Are you looking for opportunities for volunteering and community service work, but are discovering it is hard to find any that allow for remote work? Many of our students are asking the same questions you are - how to have impactful volunteer service that can be used for personal growth and college applications when they cannot drive themselves or have limited opportunities locally. We have compiled a list of a few opportunities we think might be a good fit for high school students. If you come across another idea, please let us know and we can add it here for others to check out!
The Smithsonian
The Smithsonian has a couple different opportunities for students to volunteer from home. These opportunities are listed on their Digital Volunteers page. They are currently looking for students to help transcribe documents from their collections and for others to edit Wikipedia pages related to their collections. Click here to go to the Smithsonian Digital Volunteers page.
UPchieve
UPchieve is a free, online platform that connects low-income high school students in the US with live, volunteer coaches (that’s you!) any time they need it. Click here to connect to the UPchieve volunteer website to apply.
Translators Without Borders
Translators Without Borders offers language and translation support for global humanitarian and development agencies. They need volunteers who are fluent in at least one language other than English to translate words for medical texts, crisis response, and other important work. Click here to connect with Translators Without Borders if you can help.
Be My Eyes is a free mobile app with one main goal: to make the world more accessible for blind and low-vision people. The app connects blind and low-vision individuals with sighted volunteers (like you!) from all over the world through a live video call. Click here to learn how to get started with Be My Eyes.
Be My Eyes
The Red Cross provides relief and support to those in crisis and helps people to be prepared to respond in emergencies. They also have a wide range of remote volunteer opportunities. Click here to go to the Red Cross “How to Volunteer” page.
The Red Cross
Citizen Science uses public crowdsourcing to help several federal agencies advance projects. There are a multitude of projects with varying requirements and opportunities. Take some time to sift through the projects and see if something looks right for you! Click here to connect with the Citizen Science volunteer page.
Citizen Science
Amnesty International strives to expose and combat human rights violations around the world. Working from home, you can be an Amnesty Decoder, using your smartphone and computer to help the organization sift through images and documents to protect vulnerable populations. Click here to be connected with the Amnesty International Amnesty Decoder page.
Amnesty International
Catchafire.org works to connect individuals with various skills to nonprofits that need their help. Whether it is website development, advertising/page views, editing, writing grant proposals/donor letters, or almost anything else, you can use your talents to help nonprofits succeed. Click here to go to the current projects page for Catchafire.org.
Catchafire.org
The Library of Congress has years of historical records that need to be transcribed, tagged with keywords, and reviewed by everyday people like you! Their campaign called By the People is a call for anyone with the skills and desire to help them transcribe texts from throughout history. Imagine reading letters to Theodore Roosevelt or the records of Mary Church Terrell and transcribing them for future generations. If this sounds like something you’d like to do, click here for more information!
The Library of Congress
VocaliD is creating a human voicebank filled with recordings of people of all ages speaking different sentences. They then work with individuals that cannot speak and who use assistive technology to help them select a voice they feel matches their personality and can even blend voices to create a custom voice for someone. This way, people don’t have to sound like a computer while using assistive technology and children can even change their voice as they grow and age into adolescence and beyond. If you are interested in recording your voice for VocaliD’s human voicebank, click here!