88 Volunteer Activities You Can Do from Home

By Susanna de Chenonceau, M.Ed.

July 2020

I hope very much that you are all staying safe and keeping your spirits up as we stay home. We will get through this together! Stay strong, team.

One of the best ways that you can lift your own spirits is to help others in need. Aside from the fact that you need to do this for college apps, it really does lift your spirits and it makes a very material difference in the lives of people in great need. “To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.”

I encourage you to find a place to volunteer (try a few!) as soon as possible and try to stick with one in particular that resonates with you for 3-4 years at least.

Below I will paste a list of 88 ways my students have volunteered or are currently volunteering. Please feel free to add!  🙂

Stay well,

Susanna

1. Tiny Homes — tinyhouses@lihi.org
2. Nickelsville tiny houses village — staff@nickelsville.org
3. YWCA Cherry Street branch (MANY monthly programs for shelters, and a food pantry) nhilton@ywcaworks.org
4. Treehouse for Foster Kids
5. Black Lives Matter
6. Planning lessons and activities to teach children about anti-racism
7. Social media and web design volunteering for small businesses moving online
8. Jubilee Reach and KidReach 
9. Athletes for Kids
10. Hopelink
11. One Love — organization that teaches about healthy relationships
12. Union Gospel Mission Search and Rescue
13. Volunteer as a reporter at your local paper
14. Build gardens to grow produce for local food banks
15. Solicit book donations to restock Little Free Libraries (using NextDoor – for both book requests and finding the little libraries)
16. Create a coloring book of very local things/points of interest for families to download and share with senior family members to initiate virtual conversations of shared family experiences or stories from the grandparent’s memories
17. University Presbyterian Church has a range of options, including letter writing, cookie dough preparation, Food Bank donations, etc.  (Not all are religiously related) https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0f4aa4a62da2f49-stay  
18. Food Lifeline: volunteering to repack food in the warehouse with a parent, unless the student is over 16.  https://foodlifeline.org/volunteer/ 
19. New Horizons (for teens experiencing homelessness) needs meals delivered, gift cards, and first aid items.  Contact volunteer manager Volunteer Development Manager Kim at KimV@Nhmin.org to coordinate. https://nhmin.org/covid19/
20. World Relief (working with recent refugees) https://worldreliefseattle.org/COVID19
21. Writing notes of encouragement to families experiencing isolation or hardship
22. Helping with online tutoring under the guidance of a teacher
23. Finding interactive resources online to keep kids engaged while they are home from school.
24. Collecting items and putting together welcome kits
25. See if there are any political campaigns you would like to volunteer with: https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_elections,_2020
26. Volunteer Crowd: You can enter the location and it will filter the openings for the area
27. Angeline’s shelter
28. Mary’s Place women’s shelter
29. The Sophia Way shelter
30. Dress For Success
31. Teen Link Crisis Hotline
32. Hampton House
33. Hugo House for Writers
34. Aegis Living elder care
35. Backpack Brigade (gives weekend food to elementary kids) nhilton@ywcaworks.org
36. World Vision—works to bring children out of poverty around the world
37. Youth Court — to learn about the local justice systems
38. Special Olympics
39. Camp Agape — for kids with cancer
40. Therapeutic riding
41. Referee
42. Atlantic Street Center — teaching at-risk kids
43. Adopt-a-Family
44. Operation Bald Eagle or Operation Homefront
45. Animal Shelters
46. Earth Corps
47. Park restoration
48. Local aquarium volunteer
49. Beach clean-up
50. Local waterway volunteer
51. Mercer Slough monitoring water quality
52. Habitat for Humanity
53. Animal Sanctuary
54. Botanical garden / arboretum volunteer
55. United Way
56. Volunteers for Peace
57. Ronald McDonald House
58. Camp Cory
59. March of Dimes
60. Relay for Life
61. American Cancer Society
62. Hospital volunteer
63. Teen pregnancy center
64. Boys and Girls Club
65. Big Brother / Big Sister
66. Foster children
67. Books for Prisoners
68. Schools in Prisons
69. Prison reform
70. Solid Ground
71. Fare Start
72. Eastside Baby Corner
73. The Ruby Room
74. Meals on Wheels
75. Food Drives
76. Reading with Rover
77. Elementary school volunteer
78. Adopt-a-grandparent
79. Washington Trails Association
80. Coordinating safe-distance ways to socialize — badminton tourney, virtual quiz team, etc
81. Personal hygiene products drives for shelters
82. Sack lunches for the homeless
83. Art supplies for Tent City kids
84. Portable toilets (5 gallon buckets with seats) for homeless
85. Grocery shopping for the elderly
86. Yard care for the elderly
87. Virtually visiting sick and shut-in elderly people at state-run nursing homes 
88. Pet walking and care for neighbors who have had surgery or are ill