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
- Tiny Homes — tinyhouses@lihi.org
- Nickelsville tiny houses village — staff@nickelsville.org
- YWCA Cherry Street branch (MANY monthly programs for shelters, and a food pantry) nhilton@ywcaworks.org
- Treehouse for Foster Kids
- Black Lives Matter
- Planning lessons and activities to teach children about anti-racism
- Social media and web design volunteering for small businesses moving online
- Jubilee Reach and KidReach
- Athletes for Kids
- Hopelink
- One Love — organization that teaches about healthy relationships
- Union Gospel Mission Search and Rescue
- Volunteer as a reporter at your local paper
- Build gardens to grow produce for local food banks
- Solicit book donations to restock Little Free Libraries (using NextDoor – for both book requests and finding the little libraries)
- 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
- 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
- Food Lifeline: volunteering to repack food in the warehouse with a parent, unless the student is over 16. https://foodlifeline.org/volunteer/
- 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/
- World Relief (working with recent refugees) https://worldreliefseattle.org/COVID19
- Writing notes of encouragement to families experiencing isolation or hardship
- Helping with online tutoring under the guidance of a teacher
- Finding interactive resources online to keep kids engaged while they are home from school.
- Collecting items and putting together welcome kits
- See if there are any political campaigns you would like to volunteer with: https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_elections,_2020
- Volunteer Crowd: You can enter the location and it will filter the openings for the area
- Angeline’s shelter
- Mary’s Place women’s shelter
- The Sophia Way shelter
- Dress For Success
- Teen Link Crisis Hotline
- Hampton House
- Hugo House for Writers
- Aegis Living elder care
- Backpack Brigade (gives weekend food to elementary kids) nhilton@ywcaworks.org
- World Vision—works to bring children out of poverty around the world
- Youth Court — to learn about the local justice systems
- Special Olympics
- Camp Agape — for kids with cancer
- Therapeutic riding
- Referee
- Atlantic Street Center — teaching at-risk kids
- Adopt-a-Family
- Operation Bald Eagle or Operation Homefront
- Animal Shelters
- Earth Corps
- Park restoration
- Local aquarium volunteer
- Beach clean-up
- Local waterway volunteer
- Mercer Slough monitoring water quality
- Habitat for Humanity
- Animal Sanctuary
- Botanical garden / arboretum volunteer
- United Way
- Volunteers for Peace
- Ronald McDonald House
- Camp Cory
- March of Dimes
- Relay for Life
- American Cancer Society
- Hospital volunteer
- Teen pregnancy center
- Boys and Girls Club
- Big Brother / Big Sister
- Foster children
- Books for Prisoners
- Schools in Prisons
- Prison reform
- Solid Ground
- Fare Start
- Eastside Baby Corner
- The Ruby Room
- Meals on Wheels
- Food Drives
- Reading with Rover
- Elementary school volunteer
- Adopt-a-grandparent
- Washington Trails Association
- Coordinating safe-distance ways to socialize — badminton tourney, virtual quiz team, etc
- Personal hygiene products drives for shelters
- Sack lunches for the homeless
- Art supplies for Tent City kids
- Portable toilets (5 gallon buckets with seats) for homeless
- Grocery shopping for the elderly
- Yard care for the elderly
- Virtually visiting sick and shut-in elderly people at state-run nursing homes
- Pet walking and care for neighbors who have had surgery or are ill