A Quick Guide to Volunteering in the Current Situation

By: Celina Yang

As many facilities are going online due to global pandemic. Volunteering is no exception, many community members as well as students who were planning to give back to society through volunteering, whether it's through donations or physical work, are facing an unexpected problem that is prohibiting them from much physical contact. This is why I have decided to make a guide to online volunteering, so many of the people in need will get the help even during this situation.

For junior high or high school students, online tutoring has gotten very popular. Tutoring younger students during the time when many schools were shifted to online or even shut down definitely helped the education of many young students. 

Some related sites include:

https://teensgive.org/- Online volunteering platform that allows students to find tutors and visa versa. It also offers many online internships for older students.

https://www.learntobe.org/apply- also an online volunteering platform but for college students, or retired professionals.

https://schoolonwheels.org/volunteering-and-covid-19/- a physical tutoring center that changed to online during the Coronavirus, focuses on providing education for students from high homelessness areas.

During these hard times, it has been a struggle for many students and parents to pursue their education at home. And those who were unable to get tutors due to economic reasons had the hardest hit of all. Therefore providing tutoring for free to those students is very important in keeping the education and success equal, and to provide fair opportunities. 

Another way to volunteer at home and make an impact on our society is by helping out with tasks and projects that need many people to accomplish. Since many workers were forced to stay home, many academic developments such as historic and scientific projects had been slowed down. Volunteering to help these projects will greatly help the community get back onto its feet .

Related sites:

https://translatorswithoutborders.org/volunteer/- for those who are able to use two languages or more, volunteering to translate important messages, transcripts and more, is something that they might want to look into.

https://translatorswithoutborders.org/volunteer/- to help big projects like endangered species research, analyzing old transcripts and participating in big scale scientific projects.

https://www.redcross.org/volunteer/volunteer-opportunities/be-a-digital-advocate.html- even though you might not be able to physically volunteer for the red cross, you can be an online advocate and share their contents and information on social media or other platforms. Many patients are in need of medical resources and volunteering online at red cross can help many of them.

For most, many are busy with their work, their studies and many other things. But if we make some little time to volunteer, it would be great for the community and the current pandemic. I am not just saying it and taking no action. I have signed up for online tutoring and volunteering as well, even though I know I am not doing enough. I thought this quick guide would bring a little more awareness to online volunteering.