August Virtual Volunteering Opportunities

Image via Happy Helper.

August 4, 2020 / Source: The Bizz USA
By Haarika Kalahasti; Edited by Adya Kumar

         As we live through the current pandemic, it is important to stay grounded in our values, be proactive, and take advantage of any spare time we have. There are many ways to productively fill  time, such as studying ahead for school, taking online courses, learning a new hobby, and engaging in extracurricular opportunities. One particular activity to take on is community service, which can help you make a difference in your community, build character, and even build up your college resume.

(Read our article on the importance of community service.)  Although it is difficult to volunteer now, there are many virtual volunteering opportunities to partake in to stay occupied during this lengthy pandemic.

Here is a list of The Bizz USA’s August Virtual Volunteering Opportunities:

1. Catchafire ​​
   1. ​Catchafire is a community of individuals seeking to support and strengthen the social good sector by matching professionals who want to donate their time with nonprofits who need their skills.  It’s very similar to VolunteerMatch and other sites that provide a unique range of opportunities.
2. Smithsonian Digital Volunteer program ​
   1. ​Smithsonian volunteers will help make historical documents and biodiversity data more accessible by adding more to the total pages of field notes, diaries, ledgers, logbooks, currency proof sheets, photo albums, manuscripts, and biodiversity specimens labels that have been collaboratively transcribed 
3. Bpeace 
   1. BPeace is an international nonprofit coalition of courageous, committed, and optimistic business leaders. Their volunteers, the “Skillanthropists”, provide free business advice on-site and remotely to small-business owners in El Salvador, Guatemala, and the United States of America.
4. Ted translator​
   1. ​TED Translators are volunteers who subtitle TED Talks to help disseminate knowledge, research, and big ideas across languages and borders.
5.  Schools on Wheels
   1. ​School on Wheels volunteers provide free, virtual tutoring & mentoring to children from kindergarten through twelfth grade living in shelters, motels, vehicles, group foster homes, and on the streets. Students from ages 16-18 years old can sign up to be tutors and help various students nationally.
6. Learn To Be
   1. ​Learn To Be is another virtual platform that connects tutors and in-need students.
7. Points of Light
   1. ​Points of Light is a platform that can connect you to a host of pandemic-related  volunteering, including email marketing for COVID-19 charities, writing letters to healthcare workers, or facilitating food drives for needy families in your area. They engage about 5 million volunteers annually in over 37 countries.
8. Do Something​
   1. ​DoSomething empowers young people to enact social change both online and offline. Volunteer online through campaigns to help implement solutions to real-world problems.
9. Blue Future
   1. ​Blue Future is a national organizing program run out of the Youth Progressive Action Catalyst, the largest youth-led political action committee in America. Their mission is to continuously engage, mobilize, and connect young people to progressive electoral campaigns, equipping them with the resources, tools, skills, and network to effective volunteers, organizers, and public servants. The volunteers will have a few locations to volunteer at by region, although the events are virtual. 
10. Crisis Hotline
    1. ​Crisis Text Line is the free, 24/7 text line for people in crisis in the United States. The service is powered by volunteer Crisis Counselors who work remotely—anywhere with a computer and secure internet connection works. Crisis Counselors answer texts from people in crisis, bringing them from a hot moment to a cool, calm one through active listening, collaborative problem solving, and safety planning.