Volunteering in COVID-19

For volunteering opportunities, we are following the same organizational model as our resources page. For more information please look there.

Some links are places you can donate money or resources to, others have more involvement 

Please reach out to local organizations first! Helping your local community requires fewer resources, contact, and travel time of products. 

Online Volunteering Opportunity Portals 

Resources specific to Minority communities

      • Hispanics in Philanthropy: Created two emergency funds in response to COVID-19. The Response Migration Fund plans to give out at least $200,000 in mini-grants to help frontline migrant-serving organizations. The Civic Participation Fund is a rapid response grant pool serving grassroots non-profits working to ensure Latinos are counted. 
      • Know Your Rights Camp COVID-19 Relief Fund: A program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation and launched as part of Collin Kaepernick’s “Know Your Rights” campaign. The fund will help black and brown communities, which are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. It will focus on food, shelter relief, education, PPE equipment, and incarcerated populations.
      • Liberty Hill Foundation: Launched the Rapid Response Fund for Community to help Black, Brown, Asian, Indigenous, and queer communities, as well as those living in persistent poverty, immigrants, and the elderly.
      • Native Americans in Philanthropy: Established a COVID-19 emergency response fund for Native American communities.

Financial 

      • See if there are any local shelters/ organizations in your community that is currently collecting money to help others in crisis. Many community centers, places of faith, and similar organizations are working tirelessly to support their constituents.
      • PenFed Foundation: The COVID-19 Emergency Financial Relief Program was created by the Pentagon Federal Credit Union to provide financial assistance to all veterans, active duty, reserves and National Guard who are experiencing a financial setback due to the negative economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. They are taking donations, but the applications for assistance are closed.
      • The Salvation Army: The charity is expecting increased emergency financial aid requests from low-wage workers or laid-off employees struggling to make ends meet.
      • United Way: Has established the COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund to support communities affected by the virus. The fund is set to help keep families in their homes who are currently in a financial crisis, stock food banks with essential staples to help feed children who rely on schools for meals.

Emotional

      • Participate in some locally-based community engagement.
        • Put a teddy bear in your window for children to look for on walks in your neighborhood
        • Are you an adult in children’s lives? Do you miss them? Coordinate a car parade to visit! Many teachers are doing this.
      • Be a listening ear: Volunteer to be a crisis counselor for the Crisis Text Line. The helpline has reported a dramatic increase in texters mentioning the virus, with 80% feeling anxious. Helping others with the stress of this pandemic, through programs like this, or through neighbors and family, can benefit your own wellbeing too. 
      • Write a letter
        • Search for a senior center, memory care center, or nursing home in your area and e-mail or call them to let them know you’d like to write some letters. They can let you know any specific requests, and where to send the finished product. (This works even better if several people participate.)
        • Write a letter to young people in your life! Children are going through an incredibly difficult time right now with their whole world turned upside down. Give them something special and new. Some young kids have never received a letter before!
      • Check-in with a call:
        • If you have elderly neighbors or friends, call them to see how they’re faring. Offer to do some non-contact chores, like putting the trash out, getting the mail, or mowing the lawn.
        • Call your family/ someone outside fo your home for at least 30 minutes every day for your own mental health!
        • Check-in on friends you know have difficulties with heir mental health. Isolation can be incredibly impactful for those with emotional disorders, and reaching out to show you are thinking of them can make a huge difference.
      • Stay in touch after the virus too:
        • Like other vulnerable communities, unhoused people will face serious challenges even after the coronavirus outbreak is over. Consider volunteering or making another commitment in the future.
      • Leave a message of support for our medical heroes: Share your own or listen to messages of gratitude, hope, love, and support for our health heroes at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic. Leave your message by calling 1-877-226-HERO (1-877-226-4376).

Environmental 

      • Please remember to reach out to local shelters and organizations first! That way you can directly impact your community.
      • The National Council on Aging: Donations to the NCOA help provide older adults with food, medicine, utilities, and other necessities.
      • Free Wheelchair Mission: Provides children and adults with disabilities and their caregivers with critical medical supplies and mobility aids.

