Volunteer from home?

January 26, 2023 7:34 AM

My employer gives us one volunteer day per year where we can go out and volunteer for a registered charity. I have a physical disability that would make most volunteer opportunities (homes for humanity, etc) challenging. The only criteria is that it's for a registered charity or community organization. I'd like to find a volunteer opportunity where I could do it from my home and wondering if anyone has any suggestions? If it matters, I'm located in Canada.
posted by NoneOfTheAbove to Grab Bag (12 answers total)

I volunteer writing personal letters to people who are homebound or living in institutional settings. I do this through my church, but there are a number of registered charities that ask for this. I don't know anything about these, but Googling brought up Love for Our Elders, Write A Prisoner, and Soldiers' Angels. You could try Googling for Canada-specific charities. Amnesty International also asks volunteers to write letters.
posted by FencingGal at 7:44 AM on January 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Phone banks would be the most obvious idea.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:00 AM on January 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Do you sew?

I like to make teddy bears for Dolls of Hope.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 8:04 AM on January 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Seconding sewing/knitting/other crafting.

Another option might be descriptive services for the blind, or captioning for Deaf/hard-of-hearing people.
posted by mskyle at 8:45 AM on January 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

There are US based organizations that work to get reading material to people who are incarcerated. One thing they need is people to send letters or emails to publishers soliciting donations. I can't find any organizations in Canada that are specifically requesting that, but I did find Open Door Books and one thing their volunteers do is "Using digital resources that are unavailable to prisoners to conduct research requested by incarcerated individuals"
posted by soelo at 8:52 AM on January 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

There are likely a lot of possibilities. Do you have any particular areas of interest? People might be able to suggest things that are close to those.
posted by lookoutbelow at 9:08 AM on January 26, 2023

Does it have to be registered in Canada? I am part of an internet-based community org registered in the US that could use 8 hours of help. We could keep you busy, or you could choose your own adventure. Contact me if you're interested!
posted by aniola at 9:19 AM on January 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Take a look through volunteer.onl. It's sorted by interest. Not everything there is a registered charity, but it is well curated.
posted by Ookseer at 10:09 AM on January 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Not sure which province you're in, but in Manitoba there's a provincial site listing opportunities from most major organizations needing volunteers. Some are home-based; for this site you can find them by searching for the keyword 'Remote.' Perhaps there's one in your province as well.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 10:33 AM on January 26, 2023

Charity Village maintains a listing of volunteer positions across Canada, and you can sort by "remote."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:37 AM on January 26, 2023

Missing Maps has volunteers review satellite imagery and map things like houses, roads, or destruction (like after natural disasters). I worked on a field survey that looked at measles vaccination, and we used the Missing Maps maps (ha) to identify places where people lived - it's a very concretely useful task! Here are some things you could work on.
posted by quadrilaterals at 1:15 PM on January 26, 2023

Does your local library have a 'homework hub' for kids? Sometimes that help is able to be done remotely via Zoom or Zoom-like software
posted by TimHare at 8:28 PM on January 26, 2023