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
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