve the City event in Brussels in 2005, told by STC founder and CEO, Carlton Deal. Here he is, at the 2008 Big Vounteer Week with his wife (and Serving Stories producer) Shannon Deal.
