A Newport woman launches Support the World's To-Do List on World Kindness Day, so anyone who wants to help can find the local group that fits, fast.
In 2018, when Simone Whitfield went looking for a group to help take Newport plastic free, it was Karen Woodcock, of All About Newport, with the town's mayor, who pointed her to Newport 21 on her own doorstep. Now she has built the search she couldn't find. From Friday 13 November 2026, anyone in Shropshire can type in their postcode and find named local groups working on the UN's Global Goals, from wildlife and repair to food and health.
A search for "Shropshire" returns 68 groups across 13 of the 17 Goals - repair cafés in Bridgnorth, Ellesmere, Newport and Pontesbury, wildlife groups on Clee Hill and around the Strettons, Shrewsbury Men's Shed, Telford Crisis Support and Home-Start Telford & Wrekin among them. Each one could be something to support through giving time, voice or money.
"Simone was an inspiring Chair of Sustainable Newport, and was instrumental in them being awarded the prestigious King's Award for Voluntary Service," said Councillor Tim Nelson, of Newport Town Council and Telford & Wrekin Council, who has long been Newport Town Council's representative on Sustainable Newport. "She has created a completely fascinating 'knowledge tool'. I've tried it out - it works. It helps connect those who want to act on sustainability, with their local best-fit organisation. I wish her the best of luck."
In 2018 Simone came home from a conference with a recipe for change: how one woman had worked within her community to take it single-use plastic free. She looked for a local group doing this and found one in Bridgnorth before she found Newport 21, the group in her own town. Newport 21's members included Susanne Bearblock, now Simone's co-director. Newport 21 became Sustainable Newport, and in just over nine months Newport was a Surfers Against Sewage Plastic Free Community.
"Newport had an environmental group which I wasn't able to find without help," said Simone.
In September 2023 it happened again, and this time it was personal. After her son was in a serious car crash, Simone went looking for a cause that matched the problems she had seen in the NHS, and couldn't find one.
"I wanted to put my energy behind the thing I'd just watched happen, and I couldn't find where," she said. "What came back was scattered information and a handful of causes that weren't even running any more. I was frustrated."
Seventeen days later Simone put that energy into a cause she already knew, abseiling down the ArcelorMittal Orbit in London for The Hunger Project UK and raising £2,842 in six days.
Simone chaired Sustainable Newport from 2020 to 2025, and the group received the King's Award for Voluntary Service in 2024. Being made redundant at the end of July 2026, after 27 years, gave her the hours to build the site.
"Most people don't need to start something new," she said. "They need to find the thing that already exists and fits them, before the urge to help fades. There are 68 of those in Shropshire alone."
There are more than 1,500 organisations listed in all, across the UK and worldwide. Searching is free, and always will be. Groups are listed free, and any group can claim its listing or put itself forward at support-the-worlds-to-do-list.org/add.
There are three ways to help build the site. Give your time: try your own postcode and say what's missing. Use your voice: share it. Or give money by selecting "Help build this" on the website, which will keep the site running for its first year.
Try it at support-the-worlds-to-do-list.org
