Listen up, single New Yorkers.  Think it’s impossible to find a good worm in the biggest of apples?  Meet Sandra Schwartz-Pingrey, Founder and President of Cause & Affection Dating (formerly Cause and Effect), a matchmaking service that — like others before, but with a more individualized touch — brings together this perfect couple: dating and volunteering.

As Time Out New York reports, “a 2007 study conducted by the Corporation for National & Community Service revealed that New York’s volunteering rates ranked in the bottom three of 50 U.S. cities.”  Oof! Cause & Affection is doing its part to help improve this ranking by offering clients (screened via face-to-face interviews!  no online profiles!) a date structured around a charitable cause, such as taking shelter pooches out — together — for those proverbial “long walks.”

Soup kitchens can’t guarantee soul mates, of course, but hey: as Cause & Affection says, “Even if it goes bad…you did good.”