      • Help for Homeless

        • Coalition for the Homeless: Providing temporary housing and meals in New York City, where the magnitude of the coronavirus outbreak has left unhoused people especially vulnerable.
        • Covenant House: This human rights organization focuses on homeless youth and is taking donations to help protect youth across the country who are especially at risk during the coronavirus outbreak.
        • Family Promise: Working with over 200 communities in 43 states to make sure families impacted by current economic changes have what they need to stay housed.
        • The Salvation Army: Working with local, federal, and medical leaders to provide coronavirus response, and has a fund to assist with food, help with utilities and provide safe shelter to homeless and disadvantaged people affected by the crisis.

      • Refugees and International Help 

        • Alight: Teams are providing lifesaving health care, clean water, and other support to safeguard vulnerable communities.
        • American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee: The JDC is ensuring the safe provision of supplemental food, medicines, medical care, hygiene supplies, and training, as well as the deployment of programs to battle loneliness and retrain the unemployed.
        • Americares: This is a health-focused relief and development organization that responds to people affected by poverty or disaster with life-changing medicine, medical supplies, and health programs.
        • CAMFED: Supporting girls and young women with basic needs, education, and distance learning resources.
        • Catholic Relief Services is working on virus prevention and awareness campaigns, and the distribution of hygiene kits in the most vulnerable communities around the world.
        • COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund: This is a joint effort by the World Health Organization, UN Foundation, and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation supporting diagnostic testing, treatment and vaccine research, and distribution of medical supplies.
        • Food for the Hungry is working on health and hygiene, leadership development and disaster preparedness and helping vulnerable families with resources such as clean water and soap.
        • INARA: Founded by CNN Senior International Correspondent Arwa Damon, INARA is providing hygiene and food packages to Syrian refugee families who have lost their only income and have no savings. They are currently distributing in Syria and expanding to Lebanon and Turkey.
        • International Rescue Committee: The coronavirus can thrive among groups of people fleeing conflicts or political unrest. The IRC is providing additional protective gear, increasing funding to minimize supply chain disruptions, and bringing in more medical staff across affected areas.
        • Mercy Corps: The COVID-19 Resilience Fund will help provide emergency supplies, food, clean water, and support to vulnerable families and communities.
        • Oxfam: Increasing the delivery of soap, clean water, and sanitation services. The non-profit is also building and upgrading hand-washing facilities.
        • Preemptive Love: Feeds quarantined families and create digital jobs so refugees can work from anywhere.
        • Project Hope: This humanitarian NGO has mobilized teams in high-risk countries, to help support doctors and nurses on the front lines of the fight to save lives.
        • UNICEF: With offices in over 190 countries and territories, UNICEF is delivering assistance to children across the areas affected by COVID-19.
        • World Food Programme: Providing food aid for more than 11.6 million children who are no longer receiving school supported meals and maintaining supply corridors despite closed borders.
        • World Vision: Providing children in low-income families and schools with emergency kits of food and cleaning supplies and supporting health care workers on the front lines by distributing protective equipment in the US and abroad. 

Intellectual 

    • Check with your neighbors: Use a local social app, such as NextDoor to see if anyone in your area is in need of help learning to use video conferencing services, or needs a device to connect that could provide.
    • Offer tutoring for families in online schooling! If you have expertise in a field that would help parents navigate their inline schooling, reach out to others, and help some local kids with their math homework! 
    • Contact local schools:
      • See if they need help or know of children who need supplies for school.
    • The Arc Foundation: The Arc advocates for the rights of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Their COVID-19 resources also provide ways to get politically active and stay in touch with your local health authorities.
    • Donate a computer: The National Digital Inclusion Alliance has an urgent call for laptops, desktops, Chromebooks, and tablets from corporate and governmental entities. Due to the global COVID-19 crisis, the demand for low-cost and no-cost computers for those in need far exceeds the currently available supply.

Physical 

  • Food

    • Remember to contact local food banks first! Use any local lookup tool to donate to your area
    • UMD virtual farmers market
    • Meals for purchase or donating:
      • Donate food or funds: Find a local shelter in your community and contact them to see what they need, such as non-perishable goods, clothing, or basic supplies.
      • Blessings in a Backpack: This organization helps feeds school children across the US, and is partnering with districts that have summer feeding programs to extend services while schools are shut down.
      • Convoy of Hope: Delivering meals through partners, churches, and community organizations across the US. They have received requests for assistance from more than 40 states.
      • Feeding America: With a network of 200 food banks across the US, this organization is helping food banks support communities impacted by the pandemic.
      • GENYOUth: They are providing grants to schools to supply resources for meal distribution and delivery so students can be fed even when they are not at school during the coronavirus crisis.
      • Meals on Wheels: Provides home delivery of food to seniors. The organization faces an increased need for volunteers and donations right now as many seniors find themselves more isolate and in need than usual.
      • Mercy Chefs: Has partnered with their food distributors to give free grocery meal boxes in more than 15 different locations across the country. The non-profit is also sending recipes, strategies, and protocols to volunteers, who will then package and distribute meals in their communities.
      • Operation Blessing: This is greatly expanding its distribution of food and supplies, following a surge of almost 40% in demand.
      • Save the Children: Actresses Jennifer Garner and Amy Adams have teamed up with Save the Children to launch #SAVEWITHSTORIES. The program is providing children in America’s poorest communities with nutritious meals, books, and other learning resources during the outbreak closures.
      • United Way: They are using their COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund to stock food banks with essential staples to help feed children who rely on schools for meals.
      • World Central Kitchen: Founder Chef José Andrés is turning the kitchens in some of his restaurants into community kitchens offering free to-go lunches for those in need.
      • Food Pantries.org: Use this national database to locate food pantries in local communities that you can contribute to.
      • Little Free Pantry: This organization is standing ready across the US, giving 24-hour neighborhood access to food and other necessities.

    • Medical Supplies/ Medical Help 

      • Remember to check your local areas for mask donations! Give them to your neighbors, family members, and friends.
        • For the College Park area, a local Mask donation network is Route One Mask Match. You can also ask for sewing supplies here.
      • The CDC Foundation’s Emergency Response Fund: This fund supports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s work by supplying immediate supplies and emergency staffing to state and local communities responding to COVID-19.
      • Center for Disaster Philanthropy: This resource helps people make intentional and informed giving decisions during disasters. They have created the COVID-19 Response Fund to support first responders, health care workers, and individuals quarantined.
      • Cleveland Clinic: The nationally renowned clinic is conducting research on COVID-19 to identify better testing, patient treatment, and care and possible vaccines.
      • CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort): Has partnered with the Los Angeles mayor’s office to manage free drive-thru testing for high-risk people.
      • COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund: This is a joint effort by the World Health Organization, UN Foundation, and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation that supports diagnostic testing, treatment and vaccine research, and distribution of medical supplies.
      • Direct Relief: This humanitarian aid organization is providing protective equipment for health workers in the US and China, and is working with regional response agencies in the Caribbean, Central, and South America.
      • Doctors Without Borders: Their professionals and volunteers are preparing vulnerable communities around the world for the impact of COVID-19. They are also supplying many countries with protective equipment and replenishing medical supplies in critical hospitals in China, Hong Kong, and Italy.
      • Gary Sinise Foundation: Providing grants to first responders in need of personal protective equipment and giving financial assistance to service members, veterans, first responders, and their families who have been impacted by the coronavirus.
      • Global Empowerment Mission: This relief and education organization is providing masks to hospitals and hygiene kits for both medical professionals and the general public.
      • Good360: Distributing and collecting medical and educational materials needed during the coronavirus crisis.
      • HealthWell Foundation: This foundation helps underinsured people afford medical care, and has opened a fund to help with ancillary costs for individuals at risk or quarantined due to COVID-19.
      • Humanity & Inclusion: International COVID-19 response teams are being dispatched for people with disabilities and vulnerable populations, and will provide hygiene kits, traveling social visits, and psychological support.
      • International Medical Corps: This organization of first responders is providing training, supplies, and emergency medical response planning for at-risk countries.
      • La Jolla Institute for Immunology: Scientists in their network of laboratories are already reporting progress in mapping COVID-19 and are continuing their research to develop new therapies and potential vaccines.
      • Medical Teams International is donating PPEs, repurposing their mobile health vans to support hospitals with COVID-19 screenings, and providing emergency dental clinics.
      • MedShare: So far, MedShare has delivered more than 2.8 million masks, 200,000 isolation gowns, and other essential medical supplies to hospitals, clinics, and health care professionals battling against COVID-19.
      • Partners in Health: Their COVID-19 response plan includes testing, dignified care, assisting local government response, and mobilize a community of health care workers.
      • UNICEF USA: Delivering medical supplies to health workers around the world. They are also providing hygiene and medical kits to schools and health clinics to help keep children safe.
      • United Way Worldwide: United Way’s COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund bolster their “211“ information line which provides callers with resources, vital services, and support during the pandemic.
      • Give blood: The nation’s blood supply is dangerously low. Local blood drives can be found through the American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, Blood Centers of America, and the Advancing Transfusion and Cellular Therapies Worldwide.
      • Donate medical supplies: MedSupplyDrive is helping individuals and medical labs donate protective gear to hospitals in their area. Several national craft and sewing groups are also making masks to send to health care workers.
      • Donate hand-sewn face masks: Got a sewing machine at home? You can help by sewing cloth masks. The CDC cautions that fabric masks cannot be used in the care of COVID-19 patients, but are helpful in other areas of patient care since other forms of medical protective equipment are exhausted.

Occupational 

    • Help for restaurant workers 

      • James Beard Foundation: This foundation, named after the legendary food writer, started a Food and Beverage Industry Relief Fund to provide micro-grants to independent food and beverage small businesses in need.
      • National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation: This foundation has established the Restaurant Employee Fund to help restaurant industry employees experiencing hardship in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
      • United States Bartenders Guild: The USBG is offering emergency grants for bartenders, their spouses, or their children through the Bartender Emergency Assistance Program.
      • Order takeout or delivery: Order meals from your local restaurants and tip generously! (Yes, experts agree that ordering takeout is safe during the outbreak.)
      • Here is a guide to restaurants offering takeout and delivery:
        • Resy’s City Guide to Takeout and Delivery Options: This restaurant reservation platform is now allowing users to “book” a meal for takeout or delivery.
        • Dining at a Distance: Use this aggregator to find out which restaurants are doing take out.
        • Grubhub: The delivery company has suspended fees for their restaurant partners, and proceeds from their Donate the Change program are going to the Grubhub Community Relief Fund
        • Order from your local farmer: Check out options on Local Harvest, or look up your local farmer’s market to see If they have any online or delivery options
        • Buy merch online: Some restaurants have online merchandise stores, including t-shirts, sauces, jams, and relishes
        • Order a gift card and use it later: This is a great idea to support other businesses as well. Hair salons, local shops, tourist attractions, and even pet boarding facilities may offer gift cards, so you can show loyalty to local businesses even when you can’t patronize them.
        • Purchase a “Dining Bond:” The Dining Bonds Initiative is offering gift certificates that work like savings bonds. You buy a bond for less than its face value and redeem it at some point in the future.
        • Rally for Restaurants: This campaign encourages diners to buy gift cards, and they will donate one dollar for every social media post to the Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation and World Central Kitchen.
        • Local for Later: This aggregator shows you local businesses you can support during social distancing.
    • Help for Military 
      • PenFed Foundation: The COVID-19 Emergency Financial Relief Program was created by the Pentagon Federal Credit Union to provide financial assistance to all veterans, active duty, reserves and National Guard who are experiencing a financial setback due to the negative economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. They are taking donations, but the applications for assistance are closed.
      • The Salvation Army: The charity is expecting increased emergency financial aid requests from low-wage workers or laid-off employees struggling to make ends meet.

Spiritual 

    • Donate to a local place of faith for them to continue community-building activities. 
    • Offer our skills online to local places of faith attempting to create online worship.

Social 

    • Participate in online programming
    • Reach out to others and make sure they are ok! Try to get 30 minutes of social interaction a day 
    • Plan web-based activities for others. Planning can take a lot of mental energy. If you have the space to make something happen for others to show up, now is the time to do it!

 

Sources